Anna Quayle
Actress in A Hard Day’s Night and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
ANNA QUAYLE, who has died aged 86, thrilled early 1960s theatre audiences in London and New
York when she starred as Evie and the other women in Anthony Newley’s life in the musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off. “Broadway’s new comedy queen,” enthused one American critic.
The subject matter of the musical, written by Newley and Leslie Bricusse, was breezily racy for the time, with Newley’s character Littlechap marrying the boss’s daughter (Anna Quayle) after she falls pregnant, then carrying on with Anya, a Russian hostess, Ilse, a German domestic help, and Ginnie, an American cabaret singer – all cameos brought to life by Anna Quayle, whom The Daily Telegraph’s Eric Shorter found “delightful”.
The show won Anna Quayle a Tony award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical.
She soon switched to the big screen to take the non-singing role of Millie for a brief scene in the Beatles’ first film, A Hard Day’s Night (1964). Backstage, Millie passes John Lennon in a corridor and does a double take, setting up a surreal conversation with: “Hello – oh, wait a minute! You are –” “No, I’m not…,” he replies. “I’m not, no.”
She insists that he looks “just like him”, but cannot remember his name. Lennon comes up with a string of reasons for his not looking like himself and, putting on her glasses, Millie concludes: “You don’t look like him at all.” Lennon walks away with the parting aside: “She looks more like him than I do.”
Four years later, Anna Quayle brought her comedy skills to the role of Baroness Bomburst in the film musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, in which, dressed in a corset, black stockings and high heels she duetted with Gert Fröbe as her husband, the cruel, child-hating king of Vulgaria.
“You’re my little chu-chi face,” he sings, and she replies: “You’re my little teddy bear.” The loveydovey cheesiness, complete with the couple’s hand claps while dancing, is undercut by the baron’s hatred of his wife, but she is oblivious of his attempts to murder her in a string of visual gags.
She was born Anne Veronica Maria Quay in Birmingham on October 6 1932 to the actor-producer Douglas Quayle (real name John Douglas Bewick Quay) and Kathleen (née Parke). From the age of three she performed in her father’s stage shows and eventually became known as Anna.
On leaving the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Harlesden she won a scholarship to train at Rada. She broke her nose in three places after falling off a ladder while earning money as a fashion model – and decided against surgery when her father said it was a good “prop”.
Two 1960 revues at the Fortune Theatre, London, Look Who’s Here! and And Another Thing …, brought Anna Quayle to the attention of West End producers.
Her later stage roles included Lady Tremurrain in The Case of the Oily Levantine (Her Majesty’s Theatre, 1979) and Madame Dubonnet in the 30thanniversary revival of The Boy Friend (Old Vic, 1983-84, Noel Coward Theatre, 1984-85). She also wrote and starred in Full Circle (Apollo Theatre, 1970).
On television, as well as entertainment shows and occasional dramas, she took the role of Reverend Mother Joseph in the sitcom Father Charlie (1982), and played Aunt Spicer in James and the Giant Peach (1975) and the form tutor Mrs “Marilyn” Monroe in Grange Hill (1990-94).
Her other films included Drop Dead Darling in 1966, the James Bond spoof Casino Royale the following year and the Frankie Howerd vehicle Up the Chastity Belt in 1971.
Anna Quayle’s 1976 marriage to the agent and producer Don Baker ended in divorce. She is survived by their daughter, Katy, and her actor brother, John.
Anna Quayle, born October 6 1932, died August 16 2019