Go! Feature

In 1957, Sally Ann Howes took over the role of Eliza Doolittle in the Broadway run of “My Fair Lady” so that Julie Andrews, who created the role, could take it to London’s West End.

“I had already done about six shows and I wondered about my longevity,” she said in a phone interview. “I knew I would always be in the theater, but I remember wondering if I’d still be around when I’d be old enough to play Mrs. Higgins,” the elderly mother of Henry Higgins, the professor who takes Eliza under his wing.

Now 50 years later, she wonders no more as a revival of “My Fair Lady” kicks off its national tour next week at the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati.

“I am loving it,” said the 77-year-old actress. “I wear wonderful clothes and get to say pithy remarks. Mrs. Higgins is the only one who gets to bully the professor who spends his time bullying everyone around him.”

Howes is also quite impressed by how technology has changed the pacing and flow of the show.

“We can do incredible things moving scenery on and off,” she said. “We can continue a musical number while they’re changing the set.”

The daughter of British stage star Bobby Howes, she began her show business career as a child movie star after a friend of the family who was an agent, recommended her for a role in the 1943 movie “Thursday’s Child.”

By 1950, she had made the transition to stage, including a 1953 West End run of “Paint Your Wagon,” which she appeared in alongside her father, who came out of retirement for the occasion. Eventually, she became a star on both sides of the Atlantic, but it wasn’t until 1967 that she took on her most famous role as Truly Scrumptious in the film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” with Dick Van Dyke.

“I loved working on that,” she said. “You’re not aware when you’re working on something how important it is going to be. We were just having a grand time, and it’s amazing so many years later how much interest there still is. We didn’t know it was going to be a classic.”

how to go
WHAT: Lerner & Loewe’s “My Fair Lady”
WHERE: Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut, Cincinnati
WHEN: Tuesday through Oct. 7
COST: $30-$60
MORE INFO: (513) 621-2787; www.cincinnatiarts.org