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Anna Quayle, who has died aged 86, was a multitalented and versatile actor with saucer eyes, a flirtatious smile and a sardonic touch. She could be both playful and deadpan, and was as adept at a sly aside as she was at delivering a musical number with wit and gusto, whether on stage, film or TV.
It was as the unforgettable Baroness Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) that she broke through on the big screen, duetting with Gert Fröbe on the number Chu-Chi Face, where the couple declare undying love for each other as he attempts to kill her by various slapstick means.
More than 20 years later she was still a familiar face on British television screens, as the eccentric but good-hearted teacher Mrs Monroe in the groundbreaking children’s drama Grange Hill (1990-94).
But it was on the stage that Quayle’s many talents were honed, and shone. In 1960, the actor and singer-songwriter Anthony Newley came to see her in the revue And Another Thing, alongside Bernard Cribbins and Lionel Blair, at the Fortune theatre in London’s West End, and thought her perfect for the female lead in his musical Stop The World – I Want to Get Off (1961). Written and scored by Newley...