it won six Emmy Awards. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang In 1968, Howes appeared in the children's film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, starring as Truly Scrumptious, the beautiful aristocratic daughter of a confectionery magnate. For this leading role, she was paid £44,939 ($1,133,323 in 2021 terms), whereas her male co-star Dick Van Dyke's fee was £615,425 ($15,520,489 in 2021 terms). At the time, Van Dyke was a major box office draw, having starred in Mary Poppins (1964). At her audition for this role, Howes was asked if she could dance. Her father had taught her to always say yes if a director asks if you can do something, and then if you can't do it, learn very quickly how to. She had a crash course in dancing lessons before filming a dance as a wooden doll. She found that 150 extras were watching her film this scene, and somehow she managed to complete it in one take. Later career Television Chitty Chitty Bang Bang did not, however, restart Howes' film career or launch a career for her in episodic television despite several guest-starring roles in Mission: Impossible, Marcus Welby, M.D., Branigan, and The Men From Shiloh. Even the pilot Prudence and the Chief, which was a spoof on The King and I, did not get picked up as a TV series. In addition, film musicals were now failing at the box office, and that avenue was closed to her. As a result, she returned almost exclusively to the stage, appearing in only a few more films and television productions. "I would have liked a film career, but I didn't pursue it – I just loved connecting with an audience," said Howes. "The theatre is a drug. The problem is that to be remembered, you have to do films." Later theatrical career In the 1970s, she toured Britain with The King and I and later the United States with The Sound of Music. After her debut with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1972 with The Sound of Music, she returned to Britain to star in the stage drama, Lover, which was written specifically for her. In the 1970s and 1980s, she began to cross over from standard musicals to operettas. She performed two summers with the Kenley Players in Blossom Time and The Great Waltz, and she later added Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow and then two seasons of Stephen