Quotes

"I don't think those early years in the business really shape whatever talents a person may possess. It is only when you are old enough to appreciate what you are doing that you begin to learn from each part you play. In fact, I don't really consider that my career started until I was twenty. That was the age I finally did what I really wanted to do. I went into musical comedy".

"My actual debut [on Broadway in "My Fair Lady", 1958] was probably the most exciting day of my life, professionally. I was scheduled to open on a Monday, and Moss Hart decided that I should have one performance with an audience (one performance - very big of him!) to time the laughs before the critics saw me. So he asked Julie Andrews, who was the last of the original cast left, to give up the Saturday matinée so that I could go on. Moss (Moss Hart) himself made the announcement about the replacement, and the audience groaned and there was pandemonium. You could hear the audience muttering 'Sally Ann Howes? Who is she?' The overture started and the audience was still furious. Fortunately, my father [British comedian Bobby Howes] and some of his friends were out there, and that helped. I had been hailed as a star in the West End, but at the moment I was totally unknown and unwanted. I thought, 'Well, I might as well just relax and enjoy this.' I'm always nervous before a performance, but I felt that I could only be better than their expectations. I didn't want to have to live up to anything. We stopped the show with "The Rain in Spain", and then again with "I Could Have Danced All Night". And the audience fell in love with me, and I with them. I've been in love with American audiences ever since".