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Cast & Crew

The biographies section below is always being worked on. If you have additions or edits, please contact us. Some information is from www.biography.com.

Childcatcher and Toymaker  Robert Helpmann as the Child Catcher and Benny Hill as the Toymaker. Click photo to enlarge.

Dressed up Chitty Cast Dick Van Dyke, Adrian Hall, Heather Ripley, and Sally Ann Howes. Click photo to enlarge

Cast

Caractacus Potts...Dick Van Dyke

Truly Scrumptious...Sally Ann Howes

Grandpa Potts...Lionel Jeffries

Baron Bomburst...Gert Frobe

Baroness Bomburst...Anna Quayle

Toymaker...Benny Hill

Lord Scrumptious...James Robertson-Justice

Child Catcher...Robert Helpmann

Jemima...Heather Ripley

Jeremy...Adrian Hall

Blonde...Barbara Windsor

Admiral...Davy Kaye

First Spy...Alexandar Dore

Second Spy...Bernard Spear

Chancellor...Stanley Unwin

Captain of Guard...Peter Arne

Coggins...Desmond Llewelyn

Junkman...Victor Maddern

Big Man...Arthur Mullard

Chef...Ross Parker

Minister...Gerald Campion

Minister...Felix Felton

Minister...Monti de Lyle

Duchess...Totti Truman Taylor

Lieutenant...Larry Taylor

Orchestra Leader...Max Bacon

Inventor...Max Wall

Inventor...John Heawood

Inventor...Michael Darbyshire

Inventor...Kenneth Maller

Inventor...Gerald Taylor

Inventor...Eddie Davis

Crew

Produced by...Albert R. Broccoli

Directed by...Ken Hughes

Associate Producer...Stanley Sopel

Screenplay by...Roald Dahl & Ken Hughes

Additional Dialogue by...Richard Maibaum

Musical Numbers Staged by...Marc Breaux & Dee Dee Wood

Music Supervised and Conducted by...Irwin Kostal

Music and Lyrics by...Richard M. Sherman & Robert B. Sherman

Director of Photography...Christopher Challis B.S.C.

Production Designed by...Ken Adam

Production Associate...Peter Hunt

Color Costume Design...Elizabeth Haffenden & Joan Bridge

Potts Inventions Created by...Rowland Emmet

Editor...John Shirley

Special Effects...John Stears

Production Supervisor...David Middlemas

Art Director...Harry Pottle

Sound Recorded by...John Mitchell & Fred Hynes

Music Editor...Robin Clark

Dubbing Editors...Harry Miller & Les Wiggins

Assistant Art Director...Bob Laing

Assistant Art Director...Peter Lamont

Assistant Art Director...Michael White

Wardrobe Supervisor...Jackie Cummins

Second Unit Director...Richard Taylor

Second Unit Cameraman...Skeets Kelly

Aerial Cameraman...John Jordan

Camera Operator...John Harris

Continuity...Angela Martelli

Assistant Director...Gus Agosti

Location Manager...Frank Ernst

Associate Art Director...Jack Stephens

Filmed in SUPER-PANAVISION

Color by TECHNICOLOR

A Warfield Production

Cast Biographies

DICK VAN DYKE
Born 13 December 1925, West Plains, Missouri.
Television: The CBS Morning Show (1955, co-anchor Walter Cronkite, Numerous guest appearances. Starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66), The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971-74), Van Dyke and Company (1976), The Van Dyke Show (1988) Diagnosis Murder (1993-2001)
Film: What a Way to Go, Mary Poppins, Fitzwilly, Bye Bye Birdie, Divorce American Style, The Comic, Some Kind of Nut, Cold Turkey, The Morning After, The Runner Stumbles, Drop-Out Father, Found Money, Never a Dull Moment, Lt. Robinson Crusoe, U.S.N., The Art of Love, Dick Tracy.
Theatre: The Merry Mutes, Girls Against the Boys (Broadway debut), Bye Bye Birdie (Albert Peterson, Broadway), The Music Man (1979, Harold Hill)
Author: Faith, Hope, and Hilarity (1974)

The son of a trucking agent, Van Dyke moved with his family to Danville, Illinois, during his childhood. He was active in high school theatre and choir. During World War II, he entered the Air Force and served for two years. After his discharge, Van Dyke and a friend opened up an advertising agency in Danville. The business soon went bankrupt, and Van Dyke was forced to look for another line of work.

In 1947, he and another old friend, Philip Erickson, formed a comedy-pantomime act, known first as "The Merry Mutes" and later as "Eric and Van." They toured the nightclub circuits around the country, meeting with some success, until 1953, when they broke up and Van Dyke began to make solo nightclub appearances. He soon landed a job at a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, where he served as the emcee of two daytime programs, The Merry Mutes Show and The Music Shop.

In 1955, Van Dyke moved to New York City, where he signed a seven-year contract with the CBS TV network. He began by hosting the CBS Morning Show and an evening program, Cartoon Theatre. He became a regular on The Andy Williams Show and Pantomime Quiz, both on ABC, and in 1959 he acted as the emcee of NBC's Laugh Line.

Van Dyke made his Broadway debut in 1959 in The Girls Against the Boys, but his real break came in 1960, when he co-starred in the Broadway musical Bye, Bye, Birdie. He won a Tony Award for his performance and in 1963 made his feature film debut in the hit movie version of the play. By that time, however, he was already well known to audiences as the star of his very own CBS sitcom, The Dick Van Dyke Show, which began airing in 1961. As the comedy writer and dependable family man Rob Petrie, Van Dyke charmed fans (and exasperated his on-screen wife, Mary Tyler Moore) with his good-natured but bumbling personality. The Dick Van Dyke Show, which ran until 1966, was extremely successful and was a fundamental step towards the modern notion of a TV sitcom. For his part, Van Dyke won two Emmy Awards for Best Actor, in 1964 and 1965.

After the success of his sitcom and his second feature film (he appeared as Burt the Chimney Sweep in the classic 1964 Disney musical Mary Poppins, opposite Julie Andrews) Van Dyke had become a beloved, familiar face to legions of fans, young and old alike. Some of his films include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), Cold Turkey (1971) and 1971's The Comic. A new version of his sitcom, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, aired from 1971 to 1974.

Van Dyke appeared in dramatic roles in several TV movies: Drop-Out Father (CBS, 1982), and the syndicated Strong Medicine (1986). In 1993, at the age of 68, Van Dyke began his starring turn in his most successful TV venture in years, the CBS drama series Diagnosis Murder.

Van Dyke has two sons, Christian and Barry, and two daughters, Stacey and Carrie. Barry has appeared with his father in Diagnosis Murder, as has Van Dyke's younger brother, Jerry, a former nightclub comedian who appeared on the popular sitcom Coach.

SALLY ANN HOWES
Born 20 July 1930, London, England, UK
Television:
Brigadoon, ABC (Fiona)
Theatre: A Little Night Music, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (New York
City Opera)
Broadway: My Fair Lady (suceeded Julie Andrews). Kwamina, What Makes Sammy Run?, Brigadoon (Tony nomination), Jame's Joyce's The Dead
London's West End: Paint Your Wagon, The King and I, Hatful of Rain, Hamlet
Film: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Admirable Chrichton, Anna Karenina, Dead of Night

"That's a nice pile of junk you got there!"LIONEL JEFFRIES
Born 10 June 1926 in London, England.
Died 19 February 2010 in Poole, England.
Television:
Film:
Camelot (Pellinore), The Trials of Oscar Wilde, Arrividerci, Baby.
Theatre:

GERT FROBE
Born 1913
Died 1988 in Munich of a heart attack.
Television:
Film:
Goldfinger (The Title Role), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.
Theatre:

ANNA QUAYLE
Born 6 October 1936
Died 16 August 2019 of Lewy body dementia
Television:
Film:
The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, Arrividerci, Baby.
Theatre:
Stop the World I Want to Get Off (West End & Broadway)

From http://users.bestweb.net/~foosie/stop.htm:

She made her stage debut at the age of 3 playing Little Willie in East Lynne. She studied at RADA and appeared in a series of West End revues: GOOD INTENTION, LOOK WHO'S HERE and AND ANOTHER THING. She was 26 when STOP THE WORLD came to Broadway. She won the Tony Award for her versatility and comic ability in the multiple roles in this show. The Internet Movie Database lists her film appearances as:

1964 A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
1966 THE SANDWICH MAN
1966 DROP DEAD, DARLING/ARRIVEDERCI, BABY
1967 SMASHING TIME
1967 CASINO ROYALE
1968 CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG
1971 UP THE CHASTITY BELT/NAUGHTY KNIGHTS
1975 ESKIMO NELL
1976 THE SEVEN PER-CENT SOLUTION
1977 ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE EYE
1978 ADVENTURES OF A PLUMBER'S MATE
1979 S.O.S. TITANIC
1990 HENRY V

And the following TV series:

1976 THE GEORGIAN HOUSE
1977 GRANGE HILL
1982 BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
1982 FATHER CHARLIE

She lives in Brighton and appeared in a 1984 revival of THE BOY FRIEND.

BENNY HILL
(Alfred Hawthorne Hill)
Born 21 January 1924 (or 1925), Southhampton
Died 18 (or 20) April 1992, coronary thrombosis
Television:
The Benny Hill Show
Film:
Who Done It? Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Light Up the Sky (Gunner Sidney McCaffey, 1960, with Tommy Steele)

He was the son of a former circus performer, and an enthusiastic performer in school shows. He learned his comedy craft entertaining in air raid shelters and army camps during World War II.

Hill held jobs as a milkman and drummer before moving to London at the age of 16. While working as a theatre manager, he began developing his comedic skills, eventually making his stage debut in the 1941 production of Stars in Battledress. Taking his stage name from Jack Benny, Hill later followed the traditional route of many comedians by performing in revues at music halls and men's clubs.

After war service in France, he signed on as a straight man to comic Reg Varney. He soon had his own television show and was one of Britain's most popular stars for 30 years. He never married. Robert Ross wrote a 1999 book, Benny Hill: Merry Master of Mirth.

An early proponent of television, Hill began hosting a handful of variety programs for the British Broadcasting Company in the early 1950s. In 1956, he made his cinematic debut in Who Done It?, a comedy that featured him in the role of a zany private detective. Hill soon became a fixture on late-night TV, while landing occasional film roles in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).

In 1969, Hill gained national popularity with The Benny Hill Show-a comedy series rife with his trademark bawdy humor. The slapstick skits often featured Hill's classic comic personae, like Captain Fred Scuttle and Professor Marvel.

Throughout the 1970s, Hill continued to work on the highly rated The Benny Hill Show. In 1979, many of these hour-long comedy specials were edited to half-hour segments and introduced to American television audiences. The show immediately gained an international following and remained in network syndication until the late 1980s.

Plagued with a chronic heart condition, Hill died on April 20, 1992; he was 67 years old.

JAMES ROBERTSON-JUSTICE
Born 15 June 1905 in Wig Town, Scotland as James Norval Harald Robertson-Justice.
Died 2 July 1975.
Film:
Vice Versa, Guns of Navarone, Moby Dick, Orders to Kill

SIR ROBERT HELPMANN
Born 9 April 1909 in Mount Gambier, Victoria, Australia
Died 28 September 1986
Television:
Film:
Henry V, 55 Days at Peking, The Red Shoes, The Quiller Memorandum

Theatre:

He first danced solo at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide in The Ugly Duckling in 1922. He went on to become the principal dancer at Sadlers Wells ballet from 1933 to 1950, studied with Pavlova's touring company in 1929, and in 1931 came to Britain to study under Ninette de Valois. He was first dancer of the newly founded Sadler's Wells Ballet (1933--50), and became known for his dramatic roles in de Valois' works. His ballets include Hamlet (1942) and Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), and he also appeared in many films. Joint artistic director of Australian ballet in 1965, he was knighted in 1968.

A ballet dancer, choreographer, actor, and director, "He was for years a director of the Australian Ballet, and it was with them that he made his last stage appearance - in another of his great roles, the Red King in "Checkmate" - only a few weeks before his death in 1986. Helpmann also worked as a director, directing stage productions of Murder in the Cathedral, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet for the Old Vic."
http://www.ballet.co.uk

He was made a KBE (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1968.

Heather Ripley as JemimaHEATHER RIPLEY
Born 1960 in Dundee, Scotland, UK


photo courtesy of Heather Ripley

ADRIAN HALL
Born 1959 in Kampala, Uganda

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