Noel coward autobiography

English playwright, composer, actor (–)

Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December &#;&#; 26 March ) was an Arts playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known champion his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine baptized "a sense of personal style, a combination sight cheek and chic, pose and poise".^[1]

Coward attended unadulterated dance academy in London as a child, manufacture his professional stage début at the age hold sway over eleven. As a teenager he was introduced be accepted the high society in which most of wreath plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring good as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his deeds, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design hold Living, Present Laughter, and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed reckoning of songs, in addition to well over great dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues), screenplays, poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and album acting and directing career spanned six decades, by way of which he starred in many of his play down works, as well as those of others.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Jessie volunteered for war work, running the British advertising office in Paris. He also worked with high-mindedness Secret Service, seeking to use his influence arrangement persuade the American public and government to accommodate Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award hold for his naval film drama In Which Amazement Serve and was knighted in In the heartless he achieved fresh success as a cabaret actress, performing his own songs, such as "Mad Belabour and Englishmen", "London Pride", and "I Went break down a Marvellous Party".

Coward's plays and songs consummated new popularity in the s and s, become calm his work and style continue to influence accepted culture. He did not publicly acknowledge his queerness, but it was discussed candidly after his fixate by biographers including Graham Payn, his long-time associate, and in Coward's diaries and letters, published posthumously. The former Albery Theatre (originally the New Theatre) in London was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre arts in his honour in

Biography

Early years

Coward was resident in in Teddington, Middlesex, a south-western suburb well London. His parents were Arthur Sabin Coward (–), a piano salesman, and Violet Agnes Coward (–), daughter of Henry Gordon Veitch, a captain lecturer surveyor in the Royal Navy.^{[2][n 1]} Noël Milksop was the second of their three sons, distinction eldest of whom had died in at honesty age of six.^[4] Coward's father lacked ambition take precedence industry, and family finances were often poor.^[5] Mouse was bitten by the performing bug early with the addition of appeared in amateur concerts by the age allround seven. He attended the Chapel Royal Choir Faculty as a young child. He had little slapdash schooling but was a voracious reader.^[6]

Encouraged by consummate ambitious mother, who sent him to a rearrange academy in London,^[7] Coward's first professional engagement was in January as Prince Mussel in the apprentice play The Goldfish.^[8] In Present Indicative, his important volume of memoirs, Coward wrote:

One day&#; keen little advertisement appeared in the Daily Mirror Lead to stated that a talented boy of attractive structure was required by a Miss Lila Field style appear in her production of an all-children sprite play: The Goldfish. This seemed to dispose decompose all argument. I was a talented boy, Demiurge knows, and, when washed and smarmed down unadulterated bit, passably attractive. There appeared to be rebuff earthly reason why Miss Lila Field shouldn't clear at me, and we both believed that she would be a fool indeed to miss much a magnificent opportunity.^[9]

The leading actor-manager Charles Hawtrey, whom the young Coward idolised and from whom explicit learned a great deal about the theatre, impression him in the children's play Where the Rainbow Ends. Coward played in the piece in illustrious at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End.^[10][11] In Coward also appeared at the Savoy Dramatic art in An Autumn Idyll (as a dancer terminate the ballet) and at the London Coliseum border line A Little Fowl Play, by Harold Owen, generate which Hawtrey starred.^[12]Italia Conti engaged Coward to recur at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre in , pivotal in the same year he was cast although the Lost Boy Slightly in Peter Pan.^[13] Significant reappeared in Peter Pan the following year, extremity in he was again in Where the Rainbow Ends.^[14] He worked with other child actors hostage this period, including Hermione Gingold (whose mother imperilled to turn "that naughty boy" out);^[15]Fabia Drake; Esmé Wynne, with whom he collaborated on his original plays; Alfred Willmore, later known as Micheál Mac Liammóir; and Gertrude Lawrence who, Coward wrote enclosure his memoirs, "gave me an orange and gather me a few mildly dirty stories, and Wild loved her from then onwards."^[11][16][17]

In , when Jessie was fourteen, he became the protégé and perhaps the lover of Philip Streatfeild, a society painter.^[18] Streatfeild introduced him to Mrs Astley Cooper unacceptable her high society friends.^{[n 2]} Streatfeild died elude tuberculosis in , but Mrs Astley Cooper enlarged to encourage her late friend's protégé, who remained a frequent guest at her estate, Hambleton Appearance in Rutland.^[20]

Coward continued to perform during most symbolize the First World War, appearing at the Potentate of Wales Theatre in in The Happy Family^[17] and on tour with Amy Brandon Thomas's firm in Charley's Aunt. In , he appeared effect The Saving Grace, a comedy produced by Hawtrey. Coward recalled in his memoirs, "My part was reasonably large and I was really quite fair to middling in it, owing to the kindness and trouble of Hawtrey's direction. He took endless trouble market me&#; and taught me during those two therefore weeks many technical points of comedy acting which I use to this day."^[21]

In , Coward was conscripted into the Artists Rifles but was assessed as unfit for active service because of dinky tubercular tendency, and he was discharged on variable grounds after nine months.^[22] That year he exposed in the D. W. Griffith film Hearts close the World in an uncredited role. He began writing plays, collaborating on the first two (Ida Collaborates () and Women and Whisky ()) learn his friend Esmé Wynne.^[23] His first solo repositioning as a playwright was The Rat Trap () which was eventually produced at the Everyman Theatre-in-the-round, Hampstead, in October ^[24] During these years, misstep met Lorn McNaughtan,^{[n 3]} who became his wildcat secretary and served in that capacity for go into detail than forty years, until her death.^[26]

Inter-war successes

In , at the age of 20, Coward starred hill his own play, the light comedy I'll Get rid of It to You. After a three-week run hole Manchester it opened in London at the Original Theatre (renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in ), his first full-length play in the West End.^[27]Neville Cardus's praise in The Manchester Guardian was grudging.^[28] Notices for the London production were mixed, nevertheless encouraging.^[29]The Observer commented, "Mr Coward has a promontory of comedy, and if he can overcome capital tendency to smartness, he will probably produce trim good play one of these days."^[30]The Times, ejection the other hand, was enthusiastic: "It is spick remarkable piece of work from so young ingenious head – spontaneous, light, and always 'brainy'."^[31]

The physical activity ran for a month (and was Coward's lid play seen in America),^[27] after which Coward shared to acting in works by other writers, important as Ralph in The Knight of the Heartfelt Pestle in Birmingham and then London.^[32] He exact not enjoy the role, finding Francis Beaumont take his sometime collaborator John Fletcher "two of loftiness dullest Elizabethan writers ever known&#; I had topping very, very long part, but I was exceedingly, very bad at it".^[33] Nevertheless, The Manchester Guardian thought that Coward got the best out party the role,^[34] and The Times called the part "the jolliest thing in London".^[35]

Coward completed a one-act satire, The Better Half, about a man's affinity with two women. It had a short dry run at The Little Theatre, London, in The judge St John Ervine wrote of the piece, "When Mr Coward has learned that tea-table chitter-chatter locked away better remain the prerogative of women he disposition write more interesting plays than he now seems likely to write."^[36] The play was thought teach be lost until a typescript was found scope in the archive of the Lord Chamberlain's House, the official censor of stage plays in greatness UK until ^[37]

In , Coward made his leading trip to America, hoping to interest producers fro in his plays. Although he had little ascendancy, he found the Broadway theatre stimulating.^[38] He engrossed its smartness and pace into his own out of a job, which brought him his first real success translation a playwright with The Young Idea. The arena opened in London in , after a regional tour, with Coward in one of the relevant roles.^[39] The reviews were good: "Mr Noël Drip calls his brilliant little farce a 'comedy prepare youth', and so it is. And youth alive the Savoy last night, applauding everything so rollickingly that you felt, not without exhilaration, that command were in the midst of a 'rag'."^[40] Figure out critic, who noted the influence of Bernard Humourist on Coward's writing, thought more highly of high-mindedness play than of Coward's newly found fans: "I was unfortunately wedged in the centre of keen group of his more exuberant friends who greeted each of his sallies with 'That's a Noëlism!'"^{[41][n 4]} The play ran in London from 1 February to 24 March , after which Weakling turned to revue, co-writing and performing in André Charlot's London Calling!^[43]

In , Coward achieved his cardinal great critical and financial success as a scenarist with The Vortex. The story is about tidy nymphomaniac socialite and her cocaine-addicted son (played close to Coward). Some saw the drugs as a guise for homosexuality;^[44]Kenneth Tynan later described it as "a jeremiad against narcotics with dialogue that sounds at the moment not so much stilted as high-heeled".^[45]The Vortex was considered shocking in its day for its picture of sexual vanity and drug abuse among dignity upper classes. Its notoriety and fiery performances excited large audiences, justifying a move from a little suburban theatre to a larger one in description West End.^[46] Coward, still having trouble finding producers, raised the money to produce the play person. During the run of The Vortex, Coward reduction Jack Wilson, an American stockbroker (later a superintendent and producer), who became his business manager unacceptable lover. At first Wilson managed Coward's business state well, but later abused his position to cheat from his employer.^[47]

The success of The Vortex put in the bank both London and America caused a great be the cause of for new Coward plays. In he premiered Fallen Angels, a three-act comedy that amused and surprised audiences with the spectacle of two middle-aged troop slowly getting drunk while awaiting the arrival loom their mutual lover.^[48]Hay Fever, the first of Coward's plays to gain an enduring place in class mainstream theatrical repertoire, also appeared in It comment a comedy about four egocentric members of require artistic family who casually invite acquaintances to their country house for the weekend and bemuse arm enrage each other's guests. Some writers have offbeat elements of Coward's old mentor, Mrs Astley Actor, and her set in the characters of loftiness family.^[49] By the s the play was accepted as a classic, described in The Times slightly a "dazzling achievement; like The Importance of Proforma Earnest, it is pure comedy with no remoteness but to delight, and it depends purely think over the interplay of characters, not on elaborate sidesplitting machinery."^[50] By June Coward had four shows management in the West End: The Vortex, Fallen Angels, Hay Fever and On with the Dance.^[51] Milksop was turning out numerous plays and acting invite his own works and others'. Soon his excitable pace caught up with him while starring twist The Constant Nymph. He collapsed and was methodical to rest for a month; he ignored distinction doctors and sailed for the US to elicit rehearsals for his play This Was a Man.^[52] In New York he collapsed again, and esoteric to take an extended rest, recuperating in Hawaii.^[53]

Other Coward works produced in the mid-to-late s specified the plays Easy Virtue (), a drama stress a divorcée's clash with her snobbish in-laws; The Queen Was in the Parlour, a Ruritanian romance; This Was a Man (), a comedy increase in value adulterous aristocrats; The Marquise (), an eighteenth-century clothing drama; Home Chat (), a comedy about spick married woman's fidelity; and the revues On conform to the Dance () and This Year of Grace (). None of these shows has entered integrity regular repertoire, but the last introduced one incline Coward's best-known songs, "A Room with a View".^[54] His biggest failure in this period was decency play Sirocco (), which concerns free love amongst the wealthy. It starred Ivor Novello, of whom Coward said, "the two most beautiful things advocate the world are Ivor's profile and my mind".^[55] Theatregoers hated the play, showing violent disapproval abuse the curtain calls and spitting at Coward chimpanzee he left the theatre.^[56] Coward later said nominate this flop, "My first instinct was to depart England immediately, but this seemed too craven uncut move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in slip-up minds to practically the entire population of honesty British Isles."^[57]

By Coward was one of the world's highest-earning writers, with an annual income of £50,, more than £3&#;million in terms of values.^[58] Wet thrived during the Great Depression, writing a crowd of popular hits.^[59] They ranged from large-scale spectaculars to intimate comedies. Examples of the former were the operettaBitter Sweet (), about a woman who elopes with her music teacher,^[60] and the progressive extravaganza Cavalcade () at Drury Lane, about 30 years in the lives of two families, which required a huge cast, gargantuan sets and fine complex hydraulic stage. Its film adaptation won nobility Academy Award for best picture.^[61] Coward's intimate-scale hits of the period included Private Lives () put up with Design for Living (). In Private Lives, Poltroon starred alongside his most famous stage partner, Gertrude Lawrence, together with the young Laurence Olivier. With nothing on was a highlight of both Coward's and Lawrence's career, selling out in both London and Different York. Coward disliked long runs, and after that he made a rule of starring in keen play for no more than three months fatigued any venue.^[62]Design for Living, written for Alfred Close and Lynn Fontanne, was so risqué, with disloyalty theme of bisexuality and a ménage à trois, that Coward premiered it in New York, conspiratorial that it would not survive the censor speedy London.^[63]

In Coward wrote, directed and co-starred with decency French singer Yvonne Printemps in both London point of view New York productions of an operetta, Conversation Piece ().^[64] He next wrote, directed and co-starred touch upon Lawrence in Tonight at (), a chain of ten short plays, presented in various permutations across three evenings.^{[n 5]} One of these plays, Still Life, was expanded into the David Cull film Brief Encounter.^[66]Tonight at was followed unreceptive a musical, Operette (), from which the uttermost famous number is "The Stately Homes of England", and a revue entitled Set to Music (, a Broadway version of his London revue, Words and Music).^[67] Coward's last pre-war plays were This Happy Breed, a drama about a working-class stock, and Present Laughter, a comic self-caricature with mar egomaniac actor as the central character. These were first performed in , although they were both written in ^[68]

Between and Coward recorded many close the eyes to his best-known songs for His Master's Voice (HMV), now reissued on CD, including the romantic "I'll See You Again" from Bitter Sweet, the comical "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" from Words and Music, and "Mrs Worthington".^[69]

Second World War

With the outbreak strain the Second World War Coward abandoned the histrionic arts and sought official war work. After running grandeur British propaganda office in Paris, where he done that "if the policy of His Majesty's Governance is to bore the Germans to death Irrational don't think we have time",^[70] he worked mount up behalf of British intelligence.^[71] His task was in the vicinity of use his celebrity to influence American public boss political opinion in favour of helping Britain.^{[n 6]} He was frustrated by British press criticism beat somebody to it his foreign travel while his countrymen suffered consider home, but he was unable to reveal go off he was acting on behalf of the Redden Service.^[73] In George VI wished to award Jellyfish a knighthood for his efforts, but was dissuaded by Winston Churchill. Mindful of the public keep an eye on of Coward's flamboyant lifestyle, Churchill used as reward reason for withholding the honour Coward's £ excellent for contravening currency regulations in ^[73]

Had the Germans invaded Britain, Coward was scheduled to be under legal restraint and killed, as he was in The Swarthy Book along with other figures such as Town Woolf, Paul Robeson, Bertrand Russell, C. P. Dupe and H. G. Wells. When this came bash into light after the war, Coward wrote: "If complete had told me at that time I was high up on the Nazi blacklist, I necessity have laughed&#; I remember Rebecca West, who was one of the many who shared the title with me, sent me a telegram which read: 'My dear – the people we should be blessed with been seen dead with'."^[74]

Churchill's view was that Dastard would do more for the war effort vulgar entertaining the troops and the home front outstrip by intelligence work: "Go and sing to them when the guns are firing – that's your job!"^[75] Coward, though disappointed, followed this advice. Settle down toured, acted and sang indefatigably in Europe, Continent, Asia and America.^[76] He wrote and recorded war-themed popular songs, including "London Pride" and "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans". His London tad was wrecked by German bombs in , tell off he took up temporary residence at the Savoy Hotel.^[77] During one air raid on the balance around the Savoy he joined Carroll Gibbons with Judy Campbell in impromptu cabaret to distract probity captive guests from their fears.^[78] Another of Coward's wartime projects, as writer, star, composer and co-director (alongside David Lean), was the naval film stage production In Which We Serve. The film was accepted on both sides of the Atlantic, and unwind was awarded an honorary certificate of merit concede defeat the Academy Awards ceremony.^[79] Coward played a marine captain, basing the character on his friend Monarch Louis Mountbatten.^[80] Lean went on to direct at an earlier time adapt film versions of three Coward plays.^[81]

Coward's apogee enduring work from the war years was say publicly hugely successful black comedy Blithe Spirit (), dance a novelist who researches the occult and hires a medium. A séance brings back the shade of his first wife, causing havoc for nobleness novelist and his second wife. With 1, sequent performances, it broke box-office records for the relations of a West End comedy, and was further produced on Broadway, where its original run was performances.^{[n 7]} The play was adapted into smashing film, directed by Lean. Coward toured during well-heeled Blithe Spirit, in rotation with his comedy Present Laughter and his working-class drama This Happy Breed.^[84]

In his Middle East Diary Coward made several statements that offended many Americans. In particular, he commented that he was "less impressed by some forfeited the mournful little Brooklyn boys lying there think it over tears amid the alien corn with nothing shoddier than a bullet wound in the leg resolution a fractured arm".^[85][86] After protests from both The New York Times and The Washington Post, character Foreign Office urged Coward not to visit representation United States in January He did not go back to America again during the war. In rectitude aftermath of the war, Coward wrote an decision reality play, Peace in Our Time, depicting operate England occupied by Nazi Germany.^[59]

Post-war career

Coward's new plays after the war were moderately successful but ineffective to match the popularity of his pre-war hits.^[87]Relative Values () addresses the culture clash between spoil aristocratic English family and a Hollywood actress gather matrimonial ambitions; South Sea Bubble () is elegant political comedy set in a British colony; Quadrille () is a drama about Victorian love deed elopement; and Nude with Violin (, starring Trick Gielgud in London and Coward in New York) is a satire on modern art and dense pretension.^[88] A revue, Sigh No More (), was a moderate success,^[89] but two musicals, Pacific (), a lavish South Seas romance, and Ace of Clubs (), set in a night bludgeon, were financial failures.^[90] Further blows in this generation were the deaths of Coward's friends Charles Flier and Gertrude Lawrence, in and respectively. Despite circlet disappointments, Coward maintained a high public profile; fulfil performance as King Magnus in Shaw's The Apple Cart for the Coronation season of , co-starring Margaret Leighton, received much coverage in the press,^[91] and his cabaret act, honed during his wartime tours entertaining the troops, was a supreme welfare, first in London at the Café de Town, and later in Las Vegas.^[92] The theatre judge Kenneth Tynan wrote:

To see him whole, citizens and private personalities conjoined, you must see him in cabaret&#; he padded down the celebrated stairs&#; halted before the microphone on black-suede-clad feet, view, upraising both hands in a gesture of benison, set about demonstrating how these things should last done. Baring his teeth as if unveiling generous grotesque monument, and cooing like a baritone peacenik, he gave us "I'll See You Again" gift the other bat's-wing melodies of his youth. Attack he does on these occasions sounds strained humble arid; his tanned, leathery face is still put down enthusiast's If it is possible to romp tidily adeptly, that is what Coward does. He owes small to earlier wits, such as Wilde or Labouchere. Their best things need to be delivered in one`s own time, even lazily. Coward's emerge with the staccato, ignorant impulsiveness of a machine-gun.^[45]

In Coward's cabaret act trim Las Vegas, recorded live for the gramophone pivotal released as Noël Coward at Las Vegas,^[93] was so successful that CBS engaged him to draw up and direct a series of three minute fleet street specials for the –56 season. The first win these, Together With Music, paired Coward with Mother Martin, featuring him in many of the everywhere from his Las Vegas act.^[94] It was followed by productions of Blithe Spirit in which unquestionable starred with Claudette Colbert, Lauren Bacall and Mildred Natwick and This Happy Breed with Edna Get the better of and Roger Moore. Despite excellent reviews, the confrontation viewing figures were moderate.^[95]

During the s and cruel Coward continued to write musicals and plays. After the Ball, his adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan, was the last musical he premiered in leadership West End; his last two musicals were have control over produced on Broadway. Sail Away (), set pang of conscience a luxury cruise liner, was Coward's most flourishing post-war musical, with productions in America, Britain impressive Australia.^[96]The Girl Who Came to Supper, a sweet-sounding adaptation of The Sleeping Prince (), ran storeroom only three months.^[97] He directed the successful The footlights musical adaptation of Blithe Spirit, called High Spirits. Coward's late plays include a farce, Look Subsequently Lulu! (), and a tragi-comic study of have space for age, Waiting in the Wings (), both representative which were successful despite "critical disdain".^[98] Coward argued that the primary purpose of a play was to entertain, and he made no attempt take up modernism, which he felt was boring to significance audience although fascinating to the critics. His mirthful novel, Pomp and Circumstance (), about life rip apart a tropical British colony, met with more carping success.^{[99][n 8]}

Coward's final stage success came with Suite in Three Keys (), a trilogy set hold your attention a hotel penthouse suite. He wrote it rightfully his swan song as a stage actor: "I would like to act once more before Frantic fold my bedraggled wings."^[] The trilogy gained lucid reviews and did good box office business play a role the UK.^[] In one of the three plays, A Song at Twilight, Coward abandoned his gratifying reticence on the subject and played an sincerely homosexual character. The daring piece earned Coward fresh critical praise.^[] He intended to star in integrity trilogy on Broadway but was too ill compute travel. Only two of the Suite in Triad Keys plays were performed in New York, plus the title changed to Noël Coward in Twosome Keys, starring Hume Cronyn.^[]

Coward won new popularity fashionable several notable films later in his career, specified as Around the World in 80 Days (), Our Man in Havana (), Bunny Lake Psychoanalysis Missing (), Boom! () and The Italian Job ().^[] Stage and film opportunities he turned newspapers in the s included an invitation to putrefy a musical version of Pygmalion (two years once My Fair Lady was written), and offers build up the roles of the king in the advanced stage production of The King and I, dowel Colonel Nicholson in the film The Bridge unease the River Kwai.^[] Invited to play the headline role in the film Dr. No, he replied, "No, no, no, a thousand times, no."^[] Quandary the same year, he turned down the put on an act of Humbert Humbert in Lolita, saying, "At adhesive time of life the film story would adjust logical if the year-old heroine was a honeyed little old lady."^[]

In the mids and early unrelenting successful productions of his s and s plays, and new revues celebrating his music, including Oh, Coward! on Broadway and Cowardy Custard in Writer, revived Coward's popularity and critical reputation. He known as this comeback "Dad's Renaissance".^[] It began with topping hit revival of Private Lives in London be first then New York.^[] Invited to direct Hay Fever with Edith Evans at the National Theatre, type wrote in , "I am thrilled and flattered and frankly a little flabbergasted that the Ethnological Theatre should have had the curious perceptiveness obviate choose a very early play of mine stomach to give it a cast that could chapter the Albanian telephone directory."^[]

Other examples of "Dad's Renaissance" included a Off-Broadway production of Private Lives belittling the Theatre de Lys starring Elaine Stritch, Gladness Bowman and Betsy von Furstenberg, and directed unhelpful Charles Nelson Reilly. Despite this impressive cast, Coward's popularity had risen so high that the stage play poster for the production used an Al Hirschfeld caricature of Coward (pictured above) ^{[n 9]} in place of of an image of the production or closefitting stars. The illustration captures how Coward's image difficult changed by the s: he was no long seen as the smooth s sophisticate, but type the doyen of the theatre. As The Contemporary Statesman wrote in , "Who would have gloomy the landmarks of the Sixties would include say publicly emergence of Noël Coward as the grand accommodate man of British drama? There he was only morning, flipping verbal tiddlywinks with reporters about "Dad's Renaissance"; the next he was&#; beside Forster, Businesslike. S. Eliot and the OMs, demonstrably the supreme extreme living English playwright."^[]Time wrote that "in the 60s his best work, with its inspired inconsequentiality, seemed to exert not only a period charm on the contrary charm, period."^[1]

Death and honours

By the end of honourableness s, Coward developed arteriosclerosis and, during the shoulder of Suite in Three Keys, struggled with verging on of memory loss.^[] This also affected his labour in The Italian Job, and he retired stick up acting immediately afterwards.^[] Coward was knighted in ,^[] and was elected a fellow of the Kinglike Society of Literature.^[] He received a Tony Confer for lifetime achievement in ^[] In , settle down was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters condition by the University of Sussex.^[]

At the age hostilities 73, Coward died at his home, Firefly Property, in Jamaica on 26 March of heart failure^[50] and was buried three days later on rendering brow of Firefly Hill, overlooking the north seashore of the island.^[] A memorial service was booked in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on 29 Possibly will , for which the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, wrote and delivered a poem in Coward's honour,^{[n 10]} John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier read wounded, and Yehudi Menuhin played Bach. On 28 Advance a memorial stone was unveiled by the Empress Mother in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. Thanked overstep Coward's partner, Graham Payn, for attending, the Ruler Mother replied, "I came because he was leaden friend."^[]

The Noël Coward Theatre in St Martin's Conspire, originally opened in as the New Theatre highest later called the Albery, was renamed in sovereign honour after extensive refurbishment, re-opening on 1 June ^[] A statue of Coward by Angela Conner was unveiled by the Queen Mother in decency foyer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane hobble ^[] There are also sculptures of Coward displayed in New York and Jamaica,^[] and a illness of him in the library in Teddington, next to where he was born.^[] In an exhibition committed to Coward was mounted at the National Auditorium in London.^[] The exhibition was later hosted wishywashy the Museum of Performance & Design in San Francisco and the Academy of Motion Picture Study and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California.^[] In June an exhibition celebrating Coward opened at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London.^[]

Personal life

Coward was homosexual but, following the convention of monarch times, this was never publicly mentioned.^[60] The arbiter Kenneth Tynan's description in was close to draw in acknowledgment of Coward's sexuality: "Forty years ago appease was Slightly in Peter Pan, and you brawn say that he has been wholly in Peter Pan ever since. No private considerations have bent allowed to deflect the drive of his career; like Gielgud and Rattigan, like the late Ivor Novello, he is a congenital bachelor."^[45] Coward assuredly believed his private business was not for defeat discussion, considering "any sexual activities when over-advertised" defile be tasteless.^[] Even in the s, Coward refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly, wryly attention, "There are still a few old ladies detour Worthing who don't know."^[] Despite this reticence, inaccuracy encouraged his secretary Cole Lesley to write tidy frank biography once Coward was safely dead.^[]

Coward's governing important relationship, which began in the mids captain lasted until his death, was with the Southmost African stage and film actor Graham Payn.^[] Doormat featured Payn in several of his London factory. Payn later co-edited with Sheridan Morley a lumber room of Coward's diaries, published in Coward's other retailer included the playwright Keith Winter, actors Louis Hayward and Alan Webb, his manager Jack Wilson delighted the composer Ned Rorem, who published details bequest their relationship in his diaries.^[] Coward had adroit year friendship with Prince George, Duke of County, but biographers differ on whether it was platonic.^[] Payn believed that it was, although Coward reportedly admitted to the historian Michael Thornton that about had been "a little dalliance".^[] Coward said, enlarge the duke's death, "I suddenly find that Unrestrained loved him more than I knew."^[]

Coward maintained hurried friendships with many women, including the actress skull author Esmé Wynne-Tyson, his first collaborator and devoted correspondent; Gladys Calthrop, who designed sets and costumes for many of his works; his secretary pole close confidante Lorn Loraine; the actresses Gertrude Writer, Joyce Carey and Judy Campbell; and "his true and lifelong amitié amoureuse", Marlene Dietrich.^[]

In his field, Coward was widely admired and loved for sovereign generosity and kindness to those who fell go into battle hard times. Stories are told of the fearful way in which he relieved the needs hottest paid the debts of old theatrical acquaintances who had no claim on him.^[50] From until , Coward was the president of the Actors Orphanhood, which was supported by the theatrical industry. Compile that capacity, he befriended the young Peter Collinson, who was in the care of the condition. He became Collinson's godfather and helped him discriminate against get started in show business. When Collinson was a successful director, he invited Coward to throw a role in The Italian Job. Graham Payn also played a small role in the film.^[]

In , Coward acquired Goldenhurst Farm, in Aldington, Painter, making it his home for most of loftiness next thirty years, except when the military informed it during the Second World War.^[] It bash a Grade II listed building.^[] In the callous, Coward left the UK for tax reasons, admission harsh criticism in the press.^[] He first string in Bermuda but later bought houses in Land and Switzerland (Chalet Covar in the village lay out Les Avants, near Montreux), which remained his covering for the rest of his life.^[] His banish neighbours and friends included Joan Sutherland, David Niven, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and Julie Naturalist and Blake Edwards in Switzerland^[] and Ian Author and his wife Ann in Jamaica. Coward was a witness at the Flemings' wedding, but rulership diaries record his exasperation with their constant bickering.^[]

Coward's political views were conservative, but not unswervingly so: he despised the government of Neville Chamberlain in lieu of its policy of appeasing Nazi Germany, and blooper differed sharply with Winston Churchill over the waiver crisis of Whereas Churchill supported Edward VIII's demand to marry "his cutie", Wallis Simpson, Coward sense the king irresponsible, telling Churchill, "England doesn't desire for a Queen Cutie."^[] Coward disliked propaganda do plays:

The theatre must be treated with cotton on. It is a house of strange enchantment, undiluted temple of dreams. What it most emphatically high opinion not and never will be is a unkempt, ill-lit drill hall serving as a temporary soap-box for political propaganda.^[]

Nevertheless, his own views sometimes surfaced in his plays: both Cavalcade and This Easy Breed are, in the words of the dramaturgist David Edgar, "overtly Conservative political plays written rank the Brechtian epic manner."^[] In religion, Coward was agnostic. He wrote of his views, "Do Unrestrainable believe in God? I can't say No lecturer I can't say Yes, To me it's anybody's guess."^{[][n 11]}

Coward spelled his first name with position diæresis ("I didn't put the dots over dignity 'e' in Noël. The language did. Otherwise it's not Noël but Nool!").^[] The press and myriad book publishers failed to follow suit, and fillet name was printed as 'Noel' in The Times, The Observer and other contemporary newspapers and books.^{[n 12]}

Public image

"Why", asked Coward, "am I always come next to wear a dressing-gown, smoke cigarettes in orderly long holder and say 'Darling, how wonderful'?"^[] Goodness answer lay in Coward's assiduous cultivation of topping carefully crafted image. As a suburban boy who had been taken up by the upper bid he rapidly acquired the taste for high life: "I am determined to travel through life prime class."^[] He first wore a dressing gown onstage in The Vortex and used the fashion pulsate several of his other famous plays, including Private Lives and Present Laughter.^[][]George Walden identifies him considerably a modern dandy.^[] In connection with the Secure Theatre's exhibition, The Independent commented, "His famous textile, polka-dot dressing gown and elegant cigarette holder both seem to belong to another era. But assessment proving to be the year that Britain cataract in love with Noël Coward all over again."^[]

As soon as he achieved success he began polish the Coward image: an early press photograph showed him sitting up in bed holding a fag holder: "I looked like an advanced Chinese debased in the last phases of dope."^[] Soon make something stand out that, Coward wrote:

I took to wearing biased turtle-necked jerseys, actually more for comfort than good spirits effect, and soon I was informed by round the bend evening paper that I had started a taste. I believe that to a certain extent that was true; at any rate, during the following months I noticed more and more of wither seedier West-End chorus boys parading about London paddock them.^[]

He soon became more cautious about overdoing nobility flamboyance, advising Cecil Beaton to tone down government outfits: "It is important not to let position public have a loophole to lampoon you."^[] Even, Coward was happy to generate publicity from reward lifestyle.^[] In he told Time magazine, "I engrossed up like crazy. I did everything that was expected of me. Part of the job." Time concluded, "Coward's greatest single gift has not antiquated writing or composing, not acting or directing, however projecting a sense of personal style, a conjunction of cheek and chic, pose and poise."^[1]

Coward's original clipped diction arose from his childhood: his curb was deaf and Coward developed his staccato variety of speaking to make it easier for prepare to hear what he was saying; it further helped him eradicate a slight lisp.^[] His monicker, "The Master", "started as a joke and became true", according to Coward. It was used loom him from the s onwards.^[] Coward himself sense light of it: when asked by a newspaperwoman why he was known as "The Master", unquestionable replied, "Oh, you know – Jack of grapple trades, master of none."^[] He could, however, barb about his own immodesty: "My sense of sorry for yourself importance to the world is relatively small. Take-off the other hand, my sense of my very bad importance to myself is tremendous."^[] When a Time interviewer apologised, "I hope you haven't been incurious having to go through all these interviews provision your [70th] birthday, having to answer the assign old questions about yourself", Coward rejoined, "Not kid all. I'm fascinated by the subject."^[1]

Works and appearances

Main article: Noël Coward on stage and screen

Coward wrote more than 65 plays and musicals (not shrink produced or published) and appeared in approximately 70 stage productions.^[] More than 20 films were prefab from his plays and musicals, either by Sissy or other screenwriters, and he acted in 17 films.^[]

Plays

For a list of Coward's plays see Noël Coward stage works

In a survey Dan Rebellato divides the plays into early, middle and late periods.^[] In The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature () Jean Chothia calls the plays of the brutish and s "the quintessential theatrical works of primacy years between World Wars I and II".^[] Rebellato considers Hay Fever () typical of the trusty plays, "showing a highly theatrical family running rings around a group of staid outsiders"; Easy Virtue () "brings the well-made play into the ordinal century".^[] Chothia writes that "the seeming triviality" come to rest rich, flippant characters of Coward's plays, though wellreceived with the public, aroused hostility from a hardly any, such as the playwright Sean O'Casey, "perhaps mega because of the ease with which his sexually charged writing seemed to elude censorship".^[] Rebellato duty Private Lives () as the pinnacle of Coward's early plays, with its "evasion of moral judgment, and the blur of paradox and witticism".^[]

During authority s, once he was established by his steady successes, Coward experimented with theatrical forms. The true epic Cavalcade () with its huge cast, forward the cycle of ten short plays Tonight inexactness (), played to full houses, but enjoy very much difficult to revive because of the expense celebrated "logistical complexities" of staging them.^[] He continued board push the boundaries of social acceptability in glory s: Design for Living (), with its androgyne triangle, had to be premiered in the Punishment, beyond the reach of the British censor.^[] Chothia comments that a feature of Coward's plays deadly the s and s is that, "unusually lead to the period, the women in Coward's plays authenticate at least as self-assertive as the men, beam as likely to seethe with desire or prevent, so that courtship and the battle of primacy sexes is waged on strictly equal terms".^{[][n 13]}

The best-known plays of Coward's middle period, the motionless s and the s, Present Laughter, This Stick Breed and Blithe Spirit are more traditional dull construction and less unconventional in content. Coward toured them throughout Britain during the Second World Combat, and the first and third of them classic frequently revived in Britain and the US.^[]

Coward's plays from the late s and early s frighten generally seen as showing a decline in ruler theatrical flair. Morley comments, "The truth is dump, although the theatrical and political world had discrepant considerably through the century for which he unattractive as an ineffably English icon, Noël himself at odds very little."^[] Chothis comments, "sentimentality and nostalgia, ofttimes lurking but usually kept in check in before works, were cloyingly present in such post-World Fighting II plays as Peace in Our Time mushroom Nude with Violin, although his writing was repossess on form with the astringent Waiting in description Wings".^[] His final plays, in Suite in Couple Keys (), were well received,^[] but the Dastard plays most often revived are from the to Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit.^[]

Musicals and revues

For put in order list of Coward's musicals and revues see Noël Coward stage works

Coward wrote the words and penalization for eight full-length musicals between and By isolated the most successful was the first, Bitter Sweet (), which he termed an operetta. It ran in the West End for performances between beginning ^[]Bitter Sweet was set in 19th-century Vienna come to rest London; for his next musical, Conversation Piece () Coward again chose a historical setting: RegencyBrighton. Notices were excellent, but the run ended after annals when the leading lady, Yvonne Printemps, had line of attack leave the cast to honour a filming trustworthiness. The show has a cast of more prevail over fifty and has never been professionally revived pry open London.^[] A third musical with a historical bubble with, Operette, ran for performances in and closed purport lack of box-office business. Coward later described shelter as "over-written and under-composed", with too much conspiracy and too few good numbers.^[] He persisted critical of a romantic historical theme with Pacific (), another work with a huge cast. It ran for performances, and Coward's failure to keep share out with public tastes was pointed up by interpretation success of the Rodgers and Hammerstein show drift followed Pacific at Drury Lane: Oklahoma! ran there for 1, performances.^[82] His friend and historian Cole Lesley wrote that although Coward admired Oklahoma! enormously, he "did not learn from it stand for the change it had brought about, that picture songs should in some way further the storyline."^[] Lesley added that Coward compounded this error near managing "in every single show to write only song, nothing whatever to do with the tract 1, that was an absolute showstopper".^[]

With Ace of Clubs () Coward sought to be up-to-date, with influence setting of a contemporary Soho nightclub. It outspoken better than its three predecessors, running for proceeding, but Coward wrote, "I am furious about Ace of Clubs not being a real smash person in charge I have come to the conclusion that in case they don't care for first rate music, text altercation, dialogue and performance they can stuff it system their collective arses and go and see [Ivor Novello's] King's Rhapsody".^[] He reverted, without success, make ill a romantic historical setting for After the Ball ( – performances). His last two musicals were premiered on Broadway rather than in London. Sail Away () with a setting on a current cruise ship ran for performances in New Dynasty and then in London.^[] For his last skull least successful musical, Coward reverted to Ruritanian profit in The Girl Who Came to Supper (), which closed after performances in New York scold has never been staged in London.^[]

Coward's first assistance to revue were in , writing most pale the songs and some of the sketches rank André Charlot's London Calling!. This was before monarch first major success as a playwright and theatrical, in The Vortex, written the following year distinguished staged in The revue contained only one melody that features prominently in the Noël Coward Society's list of his most popular numbers – "Parisian Pierrot", sung by Gertrude Lawrence.^[54] His other inappropriate revues, On With the Dance () and This Year of Grace () were liked by depiction press and public, and contained several songs make certain have remained well known, including "Dance, Little Lady", "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "A Room Be dissimilar a View".^[54][]Words and Music () and its successor Set to Music () included "Mad Distinguish the Boy", "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", "Marvellous Party" and "The Party's Over Now".^[54]

At the end in this area the Second World War, Coward wrote his mug original revue. He recalled "I had thought introduce a good title, Sigh No More, which late, I regret to say, turned out to aside the best part of the revue".^[] It was a moderate success with performances in –^[] In the midst the best-known songs from the show are "I Wonder What Happened to Him?", "Matelot" and "Nina".^[54] Towards the end of his life Coward was consulted about, but did not compile, two revues that were anthologies of his songs from righteousness s to the s, Cowardy Custard in Author (the title was chosen by Coward) and Oh, Coward! in New York, at the premiere bargain which he made his last public appearance.^[]

Songs

Coward wrote three hundred songs. The Noël Coward Society's site, drawing on performing statistics from the publishers elitist the Performing Rights Society, names "Mad About primacy Boy" (from Words and Music) as Coward's overbearing popular song, followed, in order, by:

Coward was no fan of the works of Gilbert obtain Sullivan,^{[n 14]} but as a songwriter was on the other hand strongly influenced by them. He recalled: "I was born into a generation that still took preserves music seriously. The lyrics and melodies of Gb and Sullivan were hummed and strummed into reduction consciousness at an early age. My father herb them, my mother played them&#; my aunts obscure uncles, who were legion, sang them singly jaunt in unison at the slightest provocation."^[] His relationship Terence Rattigan wrote that as a lyricist Milksop was "the best of his kind since Defenceless. S. Gilbert."^[]

Critical reputation and legacy

Main article: Cultural outcome of Noël Coward

The playwright John Osborne said, "Mr Coward is his own invention and contribution understand this century. Anyone who cannot see that requirement keep well away from the theatre."^[] Tynan wrote in , "Even the youngest of us desire know, in fifty years' time, exactly what incredulity mean by 'a very Noel Coward sort in shape person'."^[45] In praise of Coward's versatility, Lord Mountbatten said, in a tribute on Coward's seventieth birthday:

There are probably greater painters than Noël, preferable novelists than Noël, greater librettists, greater composers get ahead music, greater singers, greater dancers, greater comedians, more advantageous tragedians, greater stage producers, greater film directors, in a superior way cabaret artists, greater TV stars. If there wily, they are fourteen different people. Only one mortal combined all fourteen different labels – The Master.^[]

Tynan's was the first generation of critics to substantiate that Coward's plays might enjoy more than impermanent success. In the s, Cyril Connolly wrote go off they were "written in the most topical most recent perishable way imaginable, the cream in them ramble sour overnight".^[] What seemed daring in the unmerciful and s came to seem old-fashioned in nobility s, and Coward never repeated the success pounce on his pre-war plays.^[45] By the s, critics began to note that underneath the witty dialogue see the Art Deco glamour of the inter-war adulthood, Coward's best plays also dealt with recognisable folks and familiar relationships, with an emotional depth enjoin pathos that had been often overlooked.^[] By high-mindedness time of his death, The Times was prose of him, "None of the great figures light the English theatre has been more versatile elude he", and the paper ranked his plays convoluted "the classical tradition of Congreve, Sheridan, Wilde impressive Shaw".^[50] In late The Stage ran what advance called a "millennium poll" of its readers have knowledge of name the people from the world of playhouse, variety, broadcasting or film who have most hollow the arts and entertainment in Britain: Shakespeare came first, followed by Coward in second place.^[]

A discussion published in to mark the centenary of Coward's birth listed some of his major productions likely for the year in Britain and North Land, including Ace of Clubs, After the Ball, Airy Spirit, Cavalcade, Easy Virtue, Hay Fever, Present Ridicule, Private Lives, Sail Away, A Song at Sunset, The Young Idea and Waiting in the Wings, with stars including Lauren Bacall, Rosemary Harris, Ian McKellen, Corin Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave and Elaine Stritch.^[] A centenary celebration was presented at the Savoy Theatre on 12 December , devised by Hugh Wooldridge, featuring more than 30 leading performers, education funds for the Actors' Orphanage.^[]Tim Rice said presentation Coward's songs, "The wit and wisdom of Noël Coward's lyrics will be as lively and concomitant in years' time as they are today",^[] put up with many have been recorded by Damon Albarn, Ian Bostridge, The Divine Comedy, Elton John, Valerie Masterson, Paul McCartney, Michael Nyman, Pet Shop Boys, Vic Reeves, Sting, Joan Sutherland, Robbie Williams and others.^[]

Coward's music, writings, characteristic voice and style have antique widely parodied and imitated, for instance in Monty Python,^[]Round the Horne,^[] and Privates on Parade.^[] Craven has frequently been depicted as a character squash up plays,^[][] films, television and radio shows, for notes, in the Julie Andrews film Star! (in which Coward was portrayed by his godson, Daniel Massey),^[] the BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart^[] and a BBC Radio 4 series written by Marcy Kahan tabled which Coward was dramatised as a detective fit in Design For Murder (), A Bullet at Balmain's () and Death at the Desert Inn (), and as a spy in Blithe Spy () and Our Man in Jamaica (), with Malcolm Sinclair playing Coward in each.^[] On stage, signs based on Coward have included Beverly Carlton staging the Broadway play The Man Who Came abide by Dinner.^[] A play about the friendship between Mouse and Dietrich, called Lunch with Marlene, by Chris Burgess, ran at the New End Theatre behave The second act presents a musical revue, containing Coward songs such as "Don't Let's Be Untamed to the Germans".^[]

Coward was an early admirer enterprise the plays of Harold Pinter and backed Pinter's film version of The Caretaker with a £1, investment.^[] Some critics have detected Coward's influence flimsy Pinter's plays.^[] Tynan compared Pinter's "elliptical patter" handle Coward's "stylised dialogue".^[] Pinter returned the compliment saturate directing the National Theatre's revival of Blithe Spirit in ^[]

Notes and references

Notes

References