Noël Coward
Encyclopedia
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time
magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".
Born in Teddington
, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever
, Private Lives
, Design for Living
, Present Laughter
and Blithe Spirit
, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet
and comic revue
s), poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works.
At the outbreak of World War II, Coward volunteered for war work, running the British propaganda office in Paris. He also worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award
in 1943 for his naval film drama, In Which We Serve
, and was knighted in 1969. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as a cabaret performer, performing his own songs, such as "Mad Dogs and Englishmen
", "London Pride
" and "I Went to a Marvellous Party
".
His plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. Coward did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality, but it was discussed candidly after his death by biographers including Graham Payn
, his long-time partner, 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
in his honour in 2006.
, England, a suburb of London. His parents were Arthur Sabin Coward (1856–1937), a piano salesman, and Violet Agnes Coward (1863–1954), daughter of Henry Gordon Veitch, a captain and surveyor in the Royal Navy
. Noël Coward was the second of their three sons, the eldest of whom had died in 1898 at the age of six. Coward's father lacked ambition and industry, and family finances were often poor. Coward was bitten by the performing bug early and appeared in amateur concerts by the age of seven. He attended the Chapel Royal
Choir School as a young child. He had little formal schooling but was a voracious reader.
Encouraged by his ambitious mother, who sent him to a dance academy in London, Coward's first professional engagement was in January 1911 as Prince Mussel in the children's play The Goldfish. In Present Indicative, his first volume of memoirs, Coward wrote:
The leading actor-manager Charles Hawtrey, whom the young Coward idolised and from whom he learned a great deal about the theatre, cast him in the children's play Where the Rainbow Ends. Coward played in the piece in 1911 and 1912 at the Garrick Theatre
in London's West End
. In 1912 Coward also appeared at the Savoy Theatre
in An Autumn Idyll (as a dancer in the ballet) and at the London Coliseum
in A Little Fowl Play, by Harold Owen, in which Hawtrey starred. Italia Conti
engaged Coward to appear at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre
in 1913, and in the same year he was cast as the Lost Boy Slightly in Peter Pan
. He reappeared in Peter Pan the following year, and in 1915 he was again in Where the Rainbow Ends. He worked with other child actors in this period, including Hermione Gingold
(whose mother threatened to turn "that naughty boy" out); Fabia Drake
; Esmé Wynne
, with whom he collaborated on his earliest plays; Alfred Willmore, later known as Micheál MacLíammóir
; and Gertrude Lawrence
who, Coward wrote in his memoirs, "gave me an orange and told me a few mildly dirty stories, and I loved her from then onwards."
In 1913, when Coward was 14, he became the protégé and probably the lover of Philip Streatfeild
, a society painter. Streatfeild introduced him to Mrs Astley Cooper and her high society friends. Streatfeild died from tuberculosis
in 1915, but Mrs Astley Cooper continued to encourage her late friend's protégé, who remained a frequent guest at her estate, Hambleton Hall.
Coward continued to perform during most of World War I, appearing at the Prince of Wales's Theatre
in 1916 in The Happy Family and on tour with Amy Brandon Thomas
's company in Charley's Aunt
. In 1917, he appeared in The Saving Grace, a comedy produced by Hawtrey. Coward recalled in his memoirs, "My part was reasonably large and I was really quite good in it, owing to the kindness and care of Hawtrey's direction. He took endless trouble with me... and taught me during those two short weeks many technical points of comedy acting which I use to this day."
In 1918, Coward was drafted into the Artists Rifles but was assessed as unfit for active service because of a tubercular tendency, and he was discharged on health grounds after nine months. That year he appeared in the D. W. Griffith
film Hearts of the World
in an uncredited role. He sold short stories to several magazines to help his family financially. He also began writing plays, collaborating on the first two (Ida Collaborates (1917) and Women and Whisky (1918)) with his friend Esmé Wynne. His first solo effort as a playwright was The Rat Trap
(1918) which was eventually produced at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead
, in October 1926. During these years, he met Lorn McNaughtan, who became his private secretary and served in that capacity for more than forty years, until her death.
, it opened in London at the New Theatre (renamed the Noël Coward Theatre
in 2006), his first full-length play in the West End. Neville Cardus
's praise in The Manchester Guardian
was grudging. Notices for the London production were mixed, but encouraging. The Observer
commented, "Mr Coward... has a sense of comedy, and if he can overcome a tendency to smartness, he will probably produce a good play one of these days." The Times, on the other hand, was enthusiastic: "It is a remarkable piece of work from so young a head – spontaneous, light, and always 'brainy'."
The play ran for a month (and was Coward's first play seen in America), after which Coward returned to acting in works by other writers, starring as Ralph in The Knight of the Burning Pestle
in Birmingham
and then London. He did not enjoy the role, finding Francis Beaumont
and his sometime collaborator John Fletcher
"two of the dullest Elizabethan writers ever known ... I had a very, very long part, but I was very, very bad at it". Nevertheless, The Manchester Guardian thought that Coward got the best out of the role, and The Times called the play "the jolliest thing in London".
Coward completed a one-act satire, The Better Half, about a man's relationship with two women. It had a short run at The Little Theatre, London, in 1922. The critic St. John Ervine
wrote of the piece, "When Mr Coward has learned that tea-table chitter-chatter had better remain the prerogative of women he will write more interesting plays than he now seems likely to write." The play was thought to be lost until a typescript was found in 2007 in the archive of the Lord Chamberlain's Office
, the official censor of stage plays in the UK until 1968.
In 1921, Coward made his first trip to America, hoping to interest producers there in his plays. Although he had little luck, he found the Broadway theatre stimulating. He absorbed its smartness and pace into his own work, which brought him his first real success as a playwright with The Young Idea. The play opened in London in 1923, after a provincial tour, with Coward in one of the leading roles. The reviews were good: "Mr Noël Coward calls his brilliant little farce a 'comedy of youth', and so it is. And youth pervaded the Savoy last night, applauding everything so boisterously that you felt, not without exhilaration, that you were in the midst of a 'rag'." One critic, who noted the influence of George Bernard Shaw
on Coward's writing, thought more highly of the play than of Coward's newly found fans: "I was unfortunately wedged in the centre of a group of his more exuberant friends who greeted each of his sallies with 'That's a Noëlism!'" The play ran in London from 1 February to 24 March 1923, after which Coward turned to revue
, co-writing and performing in André Charlot
's London Calling!
In 1924, Coward achieved his first great critical and financial success as a playwright with The Vortex
. The story is about a nymphomaniac socialite and her cocaine-addicted son (played by Coward). Some saw the drugs as a mask for homosexuality, while Kenneth Tynan
later described it as "a jeremiad
against narcotics with dialogue that sounds today not so much stilted as high-heeled". The Vortex was considered shocking in its day for its depiction of sexual vanity and drug abuse among the upper classes. Its notoriety and fiery performances attracted large audiences, justifying a move from a small suburban theatre to a larger one in the West End. Coward, still having trouble finding producers, raised the money to produce the play himself. During the run of The Vortex, Coward met Jack Wilson
, an American stockbroker (later a director and producer), who became his business manager and lover. Wilson used his position to steal from Coward, but the playwright was in love and accepted both the larceny and Wilson's heavy drinking.
The success of The Vortex in both London and America caused a great demand for new Coward plays. In 1925 he premiered Fallen Angels
, a three-act comedy that amused and shocked audiences with the spectacle of two middle-aged women slowly getting drunk while awaiting the arrival of their mutual lover. Hay Fever
, the first of Coward's plays to gain an enduring place in the mainstream theatrical repertoire, also appeared in 1925. It is a comedy about four egocentric members of an artistic family who casually invite acquaintances to their country house for the weekend and bemuse and enrage each other's guests. Some writers have seen elements of Coward's old mentor, Mrs Astley Cooper, and her set in the characters of the family. By the 1970s the play was recognised as a classic, described in The Times as a "dazzling achievement; like The Importance of Being Earnest
, it is pure comedy with no mission but to delight, and it depends purely on the interplay of characters, not on elaborate comic machinery." By June 1925 Coward had four shows running in the West End: The Vortex, Fallen Angels, Hay Fever and On With the Dance
. Coward was turning out numerous plays and acting in his own works and others'. Soon, his frantic pace caught up with him, and he collapsed on stage in 1926 while starring in The Constant Nymph and had to take an extended rest in Hawaii.
Other Coward works produced in the mid-to-late 1920s included the plays Easy Virtue
(1926), a drama about a divorcée's clash with her snobbish in-laws; The Queen Was in the Parlour
, a Ruritanian romance
; This Was a Man
(1926), a comedy about adulterous aristocrats; The Marquise (1927), an eighteenth-century costume drama; Home Chat (1927), a comedy about a married woman's fidelity; and the revues On With the Dance
(1925) and This Year of Grace
(1928). None of these shows has entered the regular repertoire, but the last introduced one of Coward's best-known songs, "A Room with a View". His biggest failure in this period was the play Sirocco
(1927), which concerns free love among the wealthy. It starred Ivor Novello
, of whom Coward said, "the two most beautiful things in the world are Ivor's profile and my mind". Theatregoers hated the play, showing violent disapproval at the curtain calls and spitting at Coward as he left the theatre. Coward later said of this flop, "My first instinct was to leave England immediately, but this seemed too craven a move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in our minds to practically the entire population of the British Isles."
By then one of the world's highest-earning writers, with an annual income in 1929 of £50,000, Coward thrived during the Great Depression
, writing a succession of popular hits. These ranged from large-scale spectaculars to intimate comedies. Examples of the former were the operetta
Bitter Sweet
(1929), about a woman who elopes with her music teacher, and the historical extravaganza Cavalcade
(1931) at Drury Lane
, about thirty years in the lives of two families, which required a huge cast, gargantuan sets and a complex hydraulic stage. Its 1933 film adaptation won the Academy Award for best picture. Coward's intimate-scale hits of the period included Private Lives
(1930) and Design for Living
(1932). In Private Lives, Coward starred alongside his most famous stage partner, Gertrude Lawrence
, together with the young Laurence Olivier
. It was a highlight of both Coward's and Lawrence's career, selling out in both London and New York. Coward disliked long runs, and after this he made a rule of starring in a play for no more than three months at any venue. Design for Living, written for Alfred Lunt
and Lynn Fontanne
, was so risqué, with its theme of bisexuality and a ménage à trois, that Coward premiered it in New York, knowing that it would not survive the censor in London.
In 1933, Coward wrote, directed and co-starred with French singer Yvonne Printemps
in both London and New York productions of an operetta, Conversation Piece
(1933). Coward next wrote, directed and co-starred with Lawrence in Tonight at 8:30
(1936), a cycle of ten short plays that were shuffled to make a different playbill of three plays each night. One of these plays, Still Life
, was expanded into the 1945 David Lean
film Brief Encounter
. Tonight at 8:30 was followed by a musical, Operette
(1937), from which the most famous number is "The Stately Homes of England", and a revue entitled Set to Music
(1938, a Broadway
version of his 1932 London revue, Words and Music). Coward's last pre-war plays were This Happy Breed
, a drama about a working-class family, and Present Laughter
, a comic self-caricature with an egomaniac actor as the central character. These were first performed in 1942, although they were both written in 1939.
Between 1929 and 1936, Coward recorded many of 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 comic "Mad Dogs and Englishmen
" from Words and Music, and "Mrs Worthington".
wished to award Coward a knighthood for his efforts, but was dissuaded by Winston Churchill
. Mindful of the public view of Coward's flamboyant lifestyle, Churchill used as his reason Coward's ₤200 fine for contravening currency regulations in 1941.
Had the Germans invaded Britain, Coward was scheduled to be arrested and killed, as he was in The Black Book
along with other figures such as Virginia Woolf
, Paul Robeson
, Bertrand Russell
, C. P. Snow
and H. G. Wells
. When this came to light after the war, Coward wrote: "If anyone had told me at that time I was high up on the Nazi blacklist, I should have laughed ... I remember Rebecca West
, who was one of the many who shared the honour with me, sent me a telegram which read: 'My dear – the people we should have been seen dead with'."
Churchill's view was that Coward would do more for the war effort by entertaining the troops and the home front than by intelligence work: "Go and sing to them when the guns are firing – that's your job!" Coward, though disappointed, followed this advice. He toured, acted and sang indefatigably in Europe, Africa, Asia and America. He wrote and recorded war-themed popular songs, including "London Pride
" and "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans
". His London home was wrecked by German bombs in 1941, and he took up temporary residence at the Savoy Hotel
. During one air raid on the area around the Savoy he joined Carroll Gibbons
and Judy Campbell
in impromptu cabaret to divert the captive guests from their fears. Another of Coward's wartime projects, as writer, star, composer and co-director (alongside David Lean), was the naval film drama In Which We Serve
. The film was popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was awarded an honorary certificate of merit
at the 1943 Academy Awards
ceremony. Coward played a naval captain, basing the character on his friend Lord Louis Mountbatten
. Lean went on to direct and adapt film versions of several Coward plays.
Coward's most enduring work from the war years was the hugely successful black comedy Blithe Spirit
(1941), about a novelist who researches the occult
and hires a medium. A séance brings back the ghost of his first wife, causing havoc for the novelist and his second wife. With 1,997 consecutive performances, it broke box-office records for the run of a West End comedy, and was also produced on Broadway, where its original run was 650 performances. The play was later filmed by David Lean. Coward toured during the war years in Blithe Spirit, alternating the piece with his comedy Present Laughter and his working-class drama This Happy Breed.
In Coward's Middle East Diary, he made several statements that offended many Americans. In particular, he commented that he was "less impressed by some of the mournful little Brooklyn
boys lying there in tears amid the alien corn with nothing worse than a bullet wound in the leg or a fractured arm". After protests from both The New York Times
and the Washington Post, the Foreign Office urged Coward not to visit the United States in January 1945. He did not return to America again during the war. In the aftermath of the war, Coward wrote an alternate history, Peace In Our Time
, a play depicting an England occupied by Nazi Germany
.
(1951) addresses the culture clash between an English aristocratic family and a Hollywood actress with matrimonial ambitions; South Sea Bubble
(1951) is a political comedy set in a British colony; Quadrille
(1952) is a drama about Victorian love and elopement; and Nude with Violin
(1956, starring John Gielgud
in London and Coward in New York) is a satire on modern art. A revue, Sigh No More
(1945), was a moderate success, but two musicals, Pacific 1860
(1946), a lavish South Seas
romance, and Ace of Clubs
(1949), set in a night club, were financial failures. In addition, his friends Charles Cochran and Gertrude Lawrence died in 1951 and 1952, respectively. Despite his disappointments during this period, Coward maintained a high public profile; his performance as King Magnus in Shaw's The Apple Cart
for the Coronation season of 1953, co-starring Margaret Leighton, received much coverage in the press, and his cabaret act, honed during his wartime tours entertaining the troops, was a supreme success, first in London at the Café de Paris
, and later in Las Vegas
. The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan wrote:
In 1955, Coward's cabaret act at Las Vegas, recorded live for the gramophone, and released as Noël Coward at Las Vegas
was so successful that CBS
engaged him to write and direct a series of three 90-minute television specials for the 1955–1956 season. The first of these, Together With Music, paired Coward with Mary Martin
, featuring him in many of the numbers from his Las Vegas act. It was followed by productions of Blithe Spirit in which he starred with Claudette Colbert
, Lauren Bacall
and Mildred Natwick
and This Happy Breed with Edna Best and Roger Moore
. Despite excellent reviews, the audience viewing figures were moderate.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Coward continued to write musicals and plays. After the Ball
, his 1953 adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan
, was the last musical he debuted in the West End; his last two musicals premiered on Broadway. Sail Away
(1961), set on a luxury cruise liner, was Coward's most successful post-war musical, with productions in America, Britain and Australia. The Girl Who Came to Supper
, a musical adaptation of The Sleeping Prince (1963), ran for only three months. He directed the successful 1964 Broadway musical adaptation of Blithe Spirit, called High Spirits
. Coward's late plays include a farce, Look After Lulu!
(1959), and a tragi-comic study of old age, Waiting in the Wings
(1960), both of which were successful despite "critical disdain". Coward argued that the primary purpose of a play was to entertain, and he made no attempt at modernism, which he felt was boring to the audience although fascinating to the critics. His comic novel, Pomp and Circumstance (1960), about life in a tropical British colony, met with more critical success. Coward's final stage success came with Suite in Three Keys (1966), a trilogy set in a hotel penthouse suite. He wrote it as his swan song as a stage actor: "I would like to act once more before I fold my bedraggled wings." The trilogy gained glowing reviews and did good box office business in the UK. In one of the three plays, A Song at Twilight
, Coward abandoned his customary reticence on the subject and played an explicitly homosexual character. The daring piece earned Coward new critical praise. He intended to star in the trilogy on Broadway but was too ill to travel. Only two of the Suite in Three Keys plays were performed in New York, with the title changed to Noël Coward in Two Keys, starring Hume Cronyn
.
Coward won new popularity in several notable films later in his career, such as Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Our Man in Havana
(1959), Bunny Lake is Missing
(1965), Boom!
(1968) and The Italian Job
(1969). Stage and film opportunities he turned down in the 1950s included an invitation to compose a musical version of Pygmalion
(two years before My Fair Lady
was written), and offers of the roles of the king in the original stage production of The King and I
, and Colonel Nicholson in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai
. Invited to play the title role in the 1962 film Dr. No
, he replied, "No, no, no, a thousand times, no." In the same year, he turned down the role of Humbert Humbert in Lolita
, saying, "At my time of life the film story would be logical if the 12-year-old heroine was a sweet little old lady."
In the mid-1960s and early 1970s successful productions of his 1920s and 1930s plays, and new revues celebrating his music, including Oh, Coward!
on Broadway and Cowardy Custard
in London, revived Coward's popularity and critical reputation. He dubbed this comeback "Dad's Renaissance". This began with a hit 1963 revival of Private Lives in London and then New York. Invited to direct Hay Fever with Edith Evans
at the National Theatre
, he wrote in 1964, "I am thrilled and flattered and frankly a little flabbergasted that the National Theatre should have had the curious perceptiveness to choose a very early play of mine and to give it a cast that could play the Albanian telephone directory."
Other examples of "Dad's Renaissance" included a 1968 Off Broadway production of Private Lives at the Theatre de Lys
starring Elaine Stritch
, Lee Bowman
and Betsy von Furstenberg
, and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly
. Despite this impressive cast, Coward's popularity had risen so high that the theatre poster for the production used an Al Hirschfeld
caricature of Coward (pictured) instead of an image of the production or its stars. The illustration captures how Coward's image had changed by the 1960s: he was no longer seen as the smooth 1930s sophisticate, but as the doyen of the theatre. As The New Statesman
wrote in 1964: "Who would have thought the landmarks of the Sixties would include the emergence of Noël Coward as the grand old man of British drama? There he was one morning, flipping verbal tiddlywinks with reporters about "Dad's Renaissance"; the next he was... beside Forster
, T. S. Eliot
and the OMs
, demonstrably the greatest living English playwright." Time magazine wrote that "in the '60s... his best work, with its inspired inconsequentiality, seemed to exert not only a period charm but charm, period."
and, during the run of Suite in Three Keys, he struggled with bouts of memory loss. This also affected his work in The Italian Job
, and he retired from acting immediately afterwards. He died at his home, Firefly Estate
, in Jamaica
on 26 March 1973 of heart failure and was buried three days later on the brow of Firefly Hill, overlooking the north coast of the island. A memorial service was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields
in London on 29 May 1973, for which the Poet Laureate
, John Betjeman
, wrote and delivered a poem in Coward's honour, John Gielgud
and Laurence Olivier
read verse and Yehudi Menuhin
played Bach
. On 28 March 1984 a memorial stone was unveiled by the Queen Mother
in Poets' Corner
, Westminster Abbey
. Thanked by Coward's partner, Graham Payn
, for attending, the Queen Mother replied, "I came because he was my friend."
Coward was knighted
in 1969 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
. He received a Tony Award
for lifetime achievement.
The Noël Coward Theatre
in St Martin's Lane, originally opened in 1903 as the New Theatre and later called the Albery, was renamed in his honour after extensive refurbishment, re-opening on 1 June 2006. A statue of Coward was unveiled by the Queen Mother in the foyer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
in 1998. There are also sculptures of Coward displayed in New York and Jamaica. In 2008 an exhibition devoted to Coward was mounted at the National Theatre in London. The exhibition was later hosted by the Museum of Performance & Design
in San Francisco and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
in Beverly Hills, California.
's description in 1953 was close to an acknowledgment of Coward's sexuality: "Forty years ago he was Slightly in Peter Pan, and you might say that he has been wholly in Peter Pan ever since. No private considerations have been allowed to deflect the drive of his career; like Gielgud
and Rattigan
, like the late Ivor Novello
, he is a congenital bachelor."
Coward firmly believed his private business was not for public discussion, considering "any sexual activities when over-advertised" to be tasteless. Even in the 1960s, Coward refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly, wryly observing, "There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don't know." Despite this reticence, he encouraged his secretary Cole Lesley to write a frank biography once Coward was safely dead. Details of his sexual life emerged; for instance, from his youth Coward had a distaste for penetrative sex
.
Coward's most important relationship, which began in the mid-1940s and lasted until his death, was with the South African stage and film actor Graham Payn
. Coward featured Payn in several of his London productions. Payn later co-edited with Sheridan Morley
the collection of Coward's diaries, published in 1982. Coward's other relationships included the playwright Keith Winter, actors Louis Hayward
and Alan Webb
, his manager John (Jack) C. Wilson (1899–1961) and the composer Ned Rorem
, who published details of their relationship in his diaries. Coward had a 19-year friendship with Prince George, Duke of Kent
, but biographers differ on whether it was platonic. According to Payn, Coward maintained that it was simply a friendship. Coward said, on the duke's death, "I suddenly find that I loved him more than I knew."
Coward maintained close friendships with many women, including the actress and author Esmé Wynne-Tyson
, his first collaborator and constant correspondent; Gladys Calthrop
, who designed sets and costumes for many of his works; his secretary and close confidante Lorn Loraine; the actresses Gertrude Lawrence
, Joyce Carey
and Judy Campbell; and "his loyal and lifelong amitié amoureuse", Marlene Dietrich
.
In his profession, Coward was widely admired and loved for his generosity and kindness to those who fell on hard times. Stories are told of the unobtrusive way in which he relieved the needs or paid the debts of old theatrical acquaintances who had no claim on him. Coward was the president of The Actors' Orphanage, which was supported by the theatrical industry. In that capacity, he befriended the young Peter Collinson
, who was in the care of the orphanage. He became Collinson's godfather and helped him to get started in show business. When Collinson was a successful director, he invited Coward to play a role in The Italian Job
. Graham Payn also played a small role in the film.
In the 1950s, Coward left the UK for tax reasons, receiving harsh criticism in the press. He first settled in Bermuda
but later bought houses in Jamaica and Switzerland (in the village of Les Avants
, near Montreux
), which remained his homes for the rest of his life. His expatriate neighbours and friends included Joan Sutherland
, David Niven
, Richard Burton
and Elizabeth Taylor
, and Julie Andrews
and Blake Edwards
in Switzerland and Ian Fleming
and his wife Ann in Jamaica. Coward was a witness at the Flemings' wedding, but his 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
for its policy of appeasing
Nazi Germany, and he differed sharply with Winston Churchill over the abdication crisis
of 1936. Whereas Churchill supported Edward VIII's wish to marry "his cutie", Wallis Simpson, Coward thought the king irresponsible, telling Churchill, "England doesn't wish for a Queen Cutie." Coward disliked propaganda in plays: "The theatre is a wonderful place, a house of strange enchantment, a temple of illusion. What it most emphatically is not and never will be is a scruffy, ill-lit, fumed-oak drill hall serving as a temporary soap box for political propaganda." Nevertheless, his own views sometimes surfaced in his plays: both Cavalcade and This Happy Breed are "overtly Conservative political plays written in the Brechtian
epic manner." In religion, Coward was agnostic. He wrote of his views, "Do I believe in God? I can't say No and I can't say Yes, To me it's anybody's guess."
Coward spelled his first name with the diæresis ("I didn't put the dots over the 'e' in Noël. The language did. Otherwise it's not Noël but Nool!"). The press and many book publishers failed to follow suit, and his name was printed as 'Noel' in The Times, The Observer and other contemporary newspapers and books.
The papers of Noël Coward are held in the University of Birmingham
Special Collections.
"Why", asked Coward, "am I always expected to wear a dressing-gown, smoke cigarettes in a long holder
and say 'Darling, how wonderful'?" The answer lay in Coward's assiduous cultivation of a carefully crafted image. As a suburban boy who had been taken up by the upper classes he rapidly acquired the taste for high life: "I am determined to travel through life first class." He first wore a dressing gown onstage in The Vortex and used the fashion in several of his other famous plays, including Private Lives and Present Laughter. In connection with the National Theatre's 2008 exhibition, The Independent
commented, "His famous silk, polka-dot dressing gown and elegant cigarette holder both seem to belong to another era. But 2008 is proving to be the year that Britain falls in love with Noël Coward all over again."
As soon as he achieved success he began polishing the Coward image: an early press photograph showed him sitting up in bed holding a cigarette holder: "I looked like an advanced Chinese decadent in the last phases of dope." Soon after that, Coward wrote, "I took to wearing coloured turtle-necked jerseys, actually more for comfort than for effect, and soon I was informed by my evening paper that I had started a fashion. I believe that to a certain extent this was true; at any rate, during the ensuing months I noticed more and more of our seedier West-End chorus boys parading about London in them." He soon became more cautious about overdoing the flamboyance, advising Cecil Beaton
to tone down his outfits: "It is important not to let the public have a loophole to lampoon you." However, Coward was happy to generate publicity from his lifestyle. In 1969, he told Time magazine, "I acted up like crazy. I did everything that was expected of me. Part of the job." Time concluded, "Coward's greatest single gift has not been writing or composing, not acting or directing, but projecting a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise."
Coward's distinctive clipped diction arose from his childhood: his mother was deaf and Coward developed his staccato style of speaking to make it easier for her to hear what he was saying; it also helped him eradicate a slight lisp. His nickname, "The Master", "started as a joke and became true", according to Coward. It was used of him from the 1920s onwards. Coward himself made light of it: when asked by a journalist why he was known as "The Master", he replied, "Oh, you know – Jack of all trades, master of none." He could, however, joke about his own immodesty: "My sense of my importance to the world is relatively small. On the other hand, my sense of my own importance to myself is tremendous." When a Time interviewer apologised, "I hope you haven't been bored having to go through all these interviews for your [70th] birthday, having to answer the same old questions about yourself", Coward rejoined, "Not at all. I'm fascinated by the subject."
said, "Mr Coward is his own invention and contribution to this century. Anyone who cannot see that should keep well away from the theatre." Kenneth Tynan
wrote in 1964, "Even the youngest of us will know, in fifty years' time, exactly what we mean by 'a very Noel Coward sort of person'." In praise of Coward's versatility, Lord Mountbatten
said, in a tribute on Coward's seventieth birthday, "There are probably greater painters than Noël, greater novelists than Noël, greater librettists, greater composers of music, greater singers, greater dancers, greater comedians, greater tragedians, greater stage producers, greater film directors, greater cabaret artists, greater TV stars. If there are, they are fourteen different people. Only one man combined all fourteen different labels – The Master."
Tynan's was the first generation of critics to realise that Coward's plays might enjoy more than ephemeral success. In the 1930s, Cyril Connolly
wrote that they were "written in the most topical and perishable way imaginable, the cream in them turns sour overnight". What seemed daring in the 1920s and 1930s came to seem old-fashioned in the 1950s, and Coward never replicated the success of his pre-war plays. By the 1960s, however, it was becoming clear that underneath the witty dialogue and the Art Deco
glamour of the inter-war years, Coward's best plays also dealt with recognisable people and familiar relationships. By the time of his death, The Times was writing of him, "None of the great figures of the English theatre has been more versatile than he", and the paper ranked his plays in "the classical tradition of Congreve
, Sheridan, Wilde
and Shaw
".
A symposium published in 1999 to mark the centenary of Coward's birth listed some of his major productions scheduled for the year in Britain and North America, including Ace of Clubs, After the Ball, Blithe Spirit, Cavalcade, Easy Virtue, Hay Fever, Present Laughter, Private Lives, Sail Away, A Song at Twilight, The Young Idea and Waiting in the Wings, with stars including Lauren Bacall
, Rosemary Harris
, Ian McKellen
, Corin Redgrave
, Vanessa Redgrave
and Elaine Stritch
. In another tribute, Tim Rice
said of Coward's songs: "The wit and wisdom of Noël Coward's lyrics will be as lively and contemporary in 100 years' time as they are today", and many have been recorded by Paul McCartney
, Sting, Elton John
, Robbie Williams
, Pet Shop Boys
, The Divine Comedy
, Vic Reeves
, Ian Bostridge
, Damon Albarn
, Michael Nyman
, and others.
Coward's music and writings and his characteristic voice and style have been widely parodied and imitated, for instance by Jonathan Meese
and in Monty Python
, Round the Horne
and Privates on Parade
. Coward has frequently been depicted as a character in plays, films, television and radio shows, for example, in the 1969 Julie Andrews
film Star!
(in which Coward was portrayed by his godson, Daniel Massey
), the award-winning BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart
and a BBC Radio 4 series. On stage, characters based on Coward have included Beverly Carlton in the 1939 Broadway play The Man Who Came to Dinner
. A play about the friendship between Coward and Marlene Dietrich
, called Lunch with Marlene
, by Chris Burgess, ran at the New End Theatre
in 2008. The second act presents a musical revue, including Coward songs such as "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans".
Coward was an early admirer of the plays of Harold Pinter
, and backed Pinter's film version of The Caretaker
with a £1,000 investment. Some critics have detected Coward's influence in Pinter's plays. Tynan compared Pinter's "elliptical patter" to Coward's "stylised dialogue". Pinter returned the compliment by directing the National Theatre's revival of Blithe Spirit in 1976.
" (from Words and Music) as Coward's most popular song, followed, in order, by:
In the society's second tier of favourites are:
As a songwriter, Coward was deeply influenced by Gilbert and Sullivan
, although he shared a dislike of their works common in his generation. He recalled: "I was born into a generation that still took light music seriously. The lyrics and melodies of Gilbert and Sullivan were hummed and strummed into my consciousness at an early age. My father sang them, my mother played them... my aunts and uncles, who were legion, sang them singly and in unison at the slightest provocation." His colleague Terence Rattigan
wrote that as a lyricist Coward was "the best of his kind since W. S. Gilbert
."
Films in which he participated as actor, screenwriter, director or producer are as follows:
Portals
Misc
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".
Born in Teddington
Teddington
Teddington is a suburban area in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south west London, on the north bank of the River Thames, between Hampton Wick and Twickenham. It stretches inland from the River Thames to Bushy Park...
, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever
Hay Fever
Hay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. Laura Hope Crews played the role in New York...
, Private Lives
Private Lives
Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...
, Design for Living
Design for Living
Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
, Present Laughter
Present Laughter
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
and Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet
Bitter Sweet
Bitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts written by Noël Coward and first produced in 1929 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. It ran for a very successful 967 performances....
and comic revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
s), poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works.
At the outbreak of World War II, Coward volunteered for war work, running the British propaganda office in Paris. He also worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award
Academy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
in 1943 for his naval film drama, In Which We Serve
In Which We Serve
In Which We Serve is a 1942 British patriotic war film directed by David Lean and Noël Coward. It was made during the Second World War with the assistance of the Ministry of Information ....
, and was knighted in 1969. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as a cabaret performer, performing his own songs, such as "Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Mad Dogs and Englishmen (song)
"Mad Dogs and Englishmen" is a song written by Noël Coward and first performed in The Third Little Show at the Music Box Theatre, New York, on 1 June 1931, by Beatrice Lillie. The following year it was used in the revue Words and Music and also released in a "studio version"...
", "London Pride
London Pride (song)
"London Pride" is a song written and composed by Noël Coward.- Composition :Coward wrote "London Pride" in the spring of 1941, during the Blitz. According to his own account, he was sitting on a seat on a platform of a damaged railway station in London, and was "overwhelmed by a wave of sentimental...
" and "I Went to a Marvellous Party
I Went to a Marvellous Party
"I Went to a Marvellous Party" is a song with words and music by Noël Coward, written in 1938, and included in the review Set to Music. Although a melody exists, the text is most often recited over a piano accompaniment...
".
His plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. Coward did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality, but it was discussed candidly after his death by biographers including Graham Payn
Graham Payn
Graham Payn was a South African-born English actor and singer, also known for being the life partner of the playwright Noël Coward. Beginning as a boy soprano, Payn later made a career as a singer and actor in the works of Coward and others...
, his long-time partner, 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
Noël Coward Theatre
The Noël Coward Theatre, formerly known as the Albery Theatre, is a West End theatre on St. Martin's Lane in the City of Westminster. It opened on 12 March 1903 as the New Theatre and was built by Sir Charles Wyndham behind Wyndham's Theatre which was completed in 1899. The building was designed by...
in his honour in 2006.
Early years
Coward was born in 1899 in TeddingtonTeddington
Teddington is a suburban area in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south west London, on the north bank of the River Thames, between Hampton Wick and Twickenham. It stretches inland from the River Thames to Bushy Park...
, England, a suburb of London. His parents were Arthur Sabin Coward (1856–1937), a piano salesman, and Violet Agnes Coward (1863–1954), daughter of Henry Gordon Veitch, a captain and surveyor in the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. Noël Coward was the second of their three sons, the eldest of whom had died in 1898 at the age of six. Coward's father lacked ambition and industry, and family finances were often poor. Coward was bitten by the performing bug early and appeared in amateur concerts by the age of seven. He attended the Chapel Royal
Chapel Royal
A Chapel Royal is a body of priests and singers who serve the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they are called upon to do so.-Austria:...
Choir School as a young child. He had little formal schooling but was a voracious reader.
Encouraged by his ambitious mother, who sent him to a dance academy in London, Coward's first professional engagement was in January 1911 as Prince Mussel in the children's play The Goldfish. In Present Indicative, his first volume of memoirs, Coward wrote:
Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...
in London's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. In 1912 Coward also appeared at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
in An Autumn Idyll (as a dancer in the ballet) and at the London Coliseum
Coliseum Theatre
The London Coliseum is an opera house and major performing venue on St. Martin's Lane, central London. It is one of London's largest and best equipped theatres and opened in 1904, designed by theatrical architect Frank Matcham , for impresario Oswald Stoll...
in A Little Fowl Play, by Harold Owen, in which Hawtrey starred. Italia Conti
Italia Conti Academy
The Italia Conti Academy is a theatre arts training school based in London. It was founded in 1911 by actress Italia Conti...
engaged Coward to appear at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre
Liverpool Playhouse
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...
in 1913, and in the same year he was cast as the Lost Boy Slightly in Peter Pan
Peter and Wendy
Peter and Wendy, published in 1911, is the novelisation by J. M. Barrie of his most famous play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up...
. He reappeared in Peter Pan the following year, and in 1915 he was again in Where the Rainbow Ends. He worked with other child actors in this period, including Hermione Gingold
Hermione Gingold
Hermione Gingold was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deepening voice, a result of vocal nodes which her mother reportedly encouraged her not to remove. She starred on stage, on radio, in films, on...
(whose mother threatened to turn "that naughty boy" out); Fabia Drake
Fabia Drake
Fabia Drake OBE was an English actress whose professional career spanned almost 73 years during the 20th century.Drake was born in Herne Bay, Kent...
; Esmé Wynne
Esmé Wynne-Tyson
Esmé Wynne-Tyson was an English actress and writer. As a child she acted in West End plays, and became a close friend, confidante, and collaborator of Noël Coward. She left the stage in 1920 and wrote a series of novels. A growing interest in religious and moral matters led her into non-fiction...
, with whom he collaborated on his earliest plays; Alfred Willmore, later known as Micheál MacLíammóir
Micheál MacLiammóir
Micheál Mac Liammóir , born Alfred Willmore, was an English-born Irish actor, dramatist, impresario, writer, poet and painter. Mac Liammóir was born to a Protestant family living in the Kensal Green neighbourhood of London....
; and Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
who, Coward wrote in his memoirs, "gave me an orange and told me a few mildly dirty stories, and I loved her from then onwards."
Philip Streatfeild
James Philip Sydney Streatfeild was an English painter, and bohemian. Born in Clapham his father was a bank clerk, and grandfather the vicar of East Ham, Essex, he studied at art college. A successful artist, he was acquainted with London society and was a friend of Robbie Ross, patron of the arts...
, a society painter. Streatfeild introduced him to Mrs Astley Cooper and her high society friends. Streatfeild died from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in 1915, but Mrs Astley Cooper continued to encourage her late friend's protégé, who remained a frequent guest at her estate, Hambleton Hall.
Coward continued to perform during most of World War I, appearing at the Prince of Wales's Theatre
Scala Theatre
The Scala Theatre was a theatre in London, sited on Charlotte Street, off Tottenham Court Road, in the London Borough of Camden. The first theatre on the site opened in 1772, and the theatre was demolished in 1969, after being destroyed by fire...
in 1916 in The Happy Family and on tour with Amy Brandon Thomas
Amy Brandon Thomas
Amy Marguerite Brandon Thomas was an English film and stage actor. She was the daughter of the playwright Brandon Thomas. She is also known as Amy Brandon-Thomas.-Life and career:...
's company in Charley's Aunt
Charley's Aunt
Charley's Aunt is a farce in three acts written by Brandon Thomas. It broke all historic records for plays of any kind, with an original London run of 1,466 performances....
. In 1917, he appeared in The Saving Grace, a comedy produced by Hawtrey. Coward recalled in his memoirs, "My part was reasonably large and I was really quite good in it, owing to the kindness and care of Hawtrey's direction. He took endless trouble with me... and taught me during those two short weeks many technical points of comedy acting which I use to this day."
In 1918, Coward was drafted into the Artists Rifles but was assessed as unfit for active service because of a tubercular tendency, and he was discharged on health grounds after nine months. That year he appeared in the D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
film Hearts of the World
Hearts of the World
Hearts of the World is a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith, a wartime propaganda classic that was filmed on location in Britain and near the Western Front, made at the request of the British Government to change the neutral mindset of the American public.-Plot:Two families live next to one...
in an uncredited role. He sold short stories to several magazines to help his family financially. He also began writing plays, collaborating on the first two (Ida Collaborates (1917) and Women and Whisky (1918)) with his friend Esmé Wynne. His first solo effort as a playwright was The Rat Trap
The Rat Trap
The Rat Trap is a four act drama by Noel Coward, his 'first really serious attempt at psychological conflict,' written when he was only 18....
(1918) which was eventually produced at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, in October 1926. During these years, he met Lorn McNaughtan, who became his private secretary and served in that capacity for more than forty years, until her death.
Inter-war successes
In 1920, at the age of 20, Coward starred in his own play, the light comedy I'll Leave It to You. After a tryout in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, it opened in London at the New Theatre (renamed the Noël Coward Theatre
Noël Coward Theatre
The Noël Coward Theatre, formerly known as the Albery Theatre, is a West End theatre on St. Martin's Lane in the City of Westminster. It opened on 12 March 1903 as the New Theatre and was built by Sir Charles Wyndham behind Wyndham's Theatre which was completed in 1899. The building was designed by...
in 2006), his first full-length play in the West End. Neville Cardus
Neville Cardus
Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus CBE was an English writer and critic, best known for his writing on music and cricket. For many years, he wrote for The Manchester Guardian. He was untrained in music, and his style of criticism was subjective, romantic and personal, in contrast with his critical...
's praise in The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
was grudging. Notices for the London production were mixed, but encouraging. The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
commented, "Mr Coward... has a sense of comedy, and if he can overcome a tendency to smartness, he will probably produce a good play one of these days." The Times, on the other hand, was enthusiastic: "It is a remarkable piece of work from so young a head – spontaneous, light, and always 'brainy'."
The Knight of the Burning Pestle
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play by Francis Beaumont, first performed in 1607 and first published in a quarto in 1613. It is notable as the first whole parody play in English...
in Birmingham
Birmingham Repertory Theatre
Birmingham Repertory Theatre is a theatre and theatre company based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England...
and then London. He did not enjoy the role, finding Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher....
and his sometime collaborator John Fletcher
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
"two of the dullest Elizabethan writers ever known ... I had a very, very long part, but I was very, very bad at it". Nevertheless, The Manchester Guardian thought that Coward got the best out of the role, and The Times called the play "the jolliest thing in London".
Coward completed a one-act satire, The Better Half, about a man's relationship with two women. It had a short run at The Little Theatre, London, in 1922. The critic St. John Ervine
St. John Greer Ervine
St. John Greer Ervine was an Irish author, writer, critic and dramatist. He wrote the plays Anthony and Anna in 1926 and The First Mrs. Fraser in 1929. He was born in Belfast, Ireland but moved to London while in his teens. His 1956 biography George Bernard Shaw was awarded the James Tait Black...
wrote of the piece, "When Mr Coward has learned that tea-table chitter-chatter had better remain the prerogative of women he will write more interesting plays than he now seems likely to write." The play was thought to be lost until a typescript was found in 2007 in the archive of the Lord Chamberlain's Office
Lord Chamberlain's Office
The Lord Chamberlain's Office is a department within the British Royal Household. It is presently concerned with matters such as protocol, state visits, investitures, garden parties, the State Opening of Parliament, royal weddings and funerals. For example, in April 2005 it organised the wedding of...
, the official censor of stage plays in the UK until 1968.
In 1921, Coward made his first trip to America, hoping to interest producers there in his plays. Although he had little luck, he found the Broadway theatre stimulating. He absorbed its smartness and pace into his own work, which brought him his first real success as a playwright with The Young Idea. The play opened in London in 1923, after a provincial tour, with Coward in one of the leading roles. The reviews were good: "Mr Noël Coward calls his brilliant little farce a 'comedy of youth', and so it is. And youth pervaded the Savoy last night, applauding everything so boisterously that you felt, not without exhilaration, that you were in the midst of a 'rag'." One critic, who noted the influence of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
on Coward's writing, thought more highly of the play than of Coward's newly found fans: "I was unfortunately wedged in the centre of a group of his more exuberant friends who greeted each of his sallies with 'That's a Noëlism!'" The play ran in London from 1 February to 24 March 1923, after which Coward turned to revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
, co-writing and performing in André Charlot
André Charlot
André Eugene Maurice Charlot was a French impresario known primarily for the highly successful musical revues he staged in London between 1912 and 1937...
's London Calling!
London Calling!
London Calling! was a musical revue, produced by André Charlot with music and lyrics by Noël Coward, which opened at London's Duke of York's Theatre on September 4, 1923. It is famous for being Noël Coward's first publicly produced musical work and for the use of a 3-D stereoscopic shadowgraph as...
The Vortex
The Vortex is a play by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The story focuses on sexual vanity and drug abuse among the upper classes. The play was Coward's first great commercial success....
. The story is about a nymphomaniac socialite and her cocaine-addicted son (played by Coward). Some saw the drugs as a mask for homosexuality, while Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
later described it as "a jeremiad
Jeremiad
A jeremiad is a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in poetry, in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent downfall....
against narcotics with dialogue that sounds today not so much stilted as high-heeled". The Vortex was considered shocking in its day for its depiction of sexual vanity and drug abuse among the upper classes. Its notoriety and fiery performances attracted large audiences, justifying a move from a small suburban theatre to a larger one in the West End. Coward, still having trouble finding producers, raised the money to produce the play himself. During the run of The Vortex, Coward met Jack Wilson
John C. Wilson
John C. Wilson was an American theatre director and producer.-Early life:Born in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, Wilson started out his working life as a stockbroker.-Career:...
, an American stockbroker (later a director and producer), who became his business manager and lover. Wilson used his position to steal from Coward, but the playwright was in love and accepted both the larceny and Wilson's heavy drinking.
The success of The Vortex in both London and America caused a great demand for new Coward plays. In 1925 he premiered Fallen Angels
Fallen Angels (play)
Fallen Angels is a play by British actor and playwright Noel Coward that opened at the Globe Theatre in 1925, starring Tallulah Bankhead.Cast of the original 1927 Broadway production included:...
, a three-act comedy that amused and shocked audiences with the spectacle of two middle-aged women slowly getting drunk while awaiting the arrival of their mutual lover. Hay Fever
Hay Fever
Hay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. Laura Hope Crews played the role in New York...
, the first of Coward's plays to gain an enduring place in the mainstream theatrical repertoire, also appeared in 1925. It is a comedy about four egocentric members of an artistic family who casually invite acquaintances to their country house for the weekend and bemuse and enrage each other's guests. Some writers have seen elements of Coward's old mentor, Mrs Astley Cooper, and her set in the characters of the family. By the 1970s the play was recognised as a classic, described in The Times as a "dazzling achievement; like The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
, it is pure comedy with no mission but to delight, and it depends purely on the interplay of characters, not on elaborate comic machinery." By June 1925 Coward had four shows running in the West End: The Vortex, Fallen Angels, Hay Fever and On With the Dance
On With the Dance (musical)
This article is about the 1925 musical revue. For the 1920 film, see On with the Dance . For the 1975 Upstairs, Downstairs episode, see On With the Dance....
. Coward was turning out numerous plays and acting in his own works and others'. Soon, his frantic pace caught up with him, and he collapsed on stage in 1926 while starring in The Constant Nymph and had to take an extended rest in Hawaii.
Other Coward works produced in the mid-to-late 1920s included the plays Easy Virtue
Easy Virtue (play)
Easy Virtue is a three-act play by Noël Coward. He wrote it in 1924 when he was 25 years old, and it is his 16th play. The play had a successful first run in New York in 1925 and then opened in London in 1926...
(1926), a drama about a divorcée's clash with her snobbish in-laws; The Queen Was in the Parlour
The Queen Was in the Parlour
The Queen Was in the Parlour: a romance in three acts is a play by the English writer Noel Coward. Belonging to the Ruritanian romance genre, its title is drawn from a line in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence...
, a Ruritanian romance
Ruritanian Romance
A Ruritanian Romance is a story set in a fictional country, usually in Central or Eastern Europe, such as the Ruritania that gave the genre its name...
; This Was a Man
This Was a Man
This Was A Man is a play in three acts by Noel Coward. It deals with the adulterous affairs of aristocrats. Its main characters are Edward Churct, a successful modern portrait painter and his wife Carol whose "vivid personality is composed of a minimum of intellect and a maximum of sex"...
(1926), a comedy about adulterous aristocrats; The Marquise (1927), an eighteenth-century costume drama; Home Chat (1927), a comedy about a married woman's fidelity; and the revues On With the Dance
On With the Dance (musical)
This article is about the 1925 musical revue. For the 1920 film, see On with the Dance . For the 1975 Upstairs, Downstairs episode, see On With the Dance....
(1925) and This Year of Grace
This Year of Grace
This Year of Grace is a revue with a book, music, and lyrics by Noël Coward.It opened in London on March 22, 1928 at the London Pavilion and ran nearly ten months, with a cast featuring Sonnie Hale, Maisie Gay, Jessie Matthews, Sheilah Graham and Tilly Losch among others. Doris Zinkeisen was one of...
(1928). None of these shows has entered the regular repertoire, but the last introduced one of Coward's best-known songs, "A Room with a View". His biggest failure in this period was the play Sirocco
Sirocco (play)
Sirocco is a play, in four acts, by Noel Coward. It originally opened at Daly's Theatre, on November 24, 1927. The production was directed by Basil Dean.Ivor Novello was part of the original cast. The plot told a tale of free love among the wealthy....
(1927), which concerns free love among the wealthy. It starred Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
, of whom Coward said, "the two most beautiful things in the world are Ivor's profile and my mind". Theatregoers hated the play, showing violent disapproval at the curtain calls and spitting at Coward as he left the theatre. Coward later said of this flop, "My first instinct was to leave England immediately, but this seemed too craven a move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in our minds to practically the entire population of the British Isles."
By then one of the world's highest-earning writers, with an annual income in 1929 of £50,000, Coward thrived during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, writing a succession of popular hits. These ranged from large-scale spectaculars to intimate comedies. Examples of the former were the operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
Bitter Sweet
Bitter Sweet
Bitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts written by Noël Coward and first produced in 1929 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. It ran for a very successful 967 performances....
(1929), about a woman who elopes with her music teacher, and the historical extravaganza Cavalcade
Cavalcade (play)
Cavalcade is a play by Noël Coward. It focuses on three decades in the life of the Marryotts, a quintessential British family, and their servants, beginning at the start of the 20th century and ending on New Year's Eve in 1929....
(1931) at Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
, about thirty years in the lives of two families, which required a huge cast, gargantuan sets and a complex hydraulic stage. Its 1933 film adaptation won the Academy Award for best picture. Coward's intimate-scale hits of the period included Private Lives
Private Lives
Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...
(1930) and Design for Living
Design for Living
Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
(1932). In Private Lives, Coward starred alongside his most famous stage partner, Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
, together with the young Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
. It was a highlight of both Coward's and Lawrence's career, selling out in both London and New York. Coward disliked long runs, and after this he made a rule of starring in a play for no more than three months at any venue. Design for Living, written for Alfred Lunt
Alfred Lunt
Alfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for a long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...
and Lynn Fontanne
Lynn Fontanne
Lynn Fontanne was a British actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years. She teamed with her husband Alfred Lunt.She lived in the United States for more than 60 years but never relinquished her British citizenship. Lunt and Fontanne shared a special Tony Award in 1970...
, was so risqué, with its theme of bisexuality and a ménage à trois, that Coward premiered it in New York, knowing that it would not survive the censor in London.
In 1933, Coward wrote, directed and co-starred with French singer Yvonne Printemps
Yvonne Printemps
Yvonne Printemps was a French singer and actress.-Biography:Born Yvonne Wigniolle, she made her debut at the age of 12 in a revue at La Cigale in Paris. She was dancing at the Folies Bergère at age 13...
in both London and New York productions of an operetta, Conversation Piece
Conversation Piece (musical)
Conversation Piece, billed as "A Romantic Comedy with Music", is a musical written by Noel Coward. It premiered at His Majesty's Theatre, London, on 16 February 1934, and ran for 177 performances over five months...
(1933). Coward next wrote, directed and co-starred with Lawrence in Tonight at 8:30
Tonight at 8:30
Tonight at 8.30 is a cycle of ten one-act plays by Noël Coward. In the introduction to a published edition of the plays, Coward wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if,...
(1936), a cycle of ten short plays that were shuffled to make a different playbill of three plays each night. One of these plays, Still Life
Still Life (play)
Still Life is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. The play depicts the love affair of Alec and Laura across a twelve-month period...
, was expanded into the 1945 David Lean
David Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
film Brief Encounter
Brief Encounter
Brief Encounter is a 1945 British film directed by David Lean about the conventions of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love brings unexpectedly violent emotions. The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey...
. Tonight at 8:30 was followed by a musical, Operette
Operette (musical)
Operette is a musical in two acts composed, written and produced by Noël Coward. The show is a period piece, set in the year 1906 at the fictional "Jubilee" theatre. The story concerns an ageing Viennese operetta star, who warns the young ingenue not to marry a nobleman.The piece premiered in 1938...
(1937), from which the most famous number is "The Stately Homes of England", and a revue entitled Set to Music
Set to Music
Set to Music is a musical revue with sketches, music and lyrics by Noël Coward.Produced by John C. Wilson, the Broadway production opened on January 15, 1939 at the Music Box Theatre, where it ran for 129 performances...
(1938, a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
version of his 1932 London revue, Words and Music). Coward's last pre-war plays were This Happy Breed
This Happy Breed
This Happy Breed is a play by Noël Coward. It was written in 1939 but, because of the outbreak of World War II, it was not staged until 1942, when it was performed on alternating nights with another Coward play, Present Laughter. The two plays later alternated with Coward's Blithe Spirit...
, a drama about a working-class family, and Present Laughter
Present Laughter
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
, a comic self-caricature with an egomaniac actor as the central character. These were first performed in 1942, although they were both written in 1939.
Between 1929 and 1936, Coward recorded many of his best-known songs for His Master's Voice (HMV), now reissued on CD, including the romantic "I'll See You Again
I'll See You Again
"I'll See You Again" is a song by the English songwriter Sir Noel Coward.It originated in Coward's 1929 operetta Bitter Sweet, however soon emerged as a standard in its own right and became one of Coward's best known compositions...
" from Bitter Sweet, the comic "Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Mad Dogs and Englishmen (song)
"Mad Dogs and Englishmen" is a song written by Noël Coward and first performed in The Third Little Show at the Music Box Theatre, New York, on 1 June 1931, by Beatrice Lillie. The following year it was used in the revue Words and Music and also released in a "studio version"...
" from Words and Music, and "Mrs Worthington".
World War II
With the outbreak of World War II, Coward abandoned the theatre and sought official war work. After running the British propaganda office in Paris, where he concluded that "if the policy of His Majesty's Government is to bore the Germans to death I don't think we have time", he worked on behalf of British intelligence. His task was to use his celebrity to influence American public and political opinion in favour of helping Britain. He was frustrated by British press criticism of his foreign travel while his countrymen suffered at home, but he was unable to reveal that he was acting on behalf of the Secret Service. In 1942, George VIGeorge VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
wished to award Coward a knighthood for his efforts, but was dissuaded by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
. Mindful of the public view of Coward's flamboyant lifestyle, Churchill used as his reason Coward's ₤200 fine for contravening currency regulations in 1941.
Had the Germans invaded Britain, Coward was scheduled to be arrested and killed, as he was in The Black Book
The Black Book
The Black Book was the post-war name given to the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. , the list of prominent British to be arrested in the case of a successful invasion of Britain by Nazi Germany in World War II.-Background:The list was similar to earlier lists prepared by SS like the Special Prosecution...
along with other figures such as Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
, C. P. Snow
C. P. Snow
Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow of the City of Leicester CBE was an English physicist and novelist who also served in several important positions with the UK government...
and H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
. When this came to light after the war, Coward wrote: "If anyone had told me at that time I was high up on the Nazi blacklist, I should have laughed ... I remember Rebecca West
Rebecca West
Cicely Isabel Fairfield , known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public...
, who was one of the many who shared the honour with me, sent me a telegram which read: 'My dear – the people we should have been seen dead with'."
Churchill's view was that Coward would do more for the war effort by entertaining the troops and the home front than by intelligence work: "Go and sing to them when the guns are firing – that's your job!" Coward, though disappointed, followed this advice. He toured, acted and sang indefatigably in Europe, Africa, Asia and America. He wrote and recorded war-themed popular songs, including "London Pride
London Pride (song)
"London Pride" is a song written and composed by Noël Coward.- Composition :Coward wrote "London Pride" in the spring of 1941, during the Blitz. According to his own account, he was sitting on a seat on a platform of a damaged railway station in London, and was "overwhelmed by a wave of sentimental...
" and "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans
Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans
"Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans" was a satiric, patriotic song popular in Britain in World War II. It was composed by Noël Coward. Although popular when performed live the humour did not translate well over the wireless and caused some fuss, leading the BBC to ban the song.The refrain...
". His London home was wrecked by German bombs in 1941, and he took up temporary residence at the Savoy Hotel
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a hotel located on the Strand, in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the hotel opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by...
. During one air raid on the area around the Savoy he joined Carroll Gibbons
Carroll Gibbons
Carroll Gibbons was an American-born musician, bandleader and composer who made his career primarily in Britain. He was born and raised in Clinton, Massachusetts. In his late teens he travelled to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music...
and Judy Campbell
Judy Campbell
Judy Campbell was an English light comedy actress and occasional playwright, Noël Coward's muse. Her daughter is the actor and singer Jane Birkin, her son the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin, and among her grandchildren are the actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, the poet Anno...
in impromptu cabaret to divert the captive guests from their fears. Another of Coward's wartime projects, as writer, star, composer and co-director (alongside David Lean), was the naval film drama In Which We Serve
In Which We Serve
In Which We Serve is a 1942 British patriotic war film directed by David Lean and Noël Coward. It was made during the Second World War with the assistance of the Ministry of Information ....
. The film was popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was awarded an honorary certificate of merit
Academy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
at the 1943 Academy Awards
15th Academy Awards
The 15th Academy Awards was held in the Cocoanut Grove at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Best Picture honors went to the film Mrs. Miniver. The ceremony is most famous for the speech by the film’s Oscar-winning actress Greer Garson...
ceremony. Coward played a naval captain, basing the character on his friend Lord Louis Mountbatten
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
. Lean went on to direct and adapt film versions of several Coward plays.
Coward's most enduring work from the war years was the hugely successful black comedy Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
(1941), about a novelist who researches the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
and hires a medium. A séance brings back the ghost of his first wife, causing havoc for the novelist and his second wife. With 1,997 consecutive performances, it broke box-office records for the run of a West End comedy, and was also produced on Broadway, where its original run was 650 performances. The play was later filmed by David Lean. Coward toured during the war years in Blithe Spirit, alternating the piece with his comedy Present Laughter and his working-class drama This Happy Breed.
In Coward's Middle East Diary, he made several statements that offended many Americans. In particular, he commented that he was "less impressed by some of the mournful little Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
boys lying there in tears amid the alien corn with nothing worse than a bullet wound in the leg or a fractured arm". After protests from both The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and the Washington Post, the Foreign Office urged Coward not to visit the United States in January 1945. He did not return to America again during the war. In the aftermath of the war, Coward wrote an alternate history, Peace In Our Time
Peace In Our Time (play)
Peace In Our Time is a two-act play written in 1946 by Noel Coward. It has 8 scenes and a cast of 22 speaking roles. The play focuses on a small group of Londoners in a pub close to Sloane Square, in an alternate past where Germany won the Battle of Britain and successfully invaded and occupied...
, a play depicting an England occupied by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.
Post-war career
Coward's new plays after the war were moderately successful but failed to match the popularity of his pre-war hits. Relative ValuesRelative Values (play)
Relative Values is a three-act comedy by Noël Coward. A satire of snobbery in all its guises, it deals with the clash of cultures between Hollywood stars and the English aristocracy, and with "the ancient and inaccurate assumption that, as we are equal in the eyes of God, we should be equal in the...
(1951) addresses the culture clash between an English aristocratic family and a Hollywood actress with matrimonial ambitions; South Sea Bubble
South Sea Bubble (play)
South Sea Bubble is a play by British actor and playwright Noël Coward. It was written in 1949 but not performed until 1951. The play was moderately successful but failed to match the popularity of Coward's pre-war hits.-Background:...
(1951) is a political comedy set in a British colony; Quadrille
Quadrille (play)
Quadrille is a play by Noël Coward. The romantic comedy premiered in 1952 and starred Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt. It played on Broadway in 1955, where Lunt won a Tony Award for his performance.-History:...
(1952) is a drama about Victorian love and elopement; and Nude with Violin
Nude with Violin
Nude with Violin is a play by Noël Coward. A light comedy of manners, the play is Coward's satire on "Modern Art" and the value placed on art....
(1956, starring John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
in London and Coward in New York) is a satire on modern art. A revue, Sigh No More
Sigh No More (musical)
Sigh No More is a musical revue consisting of twenty-two scenes and numbers composed, written and produced by Noël Coward, with additional items by Joyce Grenfell, Richard Addinsell and Norman Hackforth. The show was Coward's first post-World War II musical and starred Cyril Ritchard, his wife...
(1945), was a moderate success, but two musicals, Pacific 1860
Pacific 1860
Pacific 1860 is a musical written by Noël Coward. The story is set in a fictional Pacific British Colony during the reign of Queen Victoria. It involves a visiting Prima Donna and her conflict between love and career...
(1946), a lavish South Seas
South Seas (genre)
The South Seas genre is a genre of literature, film, or entertainment that is set in Oceania.Though many Hollywood films were produced on studio backlots or Santa Catalina Island, the first feature non documentary film made on a Tahiti location was White Shadows in the South Seas.Elements of the...
romance, and Ace of Clubs
Ace of Clubs (musical)
Ace of Clubs is a 1950 musical written, composed and directed by Noël Coward. The show is set in a 1949 London nightclub called "Ace of Clubs". Nightclub singer Pinkie Leroy falls in love with a sailor. Pinkie and her lover get mixed up with gangsters, a lost package and a missing diamond necklace...
(1949), set in a night club, were financial failures. In addition, his friends Charles Cochran and Gertrude Lawrence died in 1951 and 1952, respectively. Despite his disappointments during this period, Coward maintained a high public profile; his performance as King Magnus in Shaw's The Apple Cart
The Apple Cart
The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza is a 1928 play by George Bernard Shaw. It is satirical comedy about several political philosophies which are expounded by the characters, often in lengthy monologue...
for the Coronation season of 1953, co-starring Margaret Leighton, received much coverage in the press, and his cabaret act, honed during his wartime tours entertaining the troops, was a supreme success, first in London at the Café de Paris
Café de Paris (London)
Café de Paris is a London nightclub, located in the West End, beside Leicester Square on Coventry Street, Piccadilly.It opened in 1924 and subsequently featured such performers as Dorothy Dandridge, Marlene Dietrich, Harry Gold, Harry Roy, Ken Snakehips Johnson and Maxine Cooper Gomberg...
, and later in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
. The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan wrote:
In 1955, Coward's cabaret act at Las Vegas, recorded live for the gramophone, and released as Noël Coward at Las Vegas
Noël Coward at Las Vegas
Noël Coward at Las Vegas is a 1955 live album by Noël Coward.This was Coward's first appearance on the Las Vegas Strip, with Coward claiming that the dates gave him "one of the most sensational successes of my career, and to pretend that I am not absolutely delighted would be idiotic." Life...
was so successful that CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
engaged him to write and direct a series of three 90-minute television specials for the 1955–1956 season. The first of these, Together With Music, paired Coward with Mary Martin
Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...
, featuring him in many of the numbers from his Las Vegas act. It was followed by productions of Blithe Spirit in which he starred with Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...
, Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
and Mildred Natwick
Mildred Natwick
Mildred Natwick was an American stage and film actress.- Early life :A native of Baltimore, Maryland, she was born to Joseph and Mildred Marion Dawes Natwick. She graduated from the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore...
and This Happy Breed with Edna Best and Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
. Despite excellent reviews, the audience viewing figures were moderate.
After the Ball (musical)
After the Ball is a musical by Noel Coward, based on Lady Windermere's Fan.After a provincial tour, the musical premiered at the Globe Theatre, London, on 10 June 1954 and ran for 188 performances until 20 November 1954...
, his 1953 adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James's Theatre in London. The play was first published in 1893...
, was the last musical he debuted in the West End; his last two musicals premiered on Broadway. Sail Away
Sail Away (musical)
Sail Away is a musical with a book, music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The show was the last musical for which Coward wrote both the book and music, although he wrote the music for one last "book" musical in 1963. The story centers around brash, bold American divorcee Mimi Paragon, working as a...
(1961), set on a luxury cruise liner, was Coward's most successful post-war musical, with productions in America, Britain and Australia. The Girl Who Came to Supper
The Girl Who Came to Supper
The Girl Who Came to Supper is a musical with a book by Harry Kurnitz and music and lyrics by Noël Coward.Based on Terence Rattigan's 1953 play The Sleeping Prince, it is set in 1911 London at the time of George V's coronation...
, a musical adaptation of The Sleeping Prince (1963), ran for only three months. He directed the successful 1964 Broadway musical adaptation of Blithe Spirit, called High Spirits
High Spirits (musical)
High Spirits is a musical with a book, lyrics, and music by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray, based on the play Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, about a man's problems caused by the spirit of his dead wife....
. Coward's late plays include a farce, Look After Lulu!
Look After Lulu!
Look After Lulu! is a play by British actor and playwright Noël Coward, based on "Occupe-toi d'Amelie" by Georges Feydeau. It is set in Paris in 1908. The farcical story concerns an attractive prostitute who is entrusted to a friend by her lover, when he goes into the army...
(1959), and a tragi-comic study of old age, Waiting in the Wings
Waiting in the Wings (play)
Waiting in the Wings is a play by Noël Coward. Set in a retirement home for actresses, it focuses on a feud between residents Lotta Bainbridge and May Davenport, who once both loved the same man.-Background:...
(1960), both of which were successful despite "critical disdain". Coward argued that the primary purpose of a play was to entertain, and he made no attempt at modernism, which he felt was boring to the audience although fascinating to the critics. His comic novel, Pomp and Circumstance (1960), about life in a tropical British colony, met with more critical success. Coward's final stage success came with Suite in Three Keys (1966), a trilogy set in a hotel penthouse suite. He wrote it as his swan song as a stage actor: "I would like to act once more before I fold my bedraggled wings." The trilogy gained glowing reviews and did good box office business in the UK. In one of the three plays, A Song at Twilight
A Song at Twilight
A Song at Twilight is a play in two acts by Noël Coward. It is one of a trio of plays collectively entitled Suite in Three Keys, all of which are set in the same suite in a luxury hotel in Switzerland...
, Coward abandoned his customary reticence on the subject and played an explicitly homosexual character. The daring piece earned Coward new critical praise. He intended to star in the trilogy on Broadway but was too ill to travel. Only two of the Suite in Three Keys plays were performed in New York, with the title changed to Noël Coward in Two Keys, starring Hume Cronyn
Hume Cronyn
Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...
.
Coward won new popularity in several notable films later in his career, such as Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Our Man in Havana
Our Man in Havana (film)
Our Man in Havana is a 1959 film directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Graham Greene...
(1959), Bunny Lake is Missing
Bunny Lake Is Missing
Bunny Lake Is Missing is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed and produced by Otto Preminger, who filmed it in black and white widescreen format in London. It was based on the novel of the same name by Merriam Modell. The score is by Paul Glass and the opening theme is often heard as...
(1965), Boom!
Boom! (1968 film)
Boom! is a 1968 British drama film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Noël Coward. It was directed by Joseph Losey and adapted from Tennessee Williams' play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.-Plot:...
(1968) and The Italian Job
The Italian Job
The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom....
(1969). Stage and film opportunities he turned down in the 1950s included an invitation to compose a musical version of Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
(two years before My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
was written), and offers of the roles of the king in the original stage production of The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
, and Colonel Nicholson in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...
. Invited to play the title role in the 1962 film Dr. No
Dr. No (film)
Dr. No is a 1962 spy film, starring Sean Connery; it is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R...
, he replied, "No, no, no, a thousand times, no." In the same year, he turned down the role of Humbert Humbert in Lolita
Lolita (1962 film)
Lolita is a 1962 comedy-drama film by Stanley Kubrick based on the classic novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov. The film stars James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Sue Lyon as Dolores Haze and Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze with Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty.Due to the MPAA's restrictions at...
, saying, "At my time of life the film story would be logical if the 12-year-old heroine was a sweet little old lady."
In the mid-1960s and early 1970s successful productions of his 1920s and 1930s plays, and new revues celebrating his music, including Oh, Coward!
Oh, Coward!
Oh, Coward! is a musical revue in two acts devised by Roderick Cook and containing music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The revue consists of two men and one woman in formal dress, performing songs based on the following themes: England, family album, travel, theatre, love and women...
on Broadway and Cowardy Custard
Cowardy Custard
Cowardy Custard is a musical revue and was one of the last Noël Coward shows staged during his life. It was devised by Gerard Frow, Alan Strachan and Wendy Toye. A book, also titled Cowardy Custard, was published in connection with the revue, similarly celebrating the Coward image.The biographical...
in London, revived Coward's popularity and critical reputation. He dubbed this comeback "Dad's Renaissance". This began with a hit 1963 revival of Private Lives in London and then New York. Invited to direct Hay Fever with Edith Evans
Edith Evans
Dame Edith Mary Evans, DBE was a British actress. She was known for her work on the British stage. She also appeared in a number of films, for which she received three Academy Award nominations, plus a BAFTA and a Golden Globe award.Evans was particularly effective at portraying haughty...
at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, he wrote in 1964, "I am thrilled and flattered and frankly a little flabbergasted that the National Theatre should have had the curious perceptiveness to choose a very early play of mine and to give it a cast that could play the Albanian telephone directory."
Other examples of "Dad's Renaissance" included a 1968 Off Broadway production of Private Lives at the Theatre de Lys
Lucille Lortel Theatre
The Lucille Lortel Theatre is an off-Broadway playhouse located at 121 Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village.The venue was built in 1926 as a 590-seat movie theater called the New Hudson, later known as Hudson Playhouse...
starring Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
, Lee Bowman
Lee Bowman
Lee Bowman was an American film and television actor.Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bowman graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1936 and began his film career playing a bit part in Swing High, Swing Low .His many film appearances include A Man to Remember , Love Affair , Third...
and Betsy von Furstenberg
Betsy von Furstenberg
Betsy von Furstenberg is a German-born American radio, television, film, and Broadway actress.-Birth and childhood:...
, and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly was an American actor, comedian, director and drama teacher known for his comedic roles in theater, movies, children's television, animated cartoons, and as a panelist on the game show Match Game....
. Despite this impressive cast, Coward's popularity had risen so high that the theatre poster for the production used an Al Hirschfeld
Al Hirschfeld
Albert "Al" Hirschfeld was an American caricaturist best known for his simple black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars.-Personal life:Born in St...
caricature of Coward (pictured) instead of an image of the production or its stars. The illustration captures how Coward's image had changed by the 1960s: he was no longer seen as the smooth 1930s sophisticate, but as the doyen of the theatre. As The New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
wrote in 1964: "Who would have thought the landmarks of the Sixties would include the emergence of Noël Coward as the grand old man of British drama? There he was one morning, flipping verbal tiddlywinks with reporters about "Dad's Renaissance"; the next he was... beside Forster
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
, T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
and the OMs
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
, demonstrably the greatest living English playwright." Time magazine wrote that "in the '60s... his best work, with its inspired inconsequentiality, seemed to exert not only a period charm but charm, period."
Death and honours
By the end of the 1960s, Coward suffered from arteriosclerosisArteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis refers to a stiffening of arteries.Arteriosclerosis is a general term describing any hardening of medium or large arteries It should not be confused with "arteriolosclerosis" or "atherosclerosis".Also known by the name "myoconditis" which is...
and, during the run of Suite in Three Keys, he struggled with bouts of memory loss. This also affected his work in The Italian Job
The Italian Job
The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom....
, and he retired from acting immediately afterwards. He died at his home, Firefly Estate
Firefly Estate
Firefly Estate, located 10 km east of Oracabessa, Jamaica was Sir Noel Coward’s vacation home and is listed as a National Heritage Site by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. Although the setting is Eden-like, the house built in 1956 is surprisingly Spartan, considering that he often...
, in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
on 26 March 1973 of heart failure and was buried three days later on the brow of Firefly Hill, overlooking the north coast of the island. A memorial service was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields is an Anglican church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Its patron is Saint Martin of Tours.-Roman era:Excavations at the site in 2006 led to the discovery of a grave dated about 410...
in London on 29 May 1973, for which the Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
, John Betjeman
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...
, wrote and delivered a poem in Coward's honour, John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
and Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
read verse and Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
played Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
. On 28 March 1984 a memorial stone was unveiled by the Queen Mother
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
in Poets' Corner
Poets' Corner
Poets' Corner is the name traditionally given to a section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey because of the number of poets, playwrights, and writers buried and commemorated there. The most recent additions were a memorial floor stone unveiled in 2009 for the founders of the Royal Ballet...
, Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
. Thanked by Coward's partner, Graham Payn
Graham Payn
Graham Payn was a South African-born English actor and singer, also known for being the life partner of the playwright Noël Coward. Beginning as a boy soprano, Payn later made a career as a singer and actor in the works of Coward and others...
, for attending, the Queen Mother replied, "I came because he was my friend."
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1969 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
. He received a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for lifetime achievement.
The Noël Coward Theatre
Noël Coward Theatre
The Noël Coward Theatre, formerly known as the Albery Theatre, is a West End theatre on St. Martin's Lane in the City of Westminster. It opened on 12 March 1903 as the New Theatre and was built by Sir Charles Wyndham behind Wyndham's Theatre which was completed in 1899. The building was designed by...
in St Martin's Lane, originally opened in 1903 as the New Theatre and later called the Albery, was renamed in his honour after extensive refurbishment, re-opening on 1 June 2006. A statue of Coward was unveiled by the Queen Mother in the foyer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
in 1998. There are also sculptures of Coward displayed in New York and Jamaica. In 2008 an exhibition devoted to Coward was mounted at the National Theatre in London. The exhibition was later hosted by the Museum of Performance & Design
Museum of Performance & Design
The Museum of Performance & Design, formerly the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum, is located in San Francisco, California in the historic War Memorial Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue...
in San Francisco and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
in Beverly Hills, California.
Personal life
Coward was homosexual but, following the convention of his times, this was never publicly mentioned. The critic Kenneth TynanKenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
's description in 1953 was close to an acknowledgment of Coward's sexuality: "Forty years ago he was Slightly in Peter Pan, and you might say that he has been wholly in Peter Pan ever since. No private considerations have been allowed to deflect the drive of his career; like Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
and Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
, like the late Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
, he is a congenital bachelor."
Non-penetrative sex
Non-penetrative sex is sexual activity without vaginal, anal, or oral penetration, as opposed to the penetrative aspects of those activities...
.
Coward's most important relationship, which began in the mid-1940s and lasted until his death, was with the South African stage and film actor Graham Payn
Graham Payn
Graham Payn was a South African-born English actor and singer, also known for being the life partner of the playwright Noël Coward. Beginning as a boy soprano, Payn later made a career as a singer and actor in the works of Coward and others...
. Coward featured Payn in several of his London productions. Payn later co-edited with Sheridan Morley
Sheridan Morley
Sheridan Morley was an English author, biographer, critic, director, actor and broadcaster. He was the eldest son of actor Robert Morley and grandson of actress Dame Gladys Cooper, and wrote biographies of both...
the collection of Coward's diaries, published in 1982. Coward's other relationships included the playwright Keith Winter, actors Louis Hayward
Louis Hayward
Louis Charles Hayward was a British actor born in South Africa.-Biography:Born in Johannesburg, Hayward began his screen work in British films, notably as Simon Templar in Leslie Charteris' The Saint in New York.] In 1939 he played a dual role in The Man in the Iron Mask.During World War II,...
and Alan Webb
Alan Webb (actor)
-Biography and Career:Educated at Bramcote School, Scarborough, and RN Colleges Osborne and Dartmouth. He served in the Royal Navy.Webb's early days were spent performing with the Lena Ashwell Players , J. B. Fagan's Oxford Players , The Croydon Repertory Company , and the Old Vic-Sadler's Wells...
, his manager John (Jack) C. Wilson (1899–1961) and the composer Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...
, who published details of their relationship in his diaries. Coward had a 19-year friendship with Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent was a member of the British Royal Family, the fourth son of George V and Mary of Teck, and younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI...
, but biographers differ on whether it was platonic. According to Payn, Coward maintained that it was simply a friendship. Coward said, on the duke's death, "I suddenly find that I loved him more than I knew."
Coward maintained close friendships with many women, including the actress and author Esmé Wynne-Tyson
Esmé Wynne-Tyson
Esmé Wynne-Tyson was an English actress and writer. As a child she acted in West End plays, and became a close friend, confidante, and collaborator of Noël Coward. She left the stage in 1920 and wrote a series of novels. A growing interest in religious and moral matters led her into non-fiction...
, his first collaborator and constant correspondent; Gladys Calthrop
Gladys Calthrop
Gladys E. Calthrop was an artist and leading British stage designer. She is best known as the set and costume designer for many of Noël Coward's plays and musicals.-Life and career:...
, who designed sets and costumes for many of his works; his secretary and close confidante Lorn Loraine; the actresses Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
, Joyce Carey
Joyce Carey
Joyce Carey, OBE was a British actress, best known for her long professional and personal relationship with Noël Coward. Her stage career lasted from 1916 until 1984, and she was performing on television in her nineties. Though never a star, she was a familiar face both on stage and screen...
and Judy Campbell; and "his loyal and lifelong amitié amoureuse", Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
.
In his profession, Coward was widely admired and loved for his generosity and kindness to those who fell on hard times. Stories are told of the unobtrusive way in which he relieved the needs or paid the debts of old theatrical acquaintances who had no claim on him. Coward was the president of The Actors' Orphanage, which was supported by the theatrical industry. In that capacity, he befriended the young Peter Collinson
Peter Collinson (film director)
Peter Collinson was a British film director probably best known for directing the 1969 movie The Italian Job.- Early life :...
, who was in the care of the orphanage. He became Collinson's godfather and helped him to get started in show business. When Collinson was a successful director, he invited Coward to play a role in The Italian Job
The Italian Job
The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom....
. Graham Payn also played a small role in the film.
In the 1950s, Coward left the UK for tax reasons, receiving harsh criticism in the press. He first settled in Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
but later bought houses in Jamaica and Switzerland (in the village of Les Avants
Les Avants
Les Avants is a village in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located in the municipality of Montreux, in the east of the canton, in the district of Vevey. It lies north-east of the town of Montreux and east of Lausanne....
, near Montreux
Montreux
Montreux is a municipality in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is located on Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps and has a population, , of and nearly 90,000 in the agglomeration.- History :...
), which remained his homes for the rest of his life. His expatriate neighbours and friends included Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
, David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
, Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
and Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
, and Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews
Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
and Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...
in Switzerland and Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
and his wife Ann in Jamaica. Coward was a witness at the Flemings' wedding, but his 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
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
for its policy of appeasing
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
Nazi Germany, and he differed sharply with Winston Churchill over the abdication crisis
Edward VIII abdication crisis
In 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire was caused by King-Emperor Edward VIII's proposal to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite....
of 1936. Whereas Churchill supported Edward VIII's wish to marry "his cutie", Wallis Simpson, Coward thought the king irresponsible, telling Churchill, "England doesn't wish for a Queen Cutie." Coward disliked propaganda in plays: "The theatre is a wonderful place, a house of strange enchantment, a temple of illusion. What it most emphatically is not and never will be is a scruffy, ill-lit, fumed-oak drill hall serving as a temporary soap box for political propaganda." Nevertheless, his own views sometimes surfaced in his plays: both Cavalcade and This Happy Breed are "overtly Conservative political plays written in the Brechtian
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
epic manner." In religion, Coward was agnostic. He wrote of his views, "Do I believe in God? I can't say No and I can't say Yes, To me it's anybody's guess."
Coward spelled his first name with the diæresis ("I didn't put the dots over the 'e' in Noël. The language did. Otherwise it's not Noël but Nool!"). The press and many book publishers failed to follow suit, and his name was printed as 'Noel' in The Times, The Observer and other contemporary newspapers and books.
The papers of Noël Coward are held in the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
Special Collections.
The Coward image
Cigarette holder
A cigarette holder is a fashion accessory, a slender tube in which a cigarette is held for smoking. Most frequently made of silver, jade or bakelite , cigarette holders were considered an essential part of ladies' fashion from the mid-1910s through the early-1970s, and are still widely popular...
and say 'Darling, how wonderful'?" The answer lay in Coward's assiduous cultivation of a carefully crafted image. As a suburban boy who had been taken up by the upper classes he rapidly acquired the taste for high life: "I am determined to travel through life first class." He first wore a dressing gown onstage in The Vortex and used the fashion in several of his other famous plays, including Private Lives and Present Laughter. In connection with the National Theatre's 2008 exhibition, The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
commented, "His famous silk, polka-dot dressing gown and elegant cigarette holder both seem to belong to another era. But 2008 is proving to be the year that Britain falls in love with Noël Coward all over again."
As soon as he achieved success he began polishing the Coward image: an early press photograph showed him sitting up in bed holding a cigarette holder: "I looked like an advanced Chinese decadent in the last phases of dope." Soon after that, Coward wrote, "I took to wearing coloured turtle-necked jerseys, actually more for comfort than for effect, and soon I was informed by my evening paper that I had started a fashion. I believe that to a certain extent this was true; at any rate, during the ensuing months I noticed more and more of our seedier West-End chorus boys parading about London in them." He soon became more cautious about overdoing the flamboyance, advising Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...
to tone down his outfits: "It is important not to let the public have a loophole to lampoon you." However, Coward was happy to generate publicity from his lifestyle. In 1969, he told Time magazine, "I acted up like crazy. I did everything that was expected of me. Part of the job." Time concluded, "Coward's greatest single gift has not been writing or composing, not acting or directing, but projecting a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise."
Coward's distinctive clipped diction arose from his childhood: his mother was deaf and Coward developed his staccato style of speaking to make it easier for her to hear what he was saying; it also helped him eradicate a slight lisp. His nickname, "The Master", "started as a joke and became true", according to Coward. It was used of him from the 1920s onwards. Coward himself made light of it: when asked by a journalist why he was known as "The Master", he replied, "Oh, you know – Jack of all trades, master of none." He could, however, joke about his own immodesty: "My sense of my importance to the world is relatively small. On the other hand, my sense of my own importance to myself is tremendous." When a Time interviewer apologised, "I hope you haven't been bored having to go through all these interviews for your [70th] birthday, having to answer the same old questions about yourself", Coward rejoined, "Not at all. I'm fascinated by the subject."
Critical reputation and legacy
The playwright John OsborneJohn Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
said, "Mr Coward is his own invention and contribution to this century. Anyone who cannot see that should keep well away from the theatre." Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
wrote in 1964, "Even the youngest of us will know, in fifty years' time, exactly what we mean by 'a very Noel Coward sort of person'." In praise of Coward's versatility, Lord Mountbatten
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
said, in a tribute on Coward's seventieth birthday, "There are probably greater painters than Noël, greater novelists than Noël, greater librettists, greater composers of music, greater singers, greater dancers, greater comedians, greater tragedians, greater stage producers, greater film directors, greater cabaret artists, greater TV stars. If there are, they are fourteen different people. Only one man combined all fourteen different labels – The Master."
Tynan's was the first generation of critics to realise that Coward's plays might enjoy more than ephemeral success. In the 1930s, Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly was an English intellectual, literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon and wrote Enemies of Promise , which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of...
wrote that they were "written in the most topical and perishable way imaginable, the cream in them turns sour overnight". What seemed daring in the 1920s and 1930s came to seem old-fashioned in the 1950s, and Coward never replicated the success of his pre-war plays. By the 1960s, however, it was becoming clear that underneath the witty dialogue and the Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
glamour of the inter-war years, Coward's best plays also dealt with recognisable people and familiar relationships. By the time of his death, The Times was writing of him, "None of the great figures of the English theatre has been more versatile than he", and the paper ranked his plays in "the classical tradition of Congreve
William Congreve
William Congreve was an English playwright and poet.-Early life:Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England . His parents were William Congreve and his wife, Mary ; a sister was buried in London in 1672...
, Sheridan, Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
and Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
".
A symposium published in 1999 to mark the centenary of Coward's birth listed some of his major productions scheduled for the year in Britain and North America, including Ace of Clubs, After the Ball, Blithe Spirit, Cavalcade, Easy Virtue, Hay Fever, Present Laughter, Private Lives, Sail Away, A Song at Twilight, The Young Idea and Waiting in the Wings, with stars including Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
, Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards.-Early life:Harris was born in...
, Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
, Corin Redgrave
Corin Redgrave
Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and political activist.-Early life:Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
, Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
and Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
. In another tribute, Tim Rice
Tim Rice
Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...
said of Coward's songs: "The wit and wisdom of Noël Coward's lyrics will be as lively and contemporary in 100 years' time as they are today", and many have been recorded by Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, Sting, Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
, Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...
, Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys are an English electronic dance music duo, consisting of Neil Tennant, who provides main vocals, keyboards and occasional guitar, and Chris Lowe on keyboards....
, The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy (band)
The Divine Comedy are a chamber pop band from Ireland, fronted by Neil Hannon. Formed in 1989, Hannon has been the only constant member of the group, playing, in some instances, all of the non-orchestral instrumentation bar drums. To date, ten studio albums have been released under the Divine...
, Vic Reeves
Vic Reeves
James Roderick Moir , better known by the stage name Vic Reeves, is an English comedian, best known for his double act with Bob Mortimer . He is known for his surreal and non sequitur sense of humour....
, Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera singer and as a song recitalist.-Early life and education:...
, Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...
, Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
, and others.
Coward's music and writings and his characteristic voice and style have been widely parodied and imitated, for instance by Jonathan Meese
Jonathan Meese
Jonathan Meese is a German painter, sculptor, performance artist and installation artist based in Berlin and Hamburg. His works include collages, drawings and writing. He also designs theater sets and wrote and starred in a play, "De Frau: Dr. Poundaddylein - Dr...
and in Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
, Round the Horne
Round the Horne
Round the Horne was a BBC Radio comedy programme, transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The series was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman - with others contributing to later series after Feldman returned to performing — and starred Kenneth Horne, with Kenneth...
and Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade: A Play with Songs in Two Acts is a 1977 farce by English playwright Peter Nichols , with music by Denis King.-Plot:...
. Coward has frequently been depicted as a character in plays, films, television and radio shows, for example, in the 1969 Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews
Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
film Star!
Star! (film)
Star! is a 1968 American musical film directed by Robert Wise. The screenplay by William Fairchild is based upon the life and career of British performer Gertrude Lawrence.-Plot:...
(in which Coward was portrayed by his godson, Daniel Massey
Daniel Massey (actor)
Daniel Raymond Massey was an English actor and performer. He is possibly best known for his starring role in the British TV drama The Roads to Freedom, as Daniel, alongside Michael Bryant...
), the award-winning BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart is a sitcom that ran for six series on BBC1 from 1993 to 1999. It stars Nicholas Lyndhurst as Gary Sparrow, an accidental time traveller who leads a double life after discovering a time portal allowing him to travel between the London of the 1990s and the same area during the...
and a BBC Radio 4 series. On stage, characters based on Coward have included Beverly Carlton in the 1939 Broadway play The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Man Who Came to Dinner is a comedy in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It debuted on October 16, 1939 at the Music Box Theatre in New York City. It then enjoyed a number of New York and London revivals. The first London production was staged at The Savoy Theatre starring Robert...
. A play about the friendship between Coward and Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
, called Lunch with Marlene
Lunch with Marlene
Lunch with Marlene is a stage comedy written by Chris Burgess. It is based on the friendship of acting legends Marlene Dietrich and Noël Coward. The two were respectively portrayed by Kate O'Mara and Frank Barrie in the play's original London production, which ran at the New End Theatre from 28...
, by Chris Burgess, ran at the New End Theatre
New End Theatre
The New End Theatre, Hampstead, was a 80-seat fringe theatre venue in London, England, located in the London Borough of Camden which operated from 1974 until 2011. It was listed widely on the internet, including with the New York Times....
in 2008. The second act presents a musical revue, including Coward songs such as "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans".
Coward was an early admirer of the plays of Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
, and backed Pinter's film version of The Caretaker
The Caretaker
The Caretaker is a play by Harold Pinter. It was first published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960. The sixth play that Pinter wrote for stage or television production, it was his first significant commercial success...
with a £1,000 investment. Some critics have detected Coward's influence in Pinter's plays. Tynan compared Pinter's "elliptical patter" to Coward's "stylised dialogue". Pinter returned the compliment by directing the National Theatre's revival of Blithe Spirit in 1976.
Plays
- For plays that were written more than two years before the original production, a date of composition is given and the second date given is the year when first produced (fp).
- The Last Chapter (Ida Collaborates) (1917), one-act comedy, co-written with Esmé Wynne under their joint pen name, Esnomel
- Woman and Whisky (1918), one-act play, co-written with Wynne
- The Rat TrapThe Rat TrapThe Rat Trap is a four act drama by Noel Coward, his 'first really serious attempt at psychological conflict,' written when he was only 18....
(1918), play in four acts; fp 1926 - I'll Leave It to You (1920), light comedy in three acts
- The Young Idea (1922), comedy of youth in three acts
- SiroccoSirocco (play)Sirocco is a play, in four acts, by Noel Coward. It originally opened at Daly's Theatre, on November 24, 1927. The production was directed by Basil Dean.Ivor Novello was part of the original cast. The plot told a tale of free love among the wealthy....
(1921), play in three acts, revised 1927 - The Better HalfThe Better Half (play)The Better Half is a one-act play by Noël Coward first performed in 1922 by the Grand Guignol theatre company. It was never published and thought to be lost until Richard Hand and Mike Wilson, researchers writing a book on the theatre company, discovered it in the British Library in September 2007,...
(1922), comedy in one act - The Queen Was in the ParlourThe Queen Was in the ParlourThe Queen Was in the Parlour: a romance in three acts is a play by the English writer Noel Coward. Belonging to the Ruritanian romance genre, its title is drawn from a line in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence...
(1922), play in three acts, fp 1926 - Weatherwise (1923), comedy in two scenes, fp 1932
- Fallen AngelsFallen Angels (play)Fallen Angels is a play by British actor and playwright Noel Coward that opened at the Globe Theatre in 1925, starring Tallulah Bankhead.Cast of the original 1927 Broadway production included:...
(1925), comedy in three acts - The VortexThe VortexThe Vortex is a play by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The story focuses on sexual vanity and drug abuse among the upper classes. The play was Coward's first great commercial success....
(1924), play in three acts - Hay FeverHay FeverHay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. Laura Hope Crews played the role in New York...
(1925), comedy - Easy VirtueEasy Virtue (play)Easy Virtue is a three-act play by Noël Coward. He wrote it in 1924 when he was 25 years old, and it is his 16th play. The play had a successful first run in New York in 1925 and then opened in London in 1926...
(1925), play in three acts - Semi-MondeSemi-MondeSemi-Monde is a play written by Noel Coward in 1926, but not produced until 1977. Set in the lobby, restaurants, and bar of an up-scale Paris hotel , the play follows the lives of a variety of socialites over a three year period from 1924 to 1926. It is remarkable among its contemporaries due to...
originally Ritz Bar (1926), play in three acts, fp 1988 - This Was a ManThis Was a ManThis Was A Man is a play in three acts by Noel Coward. It deals with the adulterous affairs of aristocrats. Its main characters are Edward Churct, a successful modern portrait painter and his wife Carol whose "vivid personality is composed of a minimum of intellect and a maximum of sex"...
(1926), comedy in three acts - The Marquise (1927), comedy in three acts
- Home Chat (1927), play in three acts
- Private LivesPrivate LivesPrivate Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...
(1930), intimate comedy in three acts - Post MortemPost Mortem (Coward play)Post Mortem is a one-act play in eight scenes, written in 1930 by Noël Coward. He wrote it after appearing in, and being moved by, an earlier play about World War I, Journey's End...
(1932), play in eight scenes, fp 1992 - CavalcadeCavalcade (play)Cavalcade is a play by Noël Coward. It focuses on three decades in the life of the Marryotts, a quintessential British family, and their servants, beginning at the start of the 20th century and ending on New Year's Eve in 1929....
(1931), play in three parts - Design For LivingDesign for LivingDesign for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
(1933), comedy in three acts - Point Valaine (1934), play in three acts
- Tonight at 8:30Tonight at 8:30Tonight at 8.30 is a cycle of ten one-act plays by Noël Coward. In the introduction to a published edition of the plays, Coward wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if,...
(1935/36), three programmes of the following one-act plays:- We Were DancingWe Were DancingWe Were Dancing is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed in alternating groups of three plays, across three evenings...
, The Astonished HeartThe Astonished HeartThe Astonished Heart is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. The play, described at its first production as "a tragedy in six scenes", is told through a series of flashbacks in reverse order...
, Red PeppersRed PeppersRed Peppers is a short comic play by Noël Coward, one of the ten plays that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings...
, Hands Across the SeaHands Across the Sea (play)Hands Across the Sea is a short comic play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings...
, Fumed OakFumed OakFumed Oak is a short play in two scenes by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. Coward billed the work as an "unpleasant comedy in two scenes"...
, Shadow PlayShadow Play (play)Shadow Play is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings...
, Ways and MeansWays and Means (play)Ways and Means is a short comic play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. The story concerns an heiress and her gambling husband, who are plagued by debt and embarrassment as everything seems to always go wrong for them...
, Still LifeStill Life (play)Still Life is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. The play depicts the love affair of Alec and Laura across a twelve-month period...
, Family AlbumFamily Album (play)Family Album is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings...
, Star ChamberStar Chamber (play)Star Chamber is a one act play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed in alternating groups of three plays, across three evenings...
- We Were Dancing
- Present LaughterPresent LaughterPresent Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
(1939), play in three acts, fp 1942 - This Happy BreedThis Happy BreedThis Happy Breed is a play by Noël Coward. It was written in 1939 but, because of the outbreak of World War II, it was not staged until 1942, when it was performed on alternating nights with another Coward play, Present Laughter. The two plays later alternated with Coward's Blithe Spirit...
(1939), play in three acts, fp 1942 - Blithe SpiritBlithe Spirit (play)Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
(1941), play in three acts - Peace In Our TimePeace In Our Time (play)Peace In Our Time is a two-act play written in 1946 by Noel Coward. It has 8 scenes and a cast of 22 speaking roles. The play focuses on a small group of Londoners in a pub close to Sloane Square, in an alternate past where Germany won the Battle of Britain and successfully invaded and occupied...
(1947), play in two acts - Long Island Sound (1947), comedy adapted from his short story What Mad Pursuit?, fp 1989 (Windsor gala performance)
- South Sea BubbleSouth Sea Bubble (play)South Sea Bubble is a play by British actor and playwright Noël Coward. It was written in 1949 but not performed until 1951. The play was moderately successful but failed to match the popularity of Coward's pre-war hits.-Background:...
(Island Fling in USA), (1951), comedy in three acts - Relative ValuesRelative Values (play)Relative Values is a three-act comedy by Noël Coward. A satire of snobbery in all its guises, it deals with the clash of cultures between Hollywood stars and the English aristocracy, and with "the ancient and inaccurate assumption that, as we are equal in the eyes of God, we should be equal in the...
(1951), comedy in three acts - QuadrilleQuadrille (play)Quadrille is a play by Noël Coward. The romantic comedy premiered in 1952 and starred Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt. It played on Broadway in 1955, where Lunt won a Tony Award for his performance.-History:...
(1952), romantic comedy in three acts - Nude with ViolinNude with ViolinNude with Violin is a play by Noël Coward. A light comedy of manners, the play is Coward's satire on "Modern Art" and the value placed on art....
(1956), comedy in three acts - Volcano (1957), play in two acts, Mill at Sonning, staged reading 1989
- Look After Lulu!Look After Lulu!Look After Lulu! is a play by British actor and playwright Noël Coward, based on "Occupe-toi d'Amelie" by Georges Feydeau. It is set in Paris in 1908. The farcical story concerns an attractive prostitute who is entrusted to a friend by her lover, when he goes into the army...
(1959), three act farce adapted from Georges FeydeauGeorges FeydeauGeorges Feydeau was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces.-Biography:Georges Feydeau was born in Paris, the son of novelist Ernest-Aimé Feydeau and Léocadie Bogaslawa Zalewska. At the age of twenty, Feydeau wrote his first comic... - Waiting in the WingsWaiting in the Wings (play)Waiting in the Wings is a play by Noël Coward. Set in a retirement home for actresses, it focuses on a feud between residents Lotta Bainbridge and May Davenport, who once both loved the same man.-Background:...
(1960), play in three acts - Suite in Three Keys: A Song at TwilightA Song at TwilightA Song at Twilight is a play in two acts by Noël Coward. It is one of a trio of plays collectively entitled Suite in Three Keys, all of which are set in the same suite in a luxury hotel in Switzerland...
; Shadows of the Evening; Come into the Garden, Maud (1966), a trilogy - Star Quality (1967), Coward's last play, comedy in three acts, fp Bath, 1985
Revues, musicals, operetta and songs
- London Calling!London Calling!London Calling! was a musical revue, produced by André Charlot with music and lyrics by Noël Coward, which opened at London's Duke of York's Theatre on September 4, 1923. It is famous for being Noël Coward's first publicly produced musical work and for the use of a 3-D stereoscopic shadowgraph as...
(1922, 1923), revue in collaboration with Ronald Jeans - On With the DanceOn With the Dance (musical)This article is about the 1925 musical revue. For the 1920 film, see On with the Dance . For the 1975 Upstairs, Downstairs episode, see On With the Dance....
(1924, 1925), revue - This Year of GraceThis Year of GraceThis Year of Grace is a revue with a book, music, and lyrics by Noël Coward.It opened in London on March 22, 1928 at the London Pavilion and ran nearly ten months, with a cast featuring Sonnie Hale, Maisie Gay, Jessie Matthews, Sheilah Graham and Tilly Losch among others. Doris Zinkeisen was one of...
(1927, 1928), revue, originally Charles B. CochranCharles B. CochranSir Charles Blake Cochran , generally known as C. B. Cochran, was an English theatrical manager. He produced some of the most successful musical revues, musicals and plays of the 1920s and 1930s, becoming associated with Noel Coward and his works.-Biography:Cochran was born in Sussex and educated...
's 1928 Revue - Bitter SweetBitter SweetBitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts written by Noël Coward and first produced in 1929 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. It ran for a very successful 967 performances....
(1928, 1929), operetta - Words and MusicWords and Music (musical)Words and Music is a musical revue with sketches, music, lyrics and direction by Noël Coward. The revue introduced the song "Mad About the Boy", which, according to The Noël Coward Society's website, is Coward's most popular song...
(1932), revue - Conversation PieceConversation Piece (musical)Conversation Piece, billed as "A Romantic Comedy with Music", is a musical written by Noel Coward. It premiered at His Majesty's Theatre, London, on 16 February 1934, and ran for 177 performances over five months...
(1933), comedy with music - OperetteOperette (musical)Operette is a musical in two acts composed, written and produced by Noël Coward. The show is a period piece, set in the year 1906 at the fictional "Jubilee" theatre. The story concerns an ageing Viennese operetta star, who warns the young ingenue not to marry a nobleman.The piece premiered in 1938...
(1937), musical play - Set to MusicSet to MusicSet to Music is a musical revue with sketches, music and lyrics by Noël Coward.Produced by John C. Wilson, the Broadway production opened on January 15, 1939 at the Music Box Theatre, where it ran for 129 performances...
(1939), revue (a Broadway rewrite of Words and Music)
- Sigh No MoreSigh No More (musical)Sigh No More is a musical revue consisting of twenty-two scenes and numbers composed, written and produced by Noël Coward, with additional items by Joyce Grenfell, Richard Addinsell and Norman Hackforth. The show was Coward's first post-World War II musical and starred Cyril Ritchard, his wife...
(1945), revue - Pacific 1860Pacific 1860Pacific 1860 is a musical written by Noël Coward. The story is set in a fictional Pacific British Colony during the reign of Queen Victoria. It involves a visiting Prima Donna and her conflict between love and career...
(1946), musical romance - Ace of ClubsAce of Clubs (musical)Ace of Clubs is a 1950 musical written, composed and directed by Noël Coward. The show is set in a 1949 London nightclub called "Ace of Clubs". Nightclub singer Pinkie Leroy falls in love with a sailor. Pinkie and her lover get mixed up with gangsters, a lost package and a missing diamond necklace...
(1949), musical play - After the BallAfter the Ball (musical)After the Ball is a musical by Noel Coward, based on Lady Windermere's Fan.After a provincial tour, the musical premiered at the Globe Theatre, London, on 10 June 1954 and ran for 188 performances until 20 November 1954...
(1953), musical based on Lady Windermere's FanLady Windermere's FanLady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James's Theatre in London. The play was first published in 1893... - Sail AwaySail Away (musical)Sail Away is a musical with a book, music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The show was the last musical for which Coward wrote both the book and music, although he wrote the music for one last "book" musical in 1963. The story centers around brash, bold American divorcee Mimi Paragon, working as a...
(1959–61), musical comedy - The Girl Who Came to SupperThe Girl Who Came to SupperThe Girl Who Came to Supper is a musical with a book by Harry Kurnitz and music and lyrics by Noël Coward.Based on Terence Rattigan's 1953 play The Sleeping Prince, it is set in 1911 London at the time of George V's coronation...
(1963), musical comedy based on The Sleeping Prince - Oh, Coward!Oh, Coward!Oh, Coward! is a musical revue in two acts devised by Roderick Cook and containing music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The revue consists of two men and one woman in formal dress, performing songs based on the following themes: England, family album, travel, theatre, love and women...
(1972) revue - Cowardy CustardCowardy CustardCowardy Custard is a musical revue and was one of the last Noël Coward shows staged during his life. It was devised by Gerard Frow, Alan Strachan and Wendy Toye. A book, also titled Cowardy Custard, was published in connection with the revue, similarly celebrating the Coward image.The biographical...
(1972) revue
Songs
Coward wrote more than three hundred songs. The Noël Coward Society's website, drawing on performing statistics from the publishers and the Performing Rights Society, names "Mad About the BoyMad About the Boy
Dinah Washington's 1952 recording of "Mad about the Boy" is possibly the most widely known version of the song in modern times. The 6/8-time arrangement for voice and jazz orchestra by Quincy Jones omits two verses and was recorded in the singer's native Chicago on the Mercury label.Washington's...
" (from Words and Music) as Coward's most popular song, followed, in order, by:
- "I'll See You AgainI'll See You Again"I'll See You Again" is a song by the English songwriter Sir Noel Coward.It originated in Coward's 1929 operetta Bitter Sweet, however soon emerged as a standard in its own right and became one of Coward's best known compositions...
" (Bitter Sweet) - "Mad Dogs and EnglishmenMad Dogs and Englishmen (song)"Mad Dogs and Englishmen" is a song written by Noël Coward and first performed in The Third Little Show at the Music Box Theatre, New York, on 1 June 1931, by Beatrice Lillie. The following year it was used in the revue Words and Music and also released in a "studio version"...
" (Words and Music) - "If Love Were AllIf Love Were All"If Love Were All" is a song by Noël Coward, published in 1929 and written for the operetta Bitter Sweet. The song is considered autobiographical, and has been described as "self-deprecating" as well as "one of the loneliest pop songs ever written".Ivy St...
" (Bitter Sweet) - "Someday I'll Find You" (Private Lives)
- "I'll Follow My Secret Heart" (Conversation Piece)
- "London PrideLondon Pride (song)"London Pride" is a song written and composed by Noël Coward.- Composition :Coward wrote "London Pride" in the spring of 1941, during the Blitz. According to his own account, he was sitting on a seat on a platform of a damaged railway station in London, and was "overwhelmed by a wave of sentimental...
" (1941) - "A Room With a View" (This Year of Grace)
- "Mrs Worthington" (1934)
- "Poor Little Rich Girl" (On With the Dance)
- "The Stately Homes of England" (Operette)
In the society's second tier of favourites are:
- "The Party's Over Now" (Words and Music)
- "Dearest Love" (Operette)
- "Dear Little Café" (Bitter Sweet)
- "Parisian Pierrot" (London Calling!)
- "Men About Town" (Tonight at 8:30)
- "Twentieth Century Blues" (Cavalcade)
- "Uncle Harry" (Pacific 1860)
- "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the GermansDon't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans"Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans" was a satiric, patriotic song popular in Britain in World War II. It was composed by Noël Coward. Although popular when performed live the humour did not translate well over the wireless and caused some fuss, leading the BBC to ban the song.The refrain...
" (1943) - "There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner" (Globe Review)
- "Dance, Little Lady" (This Year of Grace)
- "Has Anybody Seen Our Ship?" (Tonight at 8:30)
- "I Went to a Marvellous PartyI Went to a Marvellous Party"I Went to a Marvellous Party" is a song with words and music by Noël Coward, written in 1938, and included in the review Set to Music. Although a melody exists, the text is most often recited over a piano accompaniment...
" (Set to Music) - "Nina" (Sigh No More)
- "A Bar on the Piccola Marina" (1954)
- "Why Must the Show Go On?" (Together With Music)
- "Sail Away" (Ace of Clubs and Sail Away)
- "Zigeuner" (Bitter Sweet)
As a songwriter, Coward was deeply influenced by Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
, although he shared a dislike of their works common in his generation. He recalled: "I was born into a generation that still took light music seriously. The lyrics and melodies of Gilbert and Sullivan were hummed and strummed into my consciousness at an early age. My father sang them, my mother played them... my aunts and uncles, who were legion, sang them singly and in unison at the slightest provocation." His colleague Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
wrote that as a lyricist Coward was "the best of his kind since W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
."
Films
Coward's plays adapted for film include:- Easy Virtue (1928; remade, 2008)
- Private LivesPrivate Lives (film)Private Lives is a 1931 American comedy film directed by Sidney Franklin. The screenplay by Hanns Kräly and Richard Schayer is based on the 1930 play of the same title by Noël Coward.-Plot synopsis:...
, Metro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
(1931) - Bitter SweetBitter Sweet (1933 film)Bitter Sweet is a musical romance film directed by Herbert Wilcox and released by United Artists in 1933. It was the first film adaptation of Noel Coward's 1929 operetta Bitter Sweet. It starred Anna Neagle and Fernand Gravey, with Ivy St. Helier reviving her stage role as Manon.It tells the story...
, British & Dominion (1933) - Design for LivingDesign for Living (film)Design for Living is a 1933 American comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay by Ben Hecht is based on the 1933 play of the same name by Noël Coward. It concerns a trio of artistic Americans in Paris and their complicated three-way relationship.The film stars Fredric...
, ParamountParamount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
(1933) - Cavalcade, Twentieth Century-Fox (1933)
- Tonight Is OursTonight Is OursTonight Is Ours is a 1933 film made by Paramount Pictures, directed by Stuart Walker, and starring Claudette Colbert, Fredric March and Alison Skipworth...
(based on the play The Queen Was in the Parlour), Paramount (1933) - Bitter SweetBitter Sweet (1940 film)Bitter Sweet is a 1940 Technicolor American musical film directed by W. S. Van Dyke, based on the operetta by Noel Coward and previously filmed in 1933; see Bitter Sweet . It was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Cinematography and the other for Best Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons and...
, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1940) - We Were Dancing (based on Tonight at 8:30), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1942)
- This Happy Breed, Universal (1944)
- Brief Encounter (based on Still Life), Cineguild (1945)
- The Astonished HeartThe Astonished Heart (film)The Astonished Heart is a 1950 drama film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Celia Johnson and Noel Coward and is based on his play The Astonished Heart.-Plot:...
, UniversalUniversal StudiosUniversal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
(1950) - Tonight at Eight-Thirty (based on Ways and Means, Red Peppers, and Fumed Oak), British Film Makers (1953)
- Pretty Polly (A Matter of Innocence)Pretty Polly (film)Pretty Polly, also known as A Matter of Innocence, is a 1967 British film, directed by Guy Green and based on the short story, Pretty Polly Barlow, by Noël Coward. It stars Hayley Mills, Shashi Kapoor, Trevor Howard, Brenda De Banzie...
(based on his short story Pretty Polly Barlow), Universal (1967) - Relative ValuesRelative ValuesRelative Values is a 2000 British comedy film adaptation of the 1950s play of the same name by Noel Coward. It stars Julie Andrews, Colin Firth, William Baldwin, Stephen Fry and Jeanne Tripplehorn, and was directed by Eric Styles....
(2000)
Films in which he participated as actor, screenwriter, director or producer are as follows:
- Hearts of the WorldHearts of the WorldHearts of the World is a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith, a wartime propaganda classic that was filmed on location in Britain and near the Western Front, made at the request of the British Government to change the neutral mindset of the American public.-Plot:Two families live next to one...
(1918, uncredited) - Across the ContinentAcross the ContinentAcross the Continent is a silent film released by Paramount Pictures in June 1922. It was one of star Wallace Reid's last films before his death on 18 January 1923...
(1922, uncredited) - The ScoundrelThe ScoundrelThe Scoundrel is a drama film directed by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and starring Noël Coward, Julie Haydon, Stanley Ridges, and Lionel Stander. It was Coward's film debut, aside from a bit role in a silent film...
(1935) - In Which We ServeIn Which We ServeIn Which We Serve is a 1942 British patriotic war film directed by David Lean and Noël Coward. It was made during the Second World War with the assistance of the Ministry of Information ....
(1942, also director/screenwriter) - This Happy BreedThis Happy Breed (film)This Happy Breed is a 1944 British drama film directed by David Lean. The screenplay by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame is based on the 1939 play of the same title by Noël Coward...
(1944, as producer) - Blithe Spirit (1945, as screenwriter)
- Brief EncounterBrief EncounterBrief Encounter is a 1945 British film directed by David Lean about the conventions of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love brings unexpectedly violent emotions. The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey...
(1945) screenwriter - The Astonished HeartThe Astonished Heart (film)The Astonished Heart is a 1950 drama film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Celia Johnson and Noel Coward and is based on his play The Astonished Heart.-Plot:...
(1950) - Around the World in Eighty DaysAround the World in Eighty Days (1956 film)Around the World in 80 Days is a 1956 adventure film produced by the Michael Todd Company and released by United Artists. It was directed by Michael Anderson. It was produced by Michael Todd, with Kevin McClory and William Cameron Menzies as associate producers. The screenplay was written by James...
(1956)
- Our Man in HavanaOur Man in Havana (film)Our Man in Havana is a 1959 film directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Graham Greene...
(1959) - Surprise PackageSurprise Package (film)Surprise Package is a 1960 American comedy film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Yul Bryner, Mitzi Gaynor, Noel Coward, Eric Pohlmann and Barry Foster. An American gangster living on a Greek island and a deposed King hatch a plan to steal some crown jewels....
(1960) - Paris, When It SizzlesParis, When It SizzlesParis When It Sizzles is a 1964 romantic comedy film directed by Richard Quine and produced by Quine and George Axelrod. The screenplay is by George Axelrod based on the story and film Holiday for Henrietta by Julien Duvivier and Henri Jeanson. The music score is by Nelson Riddle, the...
(1964) - Present LaughterPresent LaughterPresent Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
(1964, TV) - The VortexThe VortexThe Vortex is a play by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The story focuses on sexual vanity and drug abuse among the upper classes. The play was Coward's first great commercial success....
(1964, TV) - Bunny Lake Is MissingBunny Lake Is MissingBunny Lake Is Missing is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed and produced by Otto Preminger, who filmed it in black and white widescreen format in London. It was based on the novel of the same name by Merriam Modell. The score is by Paul Glass and the opening theme is often heard as...
(1965) - Androcles and the Lion (1967, TV)
- Boom!Boom! (1968 film)Boom! is a 1968 British drama film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Noël Coward. It was directed by Joseph Losey and adapted from Tennessee Williams' play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.-Plot:...
(1968) - The Italian JobThe Italian JobThe Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom....
(1969)
Further reading
- Braybrooke, Patrick. The Amazing Mr Noel Coward. Denis Archer, 1933.
- Coward, Noël. Future Indefinite. Second volume of autobiography, World War II. Heinemann, 1954.
- Coward, Noël. Middle East Diary. A diary of a wartime tour to entertain the troops "from Gib to Baghdad". Heinemann, 1944.
- Coward, Noël. Past Conditional. Third volume (unfinished) of autobiography. Heinemann, 1986. ISBN 0-413-60660-0
- Coward, Noël. The Complete Stories. Methuen Paperback Original, 1985. ISBN 0-413-59970-1.
- Day, Barry (ed). Noël Coward: The Complete Lyrics. Methuen, 1998. ISBN 0-413-73230-4.
- Fisher, Clive. Noël Coward. Weidenfeld, 1992. ISBN 0-297-81180-0.
- Payn, Graham and Martin Tickner (eds.) Noël Coward: Collected Verse. Methuen, 1984, corrected edition 1987. ISBN 0-413-55150-4.
- Wynne-Tyson, Jon. Finding the Words: A Publishing Life, Michael Russell Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-85955-287-X.
External links
Works (plain text and HTML)- Works by Noël Coward at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(audio, video, text) - Rare videos of Noël Coward performing in 1955
- Noël Coward Collection in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
- Audio (.ram files) of a 1969 interview by Patrick GarlandPatrick Garlandthumb|right|200pxPatrick Garland is a British actor, writer, and director.Garland started Poetry International in 1963 with Ted Hughes and Charles Osborne. He was a director and producer for the BBC's Music and Arts Department , and worked on its Monitor series...
for the BBC
Portals
- The Noël Coward Society
- Noël Coward 101 at the Cyber Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre, Television and Film
- Coward timeline and photos of Coward
- Noel Coward plays on radio
- Star Quality: The World of Noel Coward Exhibition at the Museum of Performance & Design, 17 April – 29 August 2009
Misc