Of the greatest friends who outlived him, Cole Lesley died suddenly in 1980; Graham Payn lives on in the house that was Noël’s Swiss home for the last fifteen years of his life, while Firefly is preserved as a writers’ retreat in Jamaica.
When the playboy of the West End world, jack of all its entertainment trades (and Master of most) died, he was as old as the century and its most constant, if often controversial, showbusiness reflection. He left behind him over fifty plays, twenty-five films, hundreds of songs, a ballet, two autobiographies, a wartime diary, a novel, several volumes of short stories and countless poems, sketches, recordings and paintings, not to mention the memories of three generations of playgoers on both sides of the Atlantic for whom he had been the most ineffably elegant and ubiquitous of entertainers.
And in the twelve years since his death, his work has remained in constant revival: Blithe Spirit at the National Theatre in a production by Harold Pinter; Private Lives in the West End with Michael Jayston and Maria Aitken and on Broadway with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor; Design For Living in London and New York; Present Laughter in the West End with Donald Sinden and on Broadway with George C. Scott; Hay Fever in London with Penelope Keith. Television documentaries have recalled and examined his career; record companies have reissued his scores; cabaret pianists have recalled his long-lost early melodies; the actors’ church in Covent Garden bears a memorial; his Diaries have become worldwide bestsellers; a musical called Noël & Gertie celebrates his private and professional partnership with Gertrude Lawrence; his films are forever on television (Brief Encounter was indeed remade for it with Burton and Sophia Loren) and his songs are constantly on radio, while few repertory or amateur theatre companies go for more than a year without at least one of his plays. Even the epic Cavalcade has come back to life.
And then, on March 28th 1984, came the ultimate national accolade: in the presence of more than a thousand people, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother unveiled a memorial stone at Westminster Abbey. It reads simply ‘Noël Coward. Playwright, Actor, Composer. 16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973. Buried in Jamaica. A Talent to Amuse’.
All that London lacks now is a Noël Coward Theatre, and I cannot believe it will be too long before we get one.
APPENDIX
A Coward Chronology
The following chart lists the major professional events of Coward’s life in chronological sequence. Dates given in the Composer and Playwright columns refer to the year of composition; in the case of tours and transfers, only opening dates are listed. Unless otherwise specified, theatres are in London and dates refer to first London productions. With some independent exceptions, songs are listed under the shows in which they were first heard, but here as for revivals an exhaustive list has proved impossible in the space available. For almost all entries, further details will be found in the main body of the text. To have given complete production details for the films and plays with which Coward was in some way involved would have required a further sixty or seventy pages; but cast lists for all major productions of his work up to December 1956 will be found in Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson’s Theatrical Companion to Coward (published by Rockliff in 1957). The most complete collection of his song titles is to be found in The Lyrics of Noël Coward (published by Heinemann in 1965).
Sources and Acknowledgements
When I started to work on this book, Alan Webb wanted to know what made me think I could write a better account of Coward’s life than was already contained in his autobiographies Present Indicative and Future Indefinite. The answer was that if I couldn’t do it better, I could at least do it more objectively; I could also fill in some of the gaps, since the years 1932–1938 and 1945–1968 are not covered by any of Coward’s own writing. Although I cannot claim that this is the first biography (a slim and somewhat inaccurate volume entitled The Amazing Mr Coward was published in 1933) it is the only other; I have therefore had the responsibility of writing as full an account of a long and varied life as is possible at this moment in time. To have waited longer might have made it easier to set Coward’s career into a clearer critical and social perspective, but it would also have entailed the loss of a number of personal memories and eyewitness accounts dating back to the very beginning of this century.
Help with this book has come to me from a wide variety of sources on both sides of the Atlantic; there follows a list of many people who have aided me in many ways (providing letters and other documents, material both published and unpublished, vivid memories and vague recollections, fresh leads and time-honoured anecdotes) but I must first of all express my gratitude to Mr Coward himself, who generously placed at my disposal the collection of his letters and other private papers without which this book could not have been completed. His London representative for more than forty years, the late Lorn Loraine, her successor Joan Hirst and his secretary Cole Lesley were all equally patient, kindly and unstinting in the help they afforded me. I should like to reiterate here my deep gratitude to all my other informants for their help and guidance, though limitations of space compel me to list only those whose contributions have been used either directly or indirectly in the text as published. The use of heavy type indicates people who were also kind enough to give me interviews.
H. M. Adcock
Edward Albee
Richard Aldrich
Adrianne Allen
Lord Amherst
Maidie Andrews
Robert Andrews
Phyllis Ashworth
Adele Astaire
Richard Attenborough
Rev. Francis Bale
Joyce Barbour
Felix Barker
Cecil Beaton
Hugh Beaumont
S. N. Behrman
David Bowman
Ivor Brown
Ronald Bryden
Peter Bull
Hal Burton
Gladys Calthrop
James Cameron
Judy Campbell
Joyce Carey
Kitty Carlisle
John Paddy Carstairs
Kenneth Carten
Lord David Cecil
Sir John Clements
F. Collinson
Betty Comden
Fay Compton
Cyril Connolly
Dame Gladys Cooper
Cicely Courtneidge
Zena Dare
Peter Daubeny
Alan Dent
Maida Devonshire
Doris Dickens
Dorothy Dickson
Dame Edith Evans
William Fairchild
David Fairweather
Richard Findlater
Lynn Fontanne
Harold French
John Gassner
Sir John Gielgud
Lilian Gish
Max Gordon
Morton Gottlieb
Gerard Gould
Abel Green
Adolph Green
Benny Green
Sir Tyrone Guthrie
Norman Hackforth
Miss A. D. Hall
Kay Hammond
Richard Haydn
Harold Hobson
Jack Hulbert
Celia Johnson
Jeffrey Johnson
Ena Jones
June (Mrs Edward Hillman, Jnr.)
Garson Kanin
Elmie Kemp
P. F. Kendle
Evelyn Laye
Peter Lewis
Beatrice Lillie
Alfred Lunt
Alastair MacGillivra
John Mackenzie
Micheál Mac Liammóir
Anna and Daniel Massey
Edna Mayo
John Merivale
The late Gilbert Miller
Billy Milton
Lord Mountbatten of Burma
Donald Neville-Willing
David Niven
Catherine O’Brien
Bill O’Bryen
Maxine Oldroyd
Sir Laurence Olivier
Nigel Patrick
Graham Payn
Gale Pcdrick
Derek Prouse
Elsie Randolph
Terence Rattigan
F. M. Rhodes
Richard Rodgers
James Roose-Evans
Ivy St Helier
Gerald Savory
Charles Seeley
Joan Spurgin
G. B. Stern
Seweli Stokes
Elaine Stritch
Edward Sutro
John Russell Taylor
Michael Thornton
J. C. Trewin
Kenneth Tynan
Arnold Weissberger
Col. J. F. Williams-Wynne
Peggy Wood
Esml Wynne-Tyson
Jon Wynne-Tyson.
Wing-Cdr Lynden
Wynne-Tyson
I am also most grateful to Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson whose Theatre Collection and encyclopaedic knowledge of the stage have proved as vital to this biography as to so many others; to David Drummond for permission to quote from the Lila Field papers; to Chappell & Co. Ltd and Warner Bros.–Seven Arts Music for permission to quote from the songs of Noël Coward; and to the personnel of the London Library, the Westminster Central Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum (Enthoven Collection), the Radio Times Hulton Picture Library and the National Film Archive.
A copyright letter from Bernard Shaw appears by permission of the Society of Authors as Agent for the Shaw Estate; extracts from Monogram by G. B. Stern are reprinted by permission of A. D. Peters & Co.; and a private letter from Somerset Maugham appears by kind permission of the Literary Executor of W. Somerset Maugham and excerpts from two letters by Alexander Woollcott are reprinted by permission of the Viking Press, Inc.
A list of source books will be found elsewhere, but my thanks are also due to the owners and editors of the following newspapers and magazines, some of which are now sadly defunct, for quotations both direct and indirect: American Register, Birmingham Daily Post, Brooklyn Times, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Sketch, Daily Telegraph, Economist, Era, Evening News, Evening Standard, Glasgow Bulletin, Glasgow Citizen, Globe, Good Housekeeping, Graphic, Illustrated London News, The Layman, London Magazine, Morning Post, News Chronicle, New Statesman, New York Herald-Tribune, New York Sun, New York Times, The Observer, The People, Philadelphia Enquirer, Play Pictorial, Plays and Players, Saturday Review, The Sketch, Spectator, The Sphere, Sporting and Dramatic, The Stage, Sunday Chronicle, Sunday Express, Sunday Pictorial, Sunday Times, Theatre World, The Times, Times Literary Supplement, Variety.
For typing this manuscript in the various stages of its completion my thanks are due to Mrs T. Rapinet, Mrs E. and the late Mrs F. Aries, and the staff of Scripts Limited.
Last but by no means least, my thanks to John Lawrence at The Times who first sent me to interview Coward and so indirectly paved the way to this book; to Charles Pick at Heinemann and Ken McCormick at Doubleday who had the faith to commission a biography which until then had only existed in my mind; to Sir Geoffrey Cox at I.T.N., and Rowan Ayers at B.B.C. television, my employers while I was writing this book, for their tolerance; to Jacqueline Reynolds at Curtis Brown who has been with this project from the very beginning; to Rachel Montgomery at Heinemann and Lisa Drew at Doubleday who guided the manuscript through to press with infinite tact, care and patience; and to Margaret my wife who put up with me and a houseful of Cowardiana for the three years that it has taken me to write A Talent to Amuse.
Bibliography
The following is a list of those books which proved most useful to me while I was researching and writing this biography; some afforded anecdotes or direct quotations, many more were used as background material and for cross-checking references and dates. As Coward’s name occurs in countless theatre books published since the mid-1920s it would be impossible to provide a complete listing here, but to all the authors and publishers concerned I am most grateful.
COWARD, NOËL, A Withered Nosegay (satire), Christopher’s, London, 1922.
Terribly Intimate Portraits (satire), Boni & Liverright, New York, 1922.
Three Plays (with the Author’s reply to his critics), Ernest Benn, London, 1925.
Chelsea Buns (satire), Hutchinson, London, 1925.
Three Plays with a Preface, Martin Secker, London, 1928.
The Plays of Noël Coward (preface by Arnold Bennett), Doubleday, Doran, New York, 1928.
Bitter-Sweet and other plays (preface by W. Somerset Maugham), Doubleday, Doran, New York, 1929.
Collected Sketches and Lyrics, Hutchinson, London, 1931.
Spangled Unicorn (satire), Hutchinson, London, 1932.
Play Parade Volumes 1–6, Heinemann, London, 1934–1962.
Present Indicative (autobiography), Heinemann, London, 1937.
To Step Aside (short stories), Heinemann, London, 1939.
Australia Visited 1940 (broadcasts), Heinemann, London, 1941.
Middle East Diary (autobiography), Heinemann, London, 1944.
Star Quality (short stories), Heinemann, London, 1951.
The Noël Coward Song Book, Michael Joseph, London, 1953.
Future Indefinite (autobiography), Heinemann, London, 1954.
Pomp and Circumstance (novel), Heinemann, London, 1960.
The Collected Short Stories, Heinemann, London, 1962.
Pretty Polly Barlow (short stories), Heinemann, London, 1964.
3 Plays by Noël Coward (preface by Edward Albee), Delta, Dell Publishing Co. Inc., New York, 1965.
The Lyrics of Noël Coward, Heinemann, London, 1965.
Suite in Three Keys (plays), Heinemann, London, 1966.
Bon Voyage (short stories), Heinemann, London, 1967.
Not Yet The Dodo (verse), Heinemann, London, 1967.
BRAYBROOKE, PATRICK, The Amazing Mr Coward, Archer, London, 1933.
GREACEN, ROBERT, The Art of Noël Coward, Hand & Flower Press, England, 1953.
MANDER, RAYMOND & MITCHENSON, JOE, Theatrical Companion to Coward, Rockliff, London, 1957.
RICHARDS, DICK (ed.), The Wit of Noël Coward, Leslie Frewin, London, 1968.
__________
ADAMS, SAMUEL HOPKINS, Alexander Woollcott, Reynal and Hitchcock, New York, 1945.
AGATE, JAMES, Contemporary Theatre 1924, Chapman & Hall, London, 1925.
Egos 1–9, Hamish Hamilton, Gollancz, Harrap, London, 1932–48.
AGEE, JAMES, Agee on Film, Beacon Press, New York, 1964.
ALDRICH, RICHARD, Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs A., Odhams, London, 1954.
ASTAIRE, FRED, Steps in Time, Heinemann, London, 1959.
BALCON, MICHAEL, A Lifetime in Films, Hutchinson, London, 1969.
BANKHEAD, TALLULAH, Tallulah, Gollancz, London, 1952.
BAXTER, BEVERLEY, First Nights and Footlights, Hutchinson, London, 1955.
BEATON, CECIL, The Wandering Years, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1961.
& TYNAN, KENNETH, Persona Grata, Wingate, London, 1953.
BISHOP, GEORGE, My Betters, Heinemann, London, 1957.
BOLITHO, HECTOR, Marie Tempest, Cobden-Sanderson, London, 1936.
BURTON, HAL (ed.), Great Acting, British Broadcasting Corporation, London, 1967.
CAMERON, JAMES, Point of Departure, Barker, London, 1967.
COCHRAN, CHARLES, I Had Almost Forgotten, Hutchinson, London, 1932.
Cock-A-Doodle-Doo, Dent, London, 1941.
COLLIER, CONSTANCE, Harlequinade, The Bodley Head, London, 1929.
COOPER, DIANA, The Light of Common Day, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1959.
COURTNEIDGE, CICELY, Cicely, Hutchinson, London, 1953.
COURTNEY, MARGARET, Laurette Taylor, Rinehart, New York, 1955.
DAMASE, JACQUES, Les Folies du Music-Hall, Blond, London, 1962.
DAUBENY, PETER, Stage by Stage, Murray, London, 1952.
DENT, ALAN, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Museum Press, London, 1961.
DU MAURIER, DAPHNE, Gerald: A Portrait, Gollancz, London, 1934.
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FORBES-ROBERTSON, DIANA, Maxine Elliott, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1964.
FREEDLEY, GEORGE, The Lunts, Rockliff, London, 1957.
GASSNER, JOHN, The Theatre in Our Times, Crown, New York, 1954.
GIELGUD, JOHN, Early Stages, Macmillan, London, 1939.
GREIN, J. T., The New World of the Theatre, Hopkinson, London, 1924.
GUTHRIE, TYRONE, A Life in the Theatre, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1960.
HADDON, ARCHIBALD, Green Room Gossip, Stanley Paul, London, 1922.
HARDING, JAMES, Sacha Guitry: The Last Methuen, London, 1968.
HART, MOSS, Act One, Random House, New York, 1959.
HAWTREY, CHARLES, The Truth At Last, Thornton Butterworth, London, 1924.
HOBSON, HAROLD, Verdict at Midnight, Longmans, London, 1952.
The Theatre Now, Longmans, London, 1953.
HOYT, EDWIN P. Alexander Woollcott: The Man Who Came To Dinner, Abelard-Schuman, New York, 1968.
JUNE, The Glass Ladder, Heinemann, London, 1960.
KANIN, GARSON, Remembering Mr Maugham, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1966.
KENDALL, HENRY, I Remember Romano’s, Macdonald, London, 1960.
LANCASTER, M-J. (ED.), Brian Howard: Portrait of a Failure, Blond, London, 1968.
LAWRENCE, GERTRUDE, A Star Danced, Doubleday, Doran, New York, 1945.
LOELIA, DUCHESS OF WESTMINSTER, Grace and Favour, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1961.
MCDOWALL, RODDY (ED.), Double Exposure, Delacorte Press, New York, 1966.
MACQUEEN-POPE, W., Ivor, Hutchinson, London, 1951.
MANEY, RICHARD, Fanfare, Harper, New York, 1957.
MANVELL, ROGER, New Cinema in Europe, Dutton Vista, London, 1966.
MATTHEWS, A. E., Matty, Hutchinson, London, 1952.
MAXWELL, ELSA, The Celebrity Circus, W. H. Allen, London, 1964.
NICHOLS, BEVERLEY, Are They The Same At Home? Cape, London, 1927.
NICOLL, ALLARDYCE, World Drama, Harrap, London, 1949.
NICOLSON, HAROLD, Diaries, Vol II, Collins, London, 1967.
O’CASEY, SEAN, The Flying Wasp, Macmillan, London, 1937.
PARKER, JOHN (ed.), Who’s Who in the Theatre, Pitman, London, 1961.
PEARSON, JOHN, The Life of Ian Fleming, Cape, London, 1966.
RIGDON, WALTER, Who’s Who of the American Theatre, Heineman, New York, 1966.
RUSSELL TAYLOR, JOHN, The Rise and Fall of the Well-Made Play, Methuen, London, 1967.
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