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Noël Coward

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".[1]

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 revues), screenplays, 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, as well as those of others.


At the outbreak of the Second World War, 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 1970. 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".


Coward's plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. He 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.

Biography[edit]

Early years[edit]

Coward was born in 1899 in Teddington, Middlesex, a south-western 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.[2][n 1] Noël Coward was the second of their three sons, the eldest of whom had died in 1898 at the age of six.[4] Coward's father lacked ambition and industry, and family finances were often poor.[5] 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.[6]


Encouraged by his ambitious mother, who sent him to a dance academy in London,[7] Coward's first professional engagement was in January 1911 as Prince Mussel in the children's play The Goldfish.[8] In Present Indicative, his first volume of memoirs, Coward wrote:

"" (Bitter Sweet)

I'll See You Again

"" (Words and Music)

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

"" (Bitter Sweet)

If Love Were All

"Someday I'll Find You" (Private Lives)

"I'll Follow My Secret Heart" (Conversation Piece)

"" (1941)

London Pride

"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)

[54]

(2002) [1845]. Who's a Dandy? – Dandyism and Beau Brummell. George Walden (trans. and ed. of new edition). London: Gibson Square. ISBN 978-1-903933-18-3.

Barbey D'Aurevilly, Jules

(1972). Noël. London: W H Allen. ISBN 978-0-491-00534-0.

Castle, Charles

Coward, Noël (1994). . Sheridan Morley (introduction). London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-51740-1.

Plays, Five

Coward, Noël (1994). . Sheridan Morley (introduction). London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-73410-5.

Plays, Six

Coward, Noël (2004) [1932]. Present Indicative – Autobiography to 1931. London: Methuen.  978-0-413-77413-2.

ISBN

Coward, Noël (1954). Future Indefinite. London: Heinemann.  5002107.

OCLC

Coward, Noël (1967). Not Yet the Dodo, and other verses. London: Heinemann.  488338862.

OCLC

Day, Barry, ed. (2007). The Letters of Noël Coward. London: Methuen.  978-1-4081-0675-4.

ISBN

Dibbs, Martin (2019). Radio Fun and the BBC Variety Department, 1922–67. Cham: Springer.

Gaye, Freda, ed. (1967). Who's Who in the Theatre (fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons.  5997224.

OCLC

Herbert, Ian, ed. (1977). Who's Who in the Theatre (sixteenth ed.). London and Detroit: Pitman Publishing and Gale Research.  978-0-273-00163-8.

ISBN

(1995). Noël Coward, A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson. ISBN 978-1-4081-0675-4.

Hoare, Philip

Kaplan, Joel; Stowel, Sheila, eds. (2000). Look Back in Pleasure: Noël Coward Reconsidered. London: Methuen.  978-0-413-75500-1.

ISBN

Koss, Richard (2008). . London: Lonely Planet. ISBN 978-1-74104-693-9.

Jamaica

(1982). Coward the Playwright. London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-48050-7.

Lahr, John

Lesley, Cole (1976). The Life of Noël Coward. London: Cape.  978-0-224-01288-1.

ISBN

; Mitchenson, Joe; Day, Barry; Morley, Sheridan (2000) [1957]. Theatrical Companion to Coward (second ed.). London: Oberon. ISBN 978-1-84002-054-0.

Mander, Raymond

McCall, Douglas (2014). Monty Python: A Chronology, 1969–2012. Jefferson: Mc Farland.  978-0-7864-7811-8.

ISBN

Morley, Sheridan (1974) [1969]. A Talent to Amuse. London: Penguin.  978-0-14-003863-7.

ISBN

Morley, Sheridan (2005). Noël Coward. London: Haus Publishing.  978-1-90-434188-8.

ISBN

Payn, Graham; Morley, Sheridan, eds. (1982). The Noël Coward Diaries (1941–1969). London: Methuen.  978-0-297-78142-4.

ISBN

Payn, Graham (1994). My Life with Noël Coward. New York: Applause Books.  978-1-55783-190-3.

ISBN

Richards, Dick, ed. (1970). The Wit of Noël Coward. London: Sphere Books.  978-0-7221-3676-8.

ISBN

Tynan, Kenneth (1964). . Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. OCLC 949598.

Tynan on Theatre

(1933). The Amazing Mr Noel Coward. Denis Archer. OCLC 1374995.

Braybrooke, Patrick

Coward, Noël (1985). . London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-59970-4.

The Complete Stories

Coward, Noël (1986). Past Conditional (third volume, unfinished, of autobiography). London: Heinemann.  978-0-413-60660-0.

ISBN

Coward, Noël (1944). Middle East Diary. London: Heinemann.  640033606.

OCLC

Coward, Noël (1998). Barry Day (ed.). Coward: The Complete Lyrics. London: Methuen.  978-0-413-73230-9.

ISBN

Coward, Noël (2011). Barry Day (ed.). The Complete Verse of Noël Coward. London: Methuen.  978-1-4081-3174-9.

ISBN

Fisher, Clive (1992). Noël Coward. London: Weidenfeld.  978-0-297-81180-0.

ISBN

James, Elliot (2020). The Importance of Happiness: Noël Coward and the Actors' Orphanage. UK: Troubador Publishing.  9781800460416.

ISBN

(2004). Finding the Words: A Publishing Life. Norwich: Michael Russell. ISBN 978-0-85955-287-5.

Wynne-Tyson, Jon

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