Noël Coward

Sir Noel Peirce Coward (spelling his forename Noël with the diaeresis was an affectation of later life, and "Peirce" is the correct spelling) (December 16, 1899 - March 26, 1973) was an English actor, playwright, and composer of popular music. Noel Coward. ... In linguistics, a diaeresis or dieresis (AE) (from Greek diairein, to divide) is the modification of a syllable by distinctly pronouncing one of its vowels. ... December 16 is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1899 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (86th in leap years). ... 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... A playwright is an author of plays for performance in the theater. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and mostly distributed commercially. ...

Early life

Born at Teddington, Middlesex, he began performing in the West End at an early age. Coward’s first professional engagement was on 27 January 1911 in the children’s play, The Goldfish. After this appearance, he was sought after for children’s roles by other professional theatres. He was featured in several productions with Sir Charles Hawtrey, a Victorian actor and comedian, whom Coward idolized and to whom he virtually apprenticed himself until he was twenty. It was from Hawtrey that Coward learned comic acting techniques and playwriting. Teddington is a place in London, England in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. ... Middlesex as a traditional county before 1888. ... West End is the name of some places in the world, including: The West End of London, England West End Theatre, is where many of Londons major theatres are located and premier cinema screenings take place. ... January 27 is the 27th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... A database query syntax error has occurred. ... For other usages see Theatre (disambiguation) Theater (American English) or Theatre (British English and widespread usage among theatre professionals in the US) is that branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed... There have been two notable actors named Charles Hawtrey: Sir Charles Hawtrey (1858-1923), stage and silent film actor; Charles Hawtrey (1914-1988), who named himself after the earlier actor, and is best known for the Carry On films. ... A comedian (also comedienne, female) is a person who attempts to make people laugh through a variety of methods, normally through joke telling, or a stream of funny banter. ...

Success in the Twenties and Thirties

He starred in one of his first full-length plays, the inheritance comedy I'll Leave It To You, in 1920 at the age of twenty. After enjoying some moderate success with the Shaw-esque The Young Idea in 1923, the controversy surrounding his play The Vortex (1924) - which contains many veiled references to both drug abuse and homosexuality - made him an overnight sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. Coward followed this success with three more major hits, Hay Fever, Fallen Angels (both 1925) and Easy Virtue (1926). For other uses, see inheritance (disambiguation). ... Comedy is the use of humour in the performing arts. ... 1920 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) Events January January 7 - Forces of Russian White admiral Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. ... George Bernard Shaw (July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950) was an Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. ... 1923 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1924 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is actively undergoing a major edit. ... Homosexuality may refer to: A sexual orientation characterized by aesthetic attraction, romantic love, and sexual desire primarily for members of the same sex or gender identity. ... The Atlantic Ocean is Earths second-largest ocean, covering approximately one-fifth of its surface. ... Pollen grains from a variety of common plants can cause hay fever. ... 1925 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1926 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Much of Coward's best work came in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Enormous (and enormously popular) productions such as the full-length operetta Bitter Sweet (1929) and Cavalcade (1931), a huge extravaganza requiring a very large cast, gargantuan sets and an exceedingly complex hydraulic stage, were interspersed with finely-wrought comedies such as Private Lives (1930), in which Coward himself starred alongside his most famous stage partner Gertrude Lawrence, and the black comedy Design for Living (1932), written for Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Coward again partnered Lawrence in Tonight at 8:30 (1936), an ambitious cycle of ten different short plays which were randomly "shuffled" to make up a unique playbill of three plays each night. One of these short plays, Still Life, was later expanded into the 1945 David Lean film Brief Encounter. He was also a prolific writer of popular songs, and a lucrative recording contract with HMV allowed him to release a number of recordings which have been extensively reissued on CD. Operetta (literally, little opera) is a performance art-form similar to opera, though it generally deals with less serious topics. ... Bitter Sweet was an operetta written by Noel Coward and first produced in 1929. ... Cavalcade was a spectacular stage play written by Noel Coward, premiered in London in 1931 and later made into a commercially and critically successful film, though it is little remembered now. ... Private Lives is a play written by Noel Coward in 1930. ... Gertrude Lawrence (June 4, 1898 - September 6, 1952) was an actress and musical performer popular in the 1930s-40s, appearing on stage in London and on Broadway, and in several films. ... Design for Living is a black comedy written by Noel Coward which premiered in 1932. ... Alfred Lunt photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1932 Alfred Lunt (August 12, 1892–August 3, 1977) was an American actor. ... Portrait of Lynn Fontane by Carl Van Vechten, May 23, 1932 Lynn Fontanne (December 6, 1887 - July 30, 1983) was a famous stage and film star. ... Tonight at 8:30 (1936) is a unique cycle of short plays by Noel Coward, the first production of which was a bold experiment in the history of theatre. ... Sir David Lean (March 25, 1908 – April 16, 1991) was a British film director, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of Arabia and Ryans Daughter. ... Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard Brief Encounter (1945) is a British film directed by David Lean starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. ...

World War II

The outbreak of World War II in 1939 saw Coward working harder than ever. Alongside his highly-publicised tours entertaining Allied troops, Coward was also engaged by the British Secret Service MI5 to conduct intelligence work. He was often frustrated by criticism he faced for his ostensibly glamorous lifestyle; criticised for apparently living the high life while his countrymen suffered, he was unable to defend himself by revealing details of his work for the secret service. He also wrote and released some extraordinarily popular songs during the war (the most famous of which are London Pride and Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans) as well as writing and starring in the naval drama film In Which We Serve, which Coward co-directed with David Lean and for which Coward won an honorary Oscar. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Current MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London MI5—officially called the Security Service—is one of the British secret service agencies. ... In Which We Serve is a 1942 war film written and directed by, and starring, Noel Coward. ... Sir David Lean (March 25, 1908 – April 16, 1991) was a British film director, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of Arabia and Ryans Daughter. ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ...

The 1940s also saw Coward write some of his best plays. The social commentary of This Happy Breed and the intricate semi-autobiographical comedy-drama Present Laughter (both 1939) were later combined with the hugely successful ghost comedy Blithe Spirit (1941) to form a West End triple-bill in which Coward starred in all three simultaneous productions. Blithe Spirit went on to break box-office records for a West End comedy not beaten until the 1970s, and was made into a film directed by David Lean. Blithe Spirit (1941) is a comic play written by Noel Coward. ... Sir David Lean (March 25, 1908 – April 16, 1991) was a British film director, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of Arabia and Ryans Daughter. ...

Later works

Coward's popularity as a playwright declined sharply in the 1950s, but he still managed to maintain a high public profile, continuing to write (and occasionally starring in) moderately successful West End plays, performing an acclaimed solo cabaret act in Las Vegas (recorded for posterity and still available on CD), and starring in films such as Bunny Lake is Missing, Around the World in 60 Days and The Italian Job. After starring in a number of American TV specials in the late 50s alongside Mary Martin, Coward left the U.K. for tax reasons in the late 1950s and moved to the Caribbean, settling first in Bermuda and then to Jamaica, where he remained for the rest of his life. The late 1960s saw a revival in his popularity, with several new productions of his 1920s plays and a number of revues celebrating his music; Coward himself dubbed this comeback "Dad's Renaissance". He was knighted in 1970, and died in Jamaica in 1973. He is buried in Firefly Hill, Jamaica. This article is about the city of Las Vegas in Nevada. ... The Italian Job is a British comedy caper film, directed by Peter Collinson and written by Troy Kennedy Martin. ... Mary Martin photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1949 Mary Martin (December 1, 1913 - November 3, 1990) was an American star of (mainly stage) musicals. ...

As well as over fifty published plays and many albums' worth of original songs, Coward also wrote comic revues, poetry, several volumes of short stories, a novel (Pomp and Circumstance, 1960), and three volumes of autobiography. Books of his song lyrics, diaries and letters have also been published. This article is in need of attention. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... Autobiography (from the Greek auton, self, bios, life and graphein, write) is biography, the writing of a life story, from the viewpoint of the subject. ... A song is a relatively short musical composition for the human voice (possibly accompanied by other musical instruments), which features words (lyrics). ...

Private life

A homosexual, Coward never married but he did enjoy a lengthy relationship with the stage and film actor Graham Payn for almost thirty years until the end of his life. Payn later edited the collection of his diaries published in 1982. Homosexuality may refer to: A sexual orientation characterized by aesthetic attraction, romantic love, and sexual desire primarily for members of the same sex or gender identity. ... 1982 is a number and represents a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar Events January January 6 - William Bonin is convicted of being the freeway killer. January 8 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions January 11 - Mark Thatcher, son of the British Prime...

Parodies of him and his style include: In contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. ...

• Eric Idle's "Penis Song" from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
• Charles and Fiona, (Dame Celia Molestrangler and Aging juvenile Binkie Huckaback) characters in Round the Horne.

Eric Idle as Stan/Loretta in the Monty Python film Life of Brian Eric Idle is a comedian, actor and film director, as well as an author and accomplished guitarist/songwriter. ... The Meaning of Life was a Monty Python comedy film made in 1983. ... Round the Horne was one of the most influential BBC Radio comedy programmes, comparable to The Goon Show in its influence on other comedy programmes. ...

External links

• Noel Coward 101 (http://www.musicals101.com/noel.htm)
• Audio (.ram files) of a 1969 interview for the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/cowardn1.shtml)