Coward’s Life

Noël Coward (1899-1973)

Noël Coward entertained theatre-goers for over half a century with what he called this "talent to amuse" – as an actor, playwright, director, composer and singer. He is best known for the witty and sophisticated comedies of manners written from the 1920s through the early ‘40s, which delighted and sometimes shocked audiences with their satiric portrayals of the English leisured classes between the wars. In addition to writing, performing in and directing many of his plays, Coward composed the music and lyrics for numerous songs made popular in hit revues, sketches and musicals.

Coward was born at Teddington, South London, just before the last Christmas of the 1800s – hence the name Noël. A child actor, he made his first stage appearance in the 1911 fairy play called The Goldfish and subsequently apprenticed with Charles Hawtrey, a popular actor-manager. Coward appeared in London as the lost boy Slightly in Peter Pan, and toured in Charley’s Aunt. In July 1920, I’ll Leave It To You became the first play with which he reached the West End as both author and actor.

With The Vortex in 1924, Coward began to gain critical acclaim and personal celebrity. In 1925, four additional Coward productions were running simultaneously in London: Hay Fever, Fallen Angels, Easy Virtue and On With the Dance. Coward ended the decade with his most popular musical play, Bitter Sweet (1929), and he began the next with his most popular comedy of manners, Private Lives (1930), in which he starred with Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier. For the next decade, he enjoyed enormous popularity, with such hits as Cavalcade (1931), Design For Living (1933), Tonight at 8:30 (1936) and Blithe Spirit (1941) which ran for almost 2000 performances.

Coward travelled extensively during World War II, entertaining Allied troops, opening such plays as Present Laughter and This Happy Breed (both in 1943), and directing the patriotic film In Which We Serve. After the war he continued to write plays, music and verse, and to collaborate on film productions of his work. In the 1950s and ‘60s, as his plays declined in popularity, Coward became one of America’s favourite nightclub entertainers. He produced three volumes (published posthumously). Coward was knighted in 1970 and died at his home in Jamaica in 1973.