X-Nico

17 unusual facts about Noël Coward


Amy Jenkins

Although it was the second biggest debut novel of the year, selling over 250,000 copies in the UK and Commonwealth, critics noted that a central plot device in Jenkins' work possessed a striking similarity to the premise of Noël Coward's play Private Lives.

Cecil Parker

Parker was also the original Charles Condomine in the West End production of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, a role subsequently played on Broadway by Clifton Webb and in the 1945 film by Rex Harrison.

Darby and Joan

The phrase was used satirically by Noël Coward in the song "Bronxville Darby and Joan" from his musical Sail Away (1961).

DugOut Theatre

Ed Smith returned to directing after his success on the stage as Mugsy in Dealer's Choice with Noël Coward's 1924 farce.

Helen Stenborg

Stenborg appeared on stage in revivals of A Doll's House, A Month in the Country, and The Crucible; the original, belated US production of Noël Coward's Waiting in the Wings, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play; and the Lanford Wilson plays, The Rimers of Eldritch and Talley & Son winning the Obie Award for her performance in the latter.

John C. Wilson

During the run of The Vortex by Noël Coward in 1924, Wilson met Coward and soon became his business manager and lover.

John Drummond, 8th Earl of Perth

After beginning a banking career, he went to Paris during the Second World War to help Noël Coward in a propaganda office, then returned to London to work in the War Cabinet office and later at the Ministry of Production.

Kim Weaver

She especially likes playing the part of Elvira in Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit.

Lilian Braithwaite

Her greatest triumph was as the alcoholic mother in Noël Coward's groundbreaking drama The Vortex.

Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter

Her circle of friends, socialites, acquaintances and lovers included Evelyn Eugenia (known as "Sister") and her sister Tallulah Bankhead, Louise Brooks, Marion Carstairs, Noël Coward, Greta Garbo, Libby Holman, Jane Bowles and Z. Smith Reynolds.

Noonday Gun

The firing of the gun was famously mentioned in Noël Coward's humorous song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen".

Peter Tuddenham

Back home, he won a part in Ivor Novello's The Dancing Years and, following stints in West End revues and farces, worked with Noël Coward in Ace of Clubs.

Richard Morant

His stage appearances included a starring role in Noël Coward's Private Lives at the Oxford Playhouse in 1984.

Robert Newton

A good example of Newton playing a sympathetic lead role is Noël Coward's This Happy Breed directed by David Lean in 1944.

Sheila Keith

Her stage career took her from repertory theatre at the Bristol Old Vic and Pitlochry, to West End appearances including Noël Coward's Present Laughter, Mame with Ginger Rogers, An Italian Straw Hat, Anyone For Denis?, and Deathtrap.

St Margaret-at-Cliffe

At the other end of the beach there are cottages, two of which were owned by Noël Coward and Ian Fleming.

Times Square Theater

Notable shows presented at the Times Square included the original New York productions of George and Ira Gershwin's Strike Up the Band in 1930 and Noël Coward's Private Lives in 1931.


Bobby Short

Robert Waltrip "Bobby" Short (September 15, 1924 – March 21, 2005) was an American cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noël Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.

Christel Marott

She sculptured and decorated mannequin dolls for Hindsgaul and in 1971 she designed the decorations and costumes for the Noël Coward play Private Lives.

Comedy of manners

In the 20th century, the comedy of manners reappeared in the plays of the British dramatists Noël Coward (Hay Fever, 1925) and Somerset Maugham and the novels of P.G. Wodehouse, as well as various British sitcoms.

Dana Ivey

She made her Broadway debut playing two small roles in a 1981 production of Macbeth; the following year she was cast in a major supporting role in a revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter, for which she received the Clarence Derwent Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play.

Drawing room

Drawing room comedy is also sometimes called the "comedy of manners." Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and several of the plays of Noël Coward are typical works of the genre.

Edith Day

In 1960 she briefly returned to the stage in Noël Coward's Waiting in the Wings, later appearing in the London production of Coward's musical Sail Away at the Savoy Theatre in 1962 (and is featured on the cast album).

Elma Napier

Elma remained at Pointe Baptiste, entertaining guests that included Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, Patrick Leigh Fermor, and Princess Margaret.

Erling Mandelmann

Erling Mandelmann has taken more than 500 portraits of personalities, including amongst others Noël Coward, 14th Dalai Lama, Nina Hagen, Johnny Hallyday, Prince Hans-Adam of Lichtenstein.

Ernest Lehman

Lehman did complete adapted screenplays for two never-made films, one an adaptation of the Noël Coward classic Hay Fever, another a musical version of Zorba the Greek envisioned for director Robert Wise and actors Anthony Quinn and John Travolta.

Esmé Wynne-Tyson

As a child she acted in West End plays, and became a close friend, confidante, and collaborator of Noël Coward.

Films of the Golden Age

Among the many performers who have been covered by the magazine over the years were Tyrone Power, Butterfly McQueen, Olivia de Havilland, Betty Hutton, Robert Mitchum, Noël Coward, Anita Page, Conway Tearle, Edna May Oliver, James Dean, Dorothy Dandridge, Gene Kelly, Esther Williams, Una Merkel, and directors Michael Curtiz, and W. S. Van Dyke.

Graham Cutts

Cutts worked with many leading figures in the UK film and stage world, including Basil Dean, Alfred Hitchcock, Gracie Fields, Ivor Novello, and Noël Coward.

Inger Stender

However, Stender said that her desire was to play a light comedy part like the lead in the Noël Coward operetta Bitter Sweet, but that newspaper reviews focused so much on her beauty that it perhaps prevented her from receiving more varied roles.

Irving Paul Lazar

In addition to Bogart, Lazar became the agent representing the top tier of celebrities, including Lauren Bacall, Truman Capote, Cher, Joan Collins, Noël Coward, Ira Gershwin, Cary Grant, Moss Hart, Ernest Hemingway, Gene Kelly, Madonna, Walter Matthau, Larry McMurtry, Vladimir Nabokov, Clifford Odets, Cole Porter, William Saroyan, Irwin Shaw, President Richard Nixon and Tennessee Williams.

Jimmy Rushing

Whitney Balliett, jazz critic for The New Yorker wrote of Rushing that "His supple, rich voice and his elegant accent have the curious effect of making the typical roughhouse blues lyric seem like a song by Noel Coward".

John Wallowitch

Wrote Stephen Holden in The New York Times: "While Noël Coward is no longer around to set the standards for a certain kind of sophisticated songwriting sensibility, Mr. Wallowitch nimbly carries the torch."

Lympne

Lympne was the setting (though not the filming location) of the 1945 David Lean's film production of Noel Coward's play Blithe Spirit, starring Rex Harrison and Margaret Rutherford (filming was actually done in and around Denham, Buckinghamshire).

Mantovani

He was also musical director for a large number of musicals and other plays, including Noël Coward's Pacific 1860 (1946) and Vivian Ellis's musical setting of J. B. Fagan's And So to Bed (1951).

Mark Greenstreet

First and foremost a stage actor, Greenstreet played many of the great leading roles from the works of Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen to Orton, Wilde and Coward in the UK and around the world in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nederlander Theatre

A wide variety of shows have been presented at the venue, including the Mercury Theatre production of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, Noël Coward's Private Lives, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the Tony award winning Rent.

Palace Theatre, Manchester

During the early part of the 20th century it came into its own, with artists such as Danny Kaye, Gracie Fields, Charles Laughton, Judy Garland, Noël Coward and Laurel and Hardy making appearances.

Patricia Hodge

She has appeared in roles as diverse as in The Naked Civil Servant opposite John Hurt,as Myra Arundel in the 1984 BBC version of Noel Coward's Hay Fever, as Margaret Thatcher in The Falklands Play, and in 2007 as Betty, the wife of tycoon Robert Maxwell, in the BBC TV drama Maxwell opposite David Suchet.

Queenie Ashton

She appeared in musical comedy on the London stage (even appearing with Noël Coward), and performed for Dame Nellie Melba in 1927 while travelling to Australia through the Suez Canal.

Robert Perillo

Perillo is a stage director and has directed works by playwrights as varied as William Shakespeare, Noël Coward, John Patrick Shanley, Tom Stoppard, and Charles Ludlam.

Stand By for Action

The critical response to the film was not good, with the reviewer for Yank magazine saying that the film was "not about The War, but about Hollywood's War," and other reviewers comparing it to In Which We Serve, the 1942 British naval film written by and starring Noël Coward and directed by Coward and David Lean, with the earlier film being deemed superior.

Tessie O'Shea

In 1963, Noël Coward created the part of the fish and chips peddler "Ada Cockle" specifically for O'Shea in his Broadway musical, The Girl Who Came to Supper.

Timothy Gray

Timothy Gray (September 5, 1926 – March 17, 2007) was an American songwriter, author, singer and director, remembered for his partnership with Hugh Martin which produced High Spirits, a musical based on Noël Coward's play, Blithe Spirit.

Tracey Childs

Childs was married to her Howards' Way co-star Tony Anholt, from 1990 to 1998 and toured with him, Marc Sinden and Gemma Craven in Noël Coward's Private Lives throughout 1991 and into 1992.

World Weary

"World Weary" is a popular song written by Noël Coward, for his 1928 musical, This Year of Grace, where it was introduced by Beatrice Lillie.