HISTORIC HOMO With tim Warrington
MASTER
CLASS
In a career that spanned six decades, Noël Coward was the master of everything artistic. From composing to painting, dancing to drama; he did it all. Yet despite his many achievements, he is probably best remembered as a great wit. And today, almost 40 years after his death, he is still one of the most oft quoted people in the world.
Noël coward was the cat’s meow and he knew it. “I’m an enormously talented man and there’s no use us pretending that I’m not.” There’s something divinely sexy about a man who’s sure of himself... even with his slight lisp, hair pomade, silk dressing gown and perfectly-poised cigarette holder. Noël Coward had confidence by the bucket load and was bewitching to both men and women. Born into genteel poverty in 1899, a combination of fierce determination and the pushiest of showbiz mothers ensured “Destiny’s Tot,” was treading the boards by the age of 12. Like a precocious beauty pageant toddler, he thrived on maternal coaxing, playing Prince Mussel in The Goldfish and later, the lead in Peter Pan. And so began the career of one of Britain’s greatest playwright’s – one who ranked second only to William Shakespeare according to a poll in The Stage magazine. Noël Coward became the embodiment of the affected, stiff-upper-lip, upper-class Englishman. A Jack of all trades and a master of... all. He was a dramatist, actor, writer, composer, lyricist, painter and perhaps most famously of all, a wit. It seemed he had something to say about everything and everyone. “People are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what’s wrong with it.” Coward was also famously immodest; his enthusiasm for self-aggrandizement was equaled only by his energetic judgment of others. He referred to writer Gertrude Stein’s erudite achievements as “literary diarrhea”. Of Leonardo da Vinci’s La Gioconda, he said, “The Mona Lisa looks as if she has just been sick, or is about to be.” He was known by his friends as The Master – a moniker well deserved. After 112 DNA
all, he wrote more than 60 plays, 300 songs and appeared in 25 films. Almost 40 years after his death, Noël Coward remains one of the most influential forces in entertainment. He began writing his own material early, and by age 21, Coward had scripted and starred in his first full-length play, I Leave It To You. Four relatively uneventful and largely unsuccessful years later, Coward achieved massive success in England and America with The Vortex. This controversial play contained many thinly veiled references to drug use, homosexuality and debauchery in the upper class. Like much of his work, The Vortex seems frivolous on the surface, but his clever employment of wit and satire enabled him to discreetly highlight society’s foibles and thumb his nose at the establishment. The audience loved it. Hit after hit followed and he became famous for his witty one-liners. The Master once sent a telegram to his friend Gertrude Lawrence saying, “A warm hand on your opening.” Hand in hand with success came social advancement – weekends spent at the country estates of generous friends and benefactors where he immersed himself in high living and colourful conversation. Wit and panache compensated for his lowly birth and whatever was undesirable about his antecedents; it provided entry to the most fashionable circles. Later in life, Coward became a regular at the queen Mother’s soirées, and even his affair with her brother in law, George, Duke Of Kent, didn’t prevent his knighthood in 1970. A song book inscribed by Coward could still be seen in the queen Mum’s London digs, Clarence House, until her death in 2002. It was during the war that Coward wrote some of his best plays, including
the phenomenally successful Blithe Spirit. This black comedy about a novelist who dabbles in the occult smashed box office records around the world. It continues to enjoy sell-out performances to this day. After the yin-filled years of the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s, Coward experienced serious yang in the early ‘50s when his work was criticised as too lighthearted and outdated. The stately homes of England began to crumble and the aristocrats who inhabited them had outlived their use as eccentric curiosities. Coward and the subjects he wrote about were no longer fashionable. Professionally tattered and weighed down by post-war taxes, he left England, dividing his time between homes in Jamaica and Switzerland. Coward continued writing, producing and performing for the rest of his life. He turned his attention to cabaret in Las Vegas, a town he said was not “cafe society” but “Nescafe society”. Here, he wowed audiences singing songs like Mad Dogs And Englishmen, despite once claiming, “I can’t sing, but I know how to, which is quite different.” The ‘60s were kinder to Coward. His plays enjoyed a huge revival, in part due to their appearance on television. According to Coward, “Television is for appearing on – not for looking at.” He also embraced the silver screen with gusto. He turned down the role of nefarious villain, the eponymous Dr No, but made a charming cameo in Paris When It Sizzles with Audrey Hepburn. Although “no good at love,” Coward had two significant, long-term partners: American stockbroker John Wilson who drank, stole and greatly added to Coward’s taxation woes, and the handsome actor Graham Payn. However, despite his obviously camp tendencies, Coward never publicly adopted a gay identity and people still wonder why he never came out. It seems he relished the air of sexual ambiguity that surrounded him. And despite his fame, he was an intensely private man. He often dangled the proverbial carrot in front of the press. He was delighted when the media speculated on his supposed marriage to Marlene Dietrich. In one interview when asked if he ever relaxed, he replied, “Certainly, but I have no intention of discussing it before several million people!” In England, homosexuality was illegal until 1967. This, and things like Sir John Gielgud’s arrest in 1953 for “homosexual importuning,” could only have helped keep Coward’s closet door firmly shut. Whatever his reasons for not coming out, he never deliberately promoted a misleading heterosexual image. And when pushed for an answer about his sexuality he would always say, “Because there are still three old ladies in Brighton who don’t know.” Coward was a clever man and while he often hinted at his sexuality, he knew that the difference between his audience suspecting he was gay and
admitting it, could cost him his career. Instead, Coward used his considerable talent as a playwright and songwriter to gently nudge his agenda. Homosexuality, suppressed ideas, the hypocrisy of humanity and the fight against repression were all dealt with metaphorically in his plays. But as he became older, it seems he grew braver. In Design For Living, Coward depicted a bisexual ménage a trois between two men and a woman. Such themes had never been presented on stage before; it was a sellout on Broadway. His song Mad About The Boy deals with the theme of unrequited love. It was written to be sung by a female, although he also wrote a version, which was never performed, that contained references to the then risqué topic of homosexual love. In 1966, Coward wrote and starred in A Song At Twilight, the story of a gay writer who fears he will be exposed. It was the one and only time Coward dealt with
“I’m an enormously talented man and there’s no use us pretending that I’m not.” homosexuality unequivocally in his work. Coward’s legacy to the gay community is subtle, yet powerful. In the words of theatre critic Charles Isherwood, “Coward paved the way for the growing cultural acceptance of homosexuality. He gave audiences a taste for the irreverence and artifice of camp that couldn’t be erased.” Sir Noël Coward died of heart failure in 1973 at his home in Jamaica. He is buried on the island. H
Icon of the urbane: Noël Coward (top), with Elizabeth Taylor (above) and Marlene Dietrich (below).
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