Good evening and welcome.
There's only one man in the world who's described as the master.
Will you welcome, please, simply, Mr Noel Coward.
APPLAUSE
# On the silver screen
# He melts my foolish heart in every single scene
# Although I'm quite aware that here and there... #
Your... What is the word for when one has terrific,
prolific qualities?
Talent. Yes.
LAUGHTER
# Lord knows I'm not a fool, boy
# I really... #
Do you think sex is overrated?
Are we still on?
# Lord knows I'm not a schoolboy
# In the flurry of his first affair
# Will it ever cloy?
# This odd diversity of misery and joy... #
At what age did you know that you were a star? Two.
LAUGHTER
# And all because I'm mad about the boy
# I'm mad about the boy
# Mad about the boy Yeah, I'm mad about the boy
# Mad about the boy
# About the boy. #
If you were preparing a synopsis for a film of your life,
what would be the first scene and what would be the last?
Oh, I have no idea what the last will be.
I suspect fairly hilarious.
LAUGHTER
The first...scene of my life.
Born in a shabby London suburb at the turn of the 20th century,
Noel Coward would become the most celebrated actor, playwright
and songwriter of his generation.
This is his remarkable journey, told in his own words, music
and extraordinary home movies.
What sort of a child were you actually? Um...
When paid constant attention,
extremely lovable.
He grew up in poverty and money is a constant issue
throughout his childhood.
"Father worked for a piano firm as a salesman, which meant
"he was away from home a great deal.
"His income was small.
"My mother came from what is known as good family, which means
"she had been brought up in the tradition
"of being a gentlewoman.
"A difficult tradition to uphold with very little money."
When his father loses his job, Noel's mother, Violet, is forced
to run a boarding-house in Pimlico.
"Mother worked like a slave.
"Cooking meals and rushing up and down the high, steep stairs.
"Meanwhile, Father contented himself with making model yachts
"for his own amusement."
What's your most touching memory of childhood?
That's dreadfully difficult. There were so many.
I was constantly touched.
GROWING LAUGHTER
Were your mother or father interested in the theatre?
My mother was interested in the theatre.
Adored it. So you really went straight from childhood into the profession?
I was trained when I was very young as a show off, and I've continued
triumphantly until this moment.
A guiding light in the theatre, to the theatre was the Daily Mirror
because it said attractive, talented and handsome...
..boy wanted.
So Mother and I had a brisk conference, and we decided
I was talented, handsome...
..moot point.
But we'd better have a try.
And so I went and gave an audition to a lady called Miss Lila Field.
Then I sang a song called Liza Anne, and I got the job.
And you'd rehearsed that with her at home?
You bet I had, yes.
The furniture pushed back.
"Mother and I floated down the narrow staircase
"and out into the street.
"The moment was supreme and we could scarcely breathe through excitement.
"I was now a professional actor."
Your mother sounds as though she was a remarkable woman.
She was. She was a perfectly wonderful woman.
And I loved her very dearly.
Her greatest asset, as far as I was concerned, was that she always
was fiercely loyal and appreciative of me and to me.
But she used to give me hell if I wasn't good enough.
# Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington
# Don't put your daughter on the stage
# The profession is overcrowded and the struggle is pretty tough
# And admitting the fact she's burning to act
# That isn't quite enough... #
Noel builds a career as a child actor working in West End
shows and pantomimes.
At an early age, he becomes the main breadwinner for the family.
# Sweet Mrs Worthington, don't put your daughter on the stage... #
From the start, Noel is fiercely ambitious and tenacious enough
to replace a childhood stutter
with his distinctive, clipped accent.
# On the whole, an ingenue role would emphasise... #
"It was a matter of pressing urgency that I should become rich
"and successful as soon as possible.
"Soon enough, in fact, to be able to get Mother
"out of that damned kitchen forever."
# Nuts! Mrs Worthington, don't put your daughter on the stage. #
Well, I used to write plays when I was about ten or 11.
Your first play, which produced in London,
was called I Leave It To You, which I've not seen.
You'd had to have been awfully quick, it only ran five weeks.
And you weren't born.
It wasn't terribly good.
It what is known as showed promise.
Aged 20, with his career as an actor and a writer faltering
in London, Noel decides to seek his fortune in America.
"To have embarked with a bundle of manuscripts, a one way ticket,
"and only £17 to spare was rather foolish.
"Fears twittered in my stomach, like birds in a paper bag.
"But I was determined to make it.
"That first evening in New York is clear in my memory.
"I sauntered down Broadway alone.
"Gazing up at the gigantic sky signs
"I dreamt of seeing flashing in lights, my name, Noel Coward.
"My faith in my own talents remained unwavering.
"But it did seem optimistic that the Americans would
"recognise them immediately.
"And I was perfectly right. They didn't.
"This was actually a bad period for me.
"Every theatrical manager seemed to have vanished completely.
"Nearly all the theatres were closed.
"Nobody would read my plays.
"I was penniless and very lonely.
"One night I went to see Nice People by Rachel Crothers.
"I thought the production and acting were good and the play poor.
"But what interested me most was the tempo..."
Because the tempo
and the wonderful speed and the vitality of the American
theatre was far superior to the English.
"Bred in the tradition of gentle English comedy,
"it took me a good 10 minutes to understand what anyone was saying.
"They all seemed to be talking at once.
"I learned my first lesson in American acting,
"which was a technique of realising which lines in the script
"are superfluous and knowing when and how to throw them away."
The critic said this was strong, moving and an experience
in the theatre. I'd rather it was a good play.
Coward marries English humour with American pace and creates
his own style, the drawing room comedy on speed.
He writes The Vortex.
In it, a drug addict confronts his mother
about an adulterous affair
she's having with a much younger man.
The Vortex was enthused over by every management
and they were anxious to do it on condition that I didn't play it.
And so I thought, "Well, nonsense to that."
So I borrowed 250 quid.
So that's how The Vortex appeared at The Everyman.
He puts the play on in a tiny theatre in Hampstead, North London.
Noel, only 24,
gambles everything so he can star in the part
he has written for himself.
But the play's scandalous subject matter immediately
riles the censor.
I believe you had some difficulty in getting The Vortex passed
by the Lord Chamberlain.
Oh, right up until the...the day of production.
What were his objections?
That it was immoral.
"The evening was altogether an extraordinary experience.
"There was a certain feeling of expectancy in the air.
"At the end of the play, the applause was terrific."
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
"This time I really had done it."
The Vortex shocks the anodyne theatre world into life.
With the success came a lot of pleasurable trappings,
new suits,
a car, silk shirts, an extravagant amount of dressing gowns
and pyjamas, and a still more extravagant amount of publicity.
I was photographed, interviewed, photographed again.
In my house, in the street, in the park,
in my dressing room, at my piano,
with my dear old mother, without my dear old mother.
And on one occasion, sitting up in an over-elaborate bed looking
like a heavily doped Chinese illusionist.
"My character, Nicky Lancaster, was 24, well-groomed,
"witty and decadent.
"Noel Coward, also 24, was therefore well groomed, witty and decadent.
"What was important for future reference was the created image.
"The talented, sophisticated playboy."
Noel begins merchandising this new deluxe persona
to disguise his own background.
He embraces the social media of the time - radio, magazines
and gossip columns.
"No press interviewer, photographer or gossip writer had to fight
"in order to see me.
"I was wide open to them all,
"smiling and burbling bright witticisms,
"giving my views on this or that, discussing such problems
"as whether or not the modern girl would make a good mother
"or what would be my ideal wife."
But the last thing he's thinking about is his ideal wife.
# On the silver screen
# He melts my foolish heart in every single scene... #
"One night in May, a young man in the front row of the stalls
"caught my attention early in the first act.
"His rapt absorption in the play inspired me to renewed efforts,
"and at the final curtain I gave him a gracious bow, all for himself."
# Lord knows I'm not a schoolboy... #
"Jack Wilson walked nervously
"and with slightly overdone truculence into my life."
# Lord knows I'm not a schoolboy
# In the flurry of his first affair... #
Jackson becomes Noel's business manager.
"I should have laughed at the idea that this American stockbroker
"would become so much a part of my life that scarcely any decision
"could be made without him.
"That, however, is what happened."
The Vortex opens in New York to rave reviews.
"I had the pleasure of seeing my name in electric lights
"outside the theatre.
"There it was, Noel Coward, in gleaming pink bulbs.
"It never failed to please me every time I looked up at it.
"Which was often."
Plays and music pour out of him.
In those days, I didn't know the word fear.
I just flew at it.
In the next two years, he produces
a staggering ten shows on Broadway and in London.
A remarkable achievement for someone who had no education.
I left school when I was nine to go into ballet school, and then I went
on the stage when I was ten.
So I didn't have any formal education, which of course, left me
free to educate myself.
And what steps did you take to educate yourself?
I belonged to the Battersea Park Public lav...
Not lavatory, what am I saying?
Library - Freudian slip.
And, erm...
LAUGHTER
..I, erm...
..read and read and read,
everything I could lay my hands on.
Coward takes on everything, writing and performing in plays,
writing songs and reviews, and leading
a charm offensive on high society and the press.
He is everywhere all at once.
But this takes its toll.
"My nerves finally snapped,
"and I went through one whole performance weeping
"for no reason whatever.
"At the end, I collapsed on the floor of my dressing room
"where I remained until my doctor arrived and gave me
"a strychnine injection and put me to bed.
"Melancholia enveloped me like a thick cloud, blotting out
"the pleasure from everything.
"I felt sick of the theatre,
"sick of cities and high buildings and people."
The strain isn't just about work.
Homosexuality is illegal in Britain.
So Noel has to be constantly on his guard.
"It's all a question of masks, really.
"We all wear them as a form of protection.
"Modern life forces us to.
"We must have some means of shielding our timid souls
"from the glare of civilisation."
He travels alone to Honolulu and stays in a beach house
overlooking the ocean where he writes one of his best-known songs.
# We'll be as happy and contented as birds upon a tree
# High above the mountains and the sea
# We'll bill and we'll coo, ooh, ooh
# And sorrow will never come
# Oh, will it ever come true?
# Our room with a view. #
I've written songs in very strange places and they come into my head,
but I can't write music,
and I find it very difficult to read music.
If I put a cold bandage round my head and a lot
of concentration, I can read a top line,
but I can't write or read music, even now.
He had no musical education as such.
He was really deeply musical in a sense of melody
and harmony and rhythm.
He couldn't write music, but it didn't matter, he composed it.
There was a lot of music
in my family, all the Coward family were very musical.
In fact, I had an aunt who was known as the Twickenham Nightingale.
LAUGHTER
She sang very high.
# Poor Uncle Harry wanted to be a missionary
# So he took a ship and sailed away
# This visionary hotly pursued by dear Aunt Mary
# Found a South Sea isle on which to stay
# Now, the natives greeted them kindly
# And invited them to dine on yams and clams and human hands
# And vintage coconut wine
# The taste of which was filthy but the after-effects divine
# Poor Uncle Harry got a bit gay and longed to tarry
# This, Aunt Mary couldn't quite allow
# She lectured him severely on a number of church affairs
# But when she'd gone to bed he made a getaway down the stairs
# For he longed to find the answer to a few of the maidens' prayers
# Uncle Harry's not a missionary now
# He's awfully happy but he's certainly not a missionary now. #
APPLAUSE
Noel signs a contract with HMV
and begins a successful recording career,
benefiting from the growing popularity of phonograph records
and sheet music.
He writes songs from musicals and revues like Words and Music.
# The life you lead sets all your nerves a-jangle
# Your love affairs are in a hopeless tangle... #
The songs are openly romantic, old-fashioned, very emotional.
The feeling of longing that you hear in his songs,
even the humorous ones,
was a side of himself that he would never talk about or show.
# Cocktails and laughter
# But what comes after? Nobody knows... #
I always still had the feeling that he felt there was something
unfinished in his life.
He was never alone.
# Poor little rich girl... #
But we all know what that means.
# Don't drop a stitch too soon. #
# When the storm clouds are riding through a winter sky
# Sail away
# Sail away... #
For Coward, life is a performance.
Noel feels compelled to entertain, whether he's onstage
or just out with friends.
Keeping up the mask is exhausting.
# When you feel... #
"I feel I must get away from all the people I know for a while,
"not only from the point of view of health, but for my work as well."
# Why should you prolong your stay?
# When the wind and the weather blow your dreams sky-high
# Sail away, sail away, sail away. #
Travel to distant places becomes one of the constants of his life,
an opportunity to lose himself as he journeys to the furthest
reaches of the world with a sense of exploration and wonder.
He can be free of the need to perform the role of Noel Coward.
"I love to go and I love to have been,
"but best of all, I love the intervals
"between arrivals and departures,
"the days and nights of steady, incessant movement
"when the horizon is empty and time completely changes its rhythm.
"Then I can sleep, wake, write, read and think in peace.
"It is in these hours
"I feel that, after all, there may be a chance for me.
"Less likelihood of opportunities missed,
"less intolerable distraction.
"It's probably a temperamental defect in me that I can only catch
"this elusive quietness when moving,
"a maladjustment of my nervous system.
"But it is certainly the reason above all others that I go away.
"Not to get anywhere, not even to return, just to go."
It isn't long before these adventures begin
to bear creative fruit.
What have you been doing lately, during these last years?
I went around the world, you know, after...
Yes, yes, of course I know. How was it? The world? Yes. Very enjoyable.
China must be very interesting.
Very big, China. And Japan? Very small.
Did you eat sharks' fins
and take your shoes off and use chopsticks and everything?
Practically everything.
And India?
The Burning Ghars, or Ghats, or whatever they are,
and the Taj Mahal. How was the Taj Mahal?
Unbelievable, a sort of dream.
That was the moonlight, I expect.
Of course you saw it in moonlight. Yes.
Moonlight can be cruelly deceptive.
And it didn't look like a biscuit box, did it? You know,
I've always felt that it might. Darling, I do love you so.
I do hope you met a sacred elephant. They're lint-white,
I believe, and very, very sweet.
I've never loved anybody else for an instant.
There isn't a particle of you that I don't know,
remember, and want more than any desire in the world.
Deep down in my deepest heart,
I want you back again.
"Before I had left New York, I had promised to write a play
"for Gertrude Lawrence and myself.
"The Imperial Hotel, Tokyo is grand and comfortable.
"One night I went to bed early, but the moment I switched out
"the light, Gertie appeared in a white Molyneux dress
"on a terrace in the south of France
"and refused to go away again until 4am,
"by which time Private Lives, title
"and all, had constructed itself."
Noel and Gertrude Lawrence had become fast friends
when they were both 14-year-old child actors working
together in Liverpool.
I'd always wanted to write a play for Gertie,
and I wrote Private Lives
very quickly and had a telegram back saying,
"Read script. Nothing wrong that can't be fixed."
So I wired back, "The only thing that's going to be fixed
"is your performance."
Noel has an unerring eye for talent.
John Gielgud had been his understudy in The Vortex, and now he gives
Laurence Olivier, soon to become one of England's greatest
actors and directors, his first big break.
When I really grew to love him and know him
was when I battered him on the head to make him play the bad part
in Private Lives.
And I did say to him, "This is the bad part.
"I've got all the answers.
"Why I'm asking you to play it is that you're very attractive
"and I need a bit of competition."
LAUGHTER
And he fell for it.
I think Noel probably
was the first man who took hold of me and made me think.
He made me use my silly little brain.
He taxed me with his sharpness and shrewdness and his brilliance
and his brain.
He'd point out when I was talking nonsense, which nobody else
had ever done before, would make me...give me a sense of the balance
of right and wrong, would make me read.
I'd never read, never read anything at all.
Private Lives is a comedy of bad manners about a divorced couple
who discover they are both honeymooning with their new spouses
in the same hotel in France.
ORCHESTRA PLAYS
I'm on my honeymoon.
Very interesting. So am I.
I hope you're enjoying it.
It hasn't started yet.
Neither has mine.
Are you happy?
Perfectly. Good.
Are you? Ecstatically.
Have you known her long? About four months.
We met at a house party in Norfolk. Very flat, Norfolk.
There's no need to be unpleasant.
It was no reflection on her,
unless, of course, she made it flatter.
Your voice takes on an acid quality every time you mention her.
I swear I'll never mention her again. Good.
And I'll keep off yours.
Thank you. Not at all.
That orchestra seems to have a remarkably small repertoire.
Strange how potent cheap music is.
She, of course, was so wonderful to work with.
She was so quick, and such a brilliant technical comedy actress.
She knew how to put the right emphasis on the right syllable.
And comedy, as you know, is a hairline.
You've got to get it absolutely right or it flops.
She never did that.
With Private Lives, Coward challenges the world to be as flip
as he is, or appears to be,
and does everything he can to hide real feelings.
What he created in the world of Private Lives, this class
of people who never seem to need to earn any money and so on,
wasn't intended to be an accurate representation of a given class,
it was an abstraction of his own, which became his own world,
the world of Coward.
I don't analyse very much when I'm writing.
I must say I don't...
I've read so often, because people have written splendid books
about explaining my plays, you know, the motives...
The motives are always far less noble than...
The motive, as I say, was to give myself a whacking good part,
as a rule, or the main motive was to entertain the audience.
The success of Private Lives establishes Noel as one
of the pre-eminent leading men and a sex symbol.
It is an image he is happy to play up to in public as well.
NEWSREEL: Folkestone was the scene of this maddening bevvy of beauty
assembled for the Cheerful Sparrows competition,
and a few canaries seem to have got in, too.
The parade attracted large crowds, most of whom brought their own
telescopes so as to miss nothing.
And it looks as if the judges found it hard going.
Mr Noel Coward doesn't know where to look,
or does he?
We've thoroughly enjoyed ourselves
but are feeling a little dazzled.
And an image reinforced by his first role in a movie, The Scoundrel.
The most I can offer you is one month's diversion
and six months of farewells.
And, if you're sensible, an amiable, pensive memory of kisses
that meant nothing.
And words.
Oh, lots and lots of words.
By the age of 30, Noel Coward is
the highest-paid writer in the world.
He buys himself a Rolls-Royce, but still lives
in his mother's boarding house.
"The simple track of earlier years seemed far away.
"Success was the goal. Noel Coward in electric lights.
"Now I found the electric lights so dazzling that I couldn't
"see beyond them. My ambition and almost hysterical industry
"had been rewarded generously. And now what?"
He becomes president of the Actors' Orphanage, a job he takes seriously,
perhaps recognising himself in some of the children.
"The problem boy is Peter Collinson, who has been behaving badly.
"He's being torn to pieces between his divorced parents.
"I made him promise that he would behave well in the future.
"Actually, he practically broke my heart.
"A sensitive little boy, bereft of all personal affection,
"is one of the most pathetic things in the world."
# Life is what you make it
# Someone once observed... #
Noel's fundraising events on behalf
of the orphanage are a highlight of the social calendar.
I'm very glad to welcome you here today.
Lovely day.
Poor boy from the suburbs comes to represent the quintessential
sophisticated, modern Englishman.
He is society's darling, destiny's tot.
# Mine fail me all the time
# And maybe that's the reason I'm a baa baa black sheep. #
All sorts of men suddenly wanted to look like Noel Coward,
sleek and satiny, clipped and well-groomed,
with a cigarette, a telephone, or a cocktail at hand.
Coward's influence spread even to the outposts
of Rickmansworth and Poona.
# I must own up, everything gets blown up
# Freud could explain... #
Noel invents a new kind of English style, but it requires a rigorous
discipline, lest he reveal his background
and his true sexual identity.
# When I meet a some sly dish that looks like my dish... #
"I study my own facade carefully. My voice is definite, harsh, rugged.
"I take ruthless stock of myself in the mirror before going out,
"for even a polo jumper or an unfortunate tie
"exposes one to danger."
# Maybe some psychoanalyst might slap my wrist
# And give a twist to what goes on inside me... #
Noel Coward is a graceful swan, gliding along whilst everything
that doesn't tally with the projected image -
his background, his lack of education, his homosexuality,
his burning ambition -
all the furious paddling is hidden beneath the waterline.
He is his own greatest invention.
Behind the scenes, his life is very different.
He buys Goldenhurst Farm in Kent.
He moves in with Jack and his parents.
His father looks after the garden, and he's able to save his mother
from slaving away at the boarding house.
# Scions of a noble breed
# We are the products of those homes serene and stately
# That only lately seem to have run to seed
# The stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand
# To prove the upper classes... #
He's also joined by his extended family, including Cole Lesley,
his assistant, Lorn Loraine, his secretary, and Gladys Calthorp,
who designs all his sets.
This loyal troupe works with him
and remains close to him his whole life.
Here, he feels safe to drop his guard and be himself
with trusted friends.
# The playing fields of Eton have made us frightfully brave
# There's the ghost of a crazy younger son who murdered in 1351
# An extremely rowdy nun
# Who resented it
# And people who come to call... #
The side of Noel that he presented
as an image to the world, with the long cigarette holder
and the caviar and the champagne and the red silk dressing gown,
propped up in bed...
That was the image, but Noel was carpet slippers, really.
And steak and kidney pie and baked beans.
No, he ate the most filthy food, and ate it constantly.
Noel feels freer to express himself in his work.
Design For Living, a story about a menage a trois, is much closer
to the kind of life he was living than he would ever admit in public.
I never intended for a moment the Design For Living suggested
in the title should apply to anyone outside its principal characters.
These three glib, over-articulate and amoral creatures
force their lives and problems into fantastic shapes
because they cannot help themselves.
They are like moths in a pool of light, unable to tolerate
the lonely outer darkness,
and equally unable to share the light
without constantly colliding and bruising one another's wings.
He stars in it with his old friends, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne,
and it's a big hit.
The opening night, she had to open the play by walking onto the stage
with a tray of coffee.
Now, this, it's not an easy thing to do.
And she was under perfect control.
And just as she was going on,
she turned to me, with hatred,
and said, "I suppose if your house in Kent were invaded,
"you'd send your mother out to face the guns."
LAUGHTER
Now Noel turns his mind to something very different.
Cavalcade is a sprawling historical epic, covering the first 30 years
of the 20th century, with a cast of 400.
The show is unapologetically patriotic.
Let's drink to the spirit of gallantry and courage that made
strange heaven out of unbelievable hell.
And let's drink to the hope that one day, this country of ours,
which we love so much, will find dignity and greatness
and peace again.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The first night was, well, one of the most exciting I ever remember.
People just stood up and got enormously carried away.
It was terribly exciting because it caught the audience,
absolutely took them by the throat.
THEY SING AULD LANG SYNE
Cavalcade is turned into a Hollywood film
and wins three Oscars.
In some quarters, I believe, you were accused of writing
a jingoistic play in a spirit of cynical mockery.
Well, if anybody can write a cynical mockery playing three hours,
they're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.
I couldn't possibly have, I loved Cavalcade.
I was awfully irritated by that rumour that got around, of course.
But I suppose, as I'd written so many scintillating comedies,
they thought that was the only possible explanation.
It didn't occur to them that I really meant it.
The show taps into a feeling of surging national pride,
which changes the way Noel is perceived.
A subtle social shift.
He becomes part of the establishment.
Acceptance is what he has worked so hard to achieve,
but his insecurities about his background
and lack of education leave him feeling he doesn't truly belong.
Noel has always felt like an outsider.
As the clouds of war gather, Noel receives a surprising phone call.
Hello?
"Sir Campbell Stuart rang me up.
"He said he had a matter of extreme urgency and wished
"to see me that night.
"He said he would come to my studio at midnight precisely,
"and did I like Paris?"
Arriba los manos.
Las manos.
Can't be too careful.
I've brought you back your umbrella.
Sorry I'm late.
You've moved the Lamb. I was just looking around.
You seem fond of Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.
One copy's for you. Oh, but I don't read Lamb.
It's not meant for reading. Have you never heard of a book code?
As a matter of fact, no. I keep one copy.
All you have to do when you communicate with me
is to indicate the page and the line where you begin the coding,
do you understand?
Well, I'll explain in a minute, it's rather complicated
and not very secure.
After training at Bletchley Park,
Noel is sent to Paris to set up a bureau of propaganda.
His job as a spy is to feed misinformation to the Germans,
learn what he can from the French, and to recruit secret agents.
I brought you something. Plenty of ink.
Secret ink, for communicating with your agents.
But I haven't any agents.
Your first job is to recruit some.
"The whole business was to be conducted with the utmost secrecy.
"I was to tell nobody, not even my closest friends."
If anyone calls, I'm not in.
Yes.
I said anyone.
"When the Germans invaded Norway, the atmosphere
"in Paris changed overnight.
"I flew to London to see Campbell, who said it was important
"that I should go to the States."
He's instructed to use his celebrity to influence opinion in favour
of helping Britain.
"There was a line taken by many that America, having once pulled
"England's chestnuts out of the fire and won the last war for her,
"was not going to be so easily fooled a second time."
Noel travels around America,
gathering intelligence from politicians
and other people of influence.
"My celebrity value was wonderful cover.
"I was the perfect silly ass.
"Nobody considered I had a sensible thought in my head,
"and they would say all kinds of things I would pass along."
He even visits President Roosevelt.
"Upon arrival at the White House,
"I was led directly to the President's study.
"The evacuation of Dunkirk had moved him profoundly.
"None but the British, he said with a faint smile, could transform
"a full-scale military defeat into a shining spiritual victory."
"His desk was littered with cocktail implements - bottles, glasses
"and an imposing silver shaker.
"Among all these, the President's hands moved quickly, occasionally
"firing a question at me and suspending cocktail mixing
"for a moment while he waited for my reply.
"He was evidently proud of his prowess as a barman,
"and he had every right to be, for the whiskey sour
"he finally handed me was perfect."
Noel becomes so adept at his work that the FBI begin monitoring him.
He also raises the suspicions of a far darker force.
# Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
# When our victory is ultimately won... #
"When the Nazi list of people marked down for immediate
"liquidation was unearthed, there was my name. Rebecca West,
"who shared the honour with me, sent me a telegram which read..."
His trip draws criticism from the British press,
who question why he is travelling frivolously around America
while his countrymen are suffering back at home.
He is frustrated not to be able to reveal he is acting on behalf
of the Secret Service.
"I can't help feeling embittered by the fact that
"although I have given up everything to help my country,
"I only seem to be getting kicks for it."
He's recalled to London by the powers that be in Whitehall.
Churchill is reluctant to see him
as anything more than a song-and-dance man.
"Winston Churchill had always been courteous to me,
"although I had a gnawing suspicion there was something about me
"he didn't like."
KNOCK ON DOOR
Come in.
Frustrated, Coward accepts an invitation to travel to Australia
to raise money for the war effort.
NEWSREEL: Noel Coward, brightest star of the theatrical firmament,
arrives in Australia on a special mission.
Seems harsh you've got to take this as well as your training.
# The smallest Malay rabbit... #
During the war,
Noel went all over the world entertaining the troops.
And out a trip in the Middle East,
he wrote a terrible book called Middle East Diary,
and in it he described going into an American hospital,
which he said was full of snivelling little boys from Brooklyn.
Well, this caused an understandable stir in the United States,
and The Stars and Stripes, which was the American Forces'
newspaper, had a review of the book and it said, headline,
"Kick this bum out of the country!"
Now, on the day that "kick this bum out of the country"
was being read by all the troops in Paris, which was indeed
an American operation,
Noel opened the Marigny Theater, and I went to see Noel
before it, and I said, "You know, there are about 5,000 people
"out there and I'm afraid they're all going to kill you.
"What are you going to do about it?"
Noel said, "First, I shall calm them,
"and then I will sing some of my very excellent songs."
So I said, "Well, I'll stand by the exit." Because, you know...
So I went and stood at the back by the exit,
and Noel came on to a deathly hush, which he's not used to,
to a deathly hush.
And then he looked at them, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen
"and all you dear, dear, snivelling little boys from Brooklyn."
And they fell down and absolutely loved it.
APPLAUSE
He was absolutely charming.
He endeared himself so instantly when you met.
And kept you in stitches of laughter all the time.
And halfway through the rehearsal he turned to me and said,
"Ever been queer?" And I said,
"No, as a matter of fact, I never have."
"Pity. Very amusing."
He wouldn't suffer anything but perfection.
There was always a joke about me playing wrong notes because there
were occasions when I got so frightened by this rage
that a finger slipped on the keys!
# Growing in the... #
No. Perfect, perfect. Start again.
# There's a little city flower every spring unveiling
# Growing in the crevices by some London railing
# Though it has a Latin name in town and countryside
# We in England call it London Pride... #
"Most of the glass on the station roof had been blown out
"and there was dust in the air and the smell of burning.
"I sat on a platform seat and watched the Londoners scurrying
"about in the thin sunshine.
"They all seem to be gay and determined and wholly admirable,
"and I was overwhelmed by a wave of sentimental pride.
"A song started in my head then and there."
# Every Blitz your resistance toughening
# From the Ritz to the Anchor and Crown
# Nothing ever could override
# The pride of London town. #
"I happened to dine in Chester St with Dickie Mountbatten.
"He told me the whole story of the sinking of the Kelly
"off the island of Crete.
"He told it without any apparent emotion.
"The emotion was there, poignantly behind every word he uttered."
He was obviously very moved and said he now had an idea for the film
about my ship, the Kelly.
I was horrified, and of course, wouldn't agree at all.
He said, "It's got to be genuine."
I then agreed, provided it could not be traced back in any way
to the Kelly, or, above all, to me.
This he promised, but he didn't keep his promise.
He produced a film which, as far as I was concerned,
was exactly like life at sea.
All the survivors of the Kelly agreed that it was quite staggering
how true to life the whole film had been.
I'm afraid we're going over.
Pass the word to cast loose the Carley floats.
GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS
Abandon ship!
What made you choose David Lean?
Well, I went to a projection room twice a day for two weeks and saw
every British film that was available.
LAUGHTER
And out of the credits, I observed that the ones I'd liked,
the cutting had been done by somebody called David Lean,
the photography had been done by somebody called Ronald Neame,
and the general production had been done by Anthony Havelock-Allan.
So I asked David Lean to come and see me, and he said yes,
he would do it with pleasure,
but he insisted on co-directing.
People stiffened like a Bateman drawing,
but I said, "Oh, please do!"
LAUGHTER
Because I knew nothing, apart from having played in The Scoundrel,
I knew nothing, really, about any of the technical side
of making a movie.
And of course, it was David who directed the picture.
I took the actors aside occasionally.
LAUGHTER
Acting was a kind of mystery to me, and Noel, of course, was simply
wonderful at that, he was wonderful with actors,
and I took over the technical thing.
I decided where the camera was, what lens to use.
I was lucky because Noel became terribly easily bored
and when he wasn't acting one of the scenes
he wasn't there, so I handled the whole damn thing,
you know? A great piece of luck.
The image of Noel Coward with the long cigarette holder
and the silk dressing gown didn't consort very well
with the idea of a square-jawed, blue-eyed, very brave
captain in the Royal Navy.
And I had expressed the view that I didn't think
he was very suitable casting for the part.
Noel said, "You're quite right, Tony,
"but I am going to play the part, and you are going to produce it."
I've always tried to crack a joke or two before,
and you've all been friendly and laughed at them.
But today, I'm afraid I've run out of jokes.
I don't suppose any of us feels much like laughing.
The Torrin has been in one scrap after another, but even
when we had men killed, the majority survived and brought
the old ship back.
Now she lies in 1,500 fathoms,
and with her, more than half our shipmates.
One's almost sorry, although you've given such enormous pleasure,
that you've elected to be a comedy actor.
In that case, I had a great deal on my side.
I had, to start with, real sailors,
who all had been in action.
They knew what I was talking about.
I had an audience that knew.
And at the end, after that finale, I had to say goodbye,
stand still and say goodbye to each one of them.
And I had written some things in,
and I tore up my script and said,
"Please, chaps, say what you think you would have said
"in this situation."
Goodbye, sir. Goodbye, Rawlings. Goodbye.
Goodbye, sir. Goodbye.
And this I could hardly take.
Good luck.
Each one of them said their own line, like,
"Good luck, sir," you know, "Chin up, sir."
All these perfectly trite, ordinary phrases spoken from the heart.
Marvellous!
Talk about improvisation. Yes, that was.
It was nothing to do with acting.
We were in a tank in the studio,
and because we were all somewhat delicate,
the water was heated slightly.
We were in this tank for, I think, between two and three weeks.
And on our last day, we all used to lower ourselves,
holding our noses into the water.
But The Master, of course, never, always first in, off the edge
and dived in.
LAUGHTER
On this last day,
he emerged from underneath the water with oil and filth and dirt
streaming off his face, and turned to all of us
who are waiting to go in and said,
"There's dysentery in every ripple."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Noel, ever the showman, invites
the royal family to visit the set during production.
A few months later, at a screening at Buckingham Palace,
the King makes it clear to all present, including Churchill,
that Noel should be recognised with a knighthood.
But it doesn't come to anything.
Was it the bad press from his work as a spy,
or was it Churchill's disapproval of his homosexuality?
"Dickie Mountbatten called
"and explained that sabotage had been at work."
When he gets the news, he breaks down and cries.
MUSIC: I'll Follow my Secret Heart by Frank Sinatra
# I'll follow my secret heart
# My whole life through... #
"My private emotions are going through the usual familiar hoops,
"hoops that I fondly imagined I'd discarded years ago.
"I lie awake, jeering at myself.
"All the gallant lyrics of all the songs I've ever written
"rise up and mock me.
"To me, passionate love has always been like a tight shoe rubbing
"blisters on my Achilles heel."
Throughout his life, Noel struggles
to find happiness in love.
Jack is charming and charismatic, but they quarrel constantly,
and he takes advantage of Noel, both emotionally and financially.
By the 1930s, their affair is over.
Jack's mismanagement of Noel's finances
sours their professional relationship, too.
"It's a dismal sight to see Jack now and remember how handsome
"and amusing he once was.
"He meant so much to me for so many years, and now I find even
"a discussion of the weather is a strain."
Noel has a brief fling with Louis Hayward.
Then he begins a new relationship with another actor, Alan Webb.
They meet in 1935, and have a passionate affair
which lasts for much of the rest of the decade.
But Webb is unfaithful and does not hide it from Noel,
so it ends painfully.
Noel hates the loss of control he feels when he falls in love
and so finds long-term relationships difficult.
One very good friend of yours said to me today, "I'd always go to Noel
"with my emotional problems and he'd sort them out,
"though he's absolutely frightful with his own." Is that fair?
Oh, I say!
LAUGHTER
He must have been a very close friend.
When a young man sees a young woman for the first time and their eyes
meet with a sudden recognition across the space
that seemingly divides them,
in that split second, there may occur a cataclysmic crisis
in their two lives.
Professor Jung has called this...
During the war, Coward becomes
reacquainted with a South African actor called Graham Payn,
19 years his junior.
"Love is no use unless it's wise and kind and undramatic.
"Something steady and sweet to smooth out your nerves
"when you're tired. Something tremendously cosy and unflurried
"by scenes and jealousies.
"That's what I want, what I've always wanted, really."
# Secret heart
# Till I find love. #
The love affair lasts the rest of Coward's life.
"Graham is a remarkable character, and I love him dearly and forever."
WHISTLE BLOWS
Perhaps inspired by his new relationship,
Noel writes Brief Encounter.
Now regarded as one of the greatest romantic films ever made,
it tells the story of an extramarital affair
between two people who meet by chance at a train station.
Living as a gay man when homosexuality is still illegal,
it comes as no surprise that Noel wrote about forbidden love.
It's too late to forget what we said.
And anyway, whether we'd said it or not couldn't have mattered.
We know, we've both of us known for a long time.
How can you say that?
I've only known you for four weeks.
We only talked for the first time last Thursday week.
Last Thursday week.
Has it been a long time for you since then?
Answer me, truly.
Yes. How often did you decide
that you were never going to see me again?
Several times a day. So did I. Oh, Alec...
I love you.
I love your wide eyes,
the way you smile, and your shyness.
The way you laugh at my jokes.
Please don't.
I love you. I love you.
You love me, too. It's no use pretending it hasn't happened,
cos it has.
Yes, it has.
I don't want to pretend anything, either to you or to anyone else.
But from now on, I shall have to.
That's what's wrong, don't you see? That's what spoils everything.
That's why we must stop here and now talking like this.
We're neither of us free to love each other,
there's too much in the way.
Brief Encounter is released in 1945 to great critical acclaim
and box office success.
Noel is nominated for an Oscar.
Coward's brand of Englishness
evolves to a perfect patriotic pitch.
In Which We Serve defines the famous stiff upper lip,
Brief Encounter captures the English at their most stoic...
..and Blithe Spirit is Noel at his entertaining best.
"For six days, I worked from eight until one each morning
"and from two till seven each afternoon.
"When the play was finished, I knew it was witty and well-constructed,
"and I also knew it would be a success.
"The opening night at the Piccadilly Theatre was very curious.
"The audience had to walk across planks laid over the rubble
"caused by recent air raids to see a light comedy about death.
"They enjoyed it.
"And it ran from that sunny summer evening through the remainder
"of the war and out the other side."
It runs for a record 2,000 performances in the West End
and is made into a film directed again by David Lean.
Is it Mrs Condomine?
Oh, stop it, Daphne, behave yourself.
Is it Mr Condomine?
KNOCKING
There's someone who wishes to speak to you.
Well, tell them to leave a message.
NEWSREEL: Throughout the world, throngs of people hailed the end
of the war in Europe.
# 20th-century blues are gettin' me down... #
The end of the war brings the arrival of a Labour government
and British society redefines itself.
The Labour Party's great victory shows that the country is ready
for a new policy, face new world conditions.
From New York to London,
Noel's new shows fail to perform.
# High above this dreary 20th-century din... #
"A blast of abuse in the press. Not one good notice."
# In this strange illusion, chaos and confusion... #
"I have seldom read such concentrated venom."
# People seem to lose their way
# What is there to strive for
# Love or keep alive for...? #
"If they don't care for first-rate music, lyrics,
"dialogue and performance,
"then they can stuff it up their collective arses."
For a long, long time,
the press kept attacking him on everything he did.
I mean, if they'd slaughter a play and kill it,
he really was deeply hurt.
"I suppose this succession of failures is good for my soul,
"but I rather doubt it.
"I'm now an ageing playboy, still witty, still brittle,
"and still sophisticated.
"Although the sophistication is, alas, no longer up-to-date,
"no longer valid."
Noel was basically not very secure,
and his armour was this mask
of the super-sophisticated daredevil.
But I think that it was part of his armour against a world
for which he was, in a sense, too tender.
His unease increases when his friend John Gielgud is arrested
for cottaging in Chelsea,
and the anti-homosexuality laws are once again upheld in Britain.
The purpose of the criminal law in this matter is to preserve public
order and decency.
"They voted down the plan for altering the barbarous laws
"about homosexuality with an overwhelming majority.
"Emotional, uninformed prejudice can still send men to prison
"and ruin their lives for a crime that in the eyes of any intelligent
"human being is not a crime at all."
Then he receives tragic news about his childhood friend
and muse, Gertrude Lawrence.
"Coley told me that Gertrude Lawrence was dead.
"I wrote the obituary for The Times.
"This was agony and I broke down several times.
"Poor, darling, old Gertie, a lifelong friend.
"I've never known her to do a mean or unkind thing.
"I'm terribly, terribly unhappy
"to think I will never see her again."
Just 18 months later, his sadness deepens with the death of
the most important person in his life, his mother, Violet.
"I sat by the bed and held her hand until she gave a pathetic
"little final gasp and died.
"I know it to be the saddest moment of my life."
"54 years of love and tenderness
"and crossness and devotion,
"and unswerving loyalty.
"Without her, I would have only achieved a quarter
"of what I have achieved, not only in terms of career, but in terms
"of personal happiness.
"We've quarrelled, often violently, over the years,
"but she's never stood between me and my life.
"She always let me go free.
"She was a great woman to whom I owe the whole of my life.
"Goodbye, my darling."
And now he finds himself £20,000 overdrawn
and in deep financial trouble.
He fears returning to the poverty of his youth.
I was at the Cafe de Paris with Bea Lillie,
and Noel came to the first night,
which was an absolute triumphant success.
We were having a drink afterwards and he said,
"Do you think I could do this?"
I said, "Of course you could do it. Why don't you do it?"
Calling on his now-extensive song book, he develops a cabaret show
that finds success at the Cafe de Paris, a small club in London.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to sing you a brief medley
of some of my old songs,
some of which I hope some of you may remember.
STRINGS PLAY
# I'll see you again... #
APPLAUSE
# Whenever spring breaks through again
# Time may lie heavy between
# But what has been is past forgetting... #
A complete stranger appeared called Joe Glaser, who made
the astonishing offer of Noel going to appear in Las Vegas.
It's like appearing on another planet, and the money, which Noel
needed badly at the time, was very attractive.
And in the end he said, "Well, I don't mind if they throw
"beer bottles at me for that money, I'll go."
Out of style, out of money,
and 54 years old, the quintessential Englishman finds himself
in the Nevada desert in the town built by the Mob.
"This is a fabulous madhouse.
"All the big hotels are luxurious to the last degree.
"There are myriads of people tearing away at the fruit machines
"and gambling, gambling, gambling for 24 hours a day.
"There are lots of pretty women about but I think, on the whole,
"sex takes a back-seat."
"Every instinct and desire is concentrated on money.
"The gangsters who run the place are all urbane and charming,
"but I had the feeling that if I opened a rival casino,
"I would be battered to death with the utmost efficiency."
Norman Hackforth is refused a visa as a communist.
Noel is forced to hire a young New Yorker called Peter Matz,
who tells him his arrangements are old-fashioned.
PIANO PLAYS SLOWLY
Everything was in the key of E flat.
I asked him once, "Why E flat?"
He said, "I have no idea."
Matz encourages him to rework the songs.
Noel nervously agrees.
PIANO PLAYS JAUNTILY
Totally different kind of a song now, like an American dance tune.
ANNOUNCER: The Desert Inn takes great pleasure in presenting
Mr Noel Coward.
APPLAUSE
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to sing you a song
that I wrote long ago and far away.
The name of it is Mad Dogs and Englishmen.
APPLAUSE
RULE BRITANNIA INTRO PLAYS
# In tropical climes there are certain times of day
# When all the citizens retire to tear their clothes off and perspire
# You know, it's one of those rules the greatest fools obey
# Because the sun is far too sultry
# And one must avoid the ultra-violet ray
# Mad papalaka-papalaka-boo... #
That's natives, if you're interested.
# The natives grieve when the white men leave their huts
# Because they're obviously, definitely, nuts!
# Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun
# The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to
# Hindus and Argentines sleep from 12 to one
# But Englishmen detest a siesta
# You know, in the Philippines
# They have lovely screens to protect you from the glare
# In the Malay States there are hats like plates
# Which the Britishers won't wear
# At 12 noon the natives swoon and no further work is done
# But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun
# Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun
# The toughest Burmese bandit can never understand it
# In Rangoon the heat of noon is just what the natives shun
# They put their scotch or rye down and lie down
# In the jungle swamps where the python romps
# There is peace from 12 till two
# Even caribous lie around and snooze
# Nothing else to do
# In Bengal, to move at all is seldom if ever done
# But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday
# Out in the midday, out in the midday, out in the midday
# Out in the midday, out in the midday, out in the midday sun. #
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
He was a sensation.
They loved and adored his performance.
Frank Sinatra brought over the Judy Garlands and all the friends
over to see him.
Frank Sinatra goes on the radio the next morning and says
to the public, "If you really want to hear how songs should be sung,
"go to the Desert Inn and hear Mr Noel Coward."
# I like America
# I have played around every slappy-happy hunting ground
# And I found America OK... #
"I have made one of the most sensational successes of my career,
"and to pretend that I'm not absolutely delighted
"would be idiotic. I've had screaming rave notices
"and the news has flashed around the world."
# But I like America... #
"I'm really proud that I was able to do what no-one suspected I could,
"and that is please the ordinary audiences.
"Shows filled with people from Kansas, Nebraska and Utah
"were what really counted, and their response was splendid.
"How much I owe to those hellish troop audiences in the war.
"After them, anything is gravy."
# Senorita Nina from Argentina despised the tango
# Although she never was a girl to let a man go
# She wouldn't sacrifice her principles for sex
# She looked with scorn on the gyrations... #
To see the tiny shadings that went into his performance,
would just give them a break of an extra raised eyebrow or some
small gesture to say the joke is coming.
Here was this austere, dignified, elegant man from the continent
sharing these jokes.
An audience adores that.
# And in language profane and obscene, she cursed the man
# Who taught her to
# She cursed Cole Porter too. #
An album of the show is released, which goes to the top of the charts.
CBS pays him $450,000 to write and direct three TV specials.
The first is Together with Music
starring Noel and Mary Martin.
APPLAUSE
# Together with music
# We planned this moment long ago...
# Act ballerina style
# I won't dance, don't ask me
# Ah, why won't you dance with me?
# Come on and dance with me
# Oh, dance with me
# Charleston, Charleston
# Hey, hey, I can Charleston.... #
Oh, you can too! Woo!
Followed by Blithe Spirit.
He stars with Claudette Colbert and Lauren Bacall playing
his dead wife.
Oh! Charles. That was very clumsy, Charles, dear.
Elvira! Then it's true.
It was you.
Of course it was.
Darling, Charles, what are you talking about?
Are you a ghost? I suppose I must be.
It's all very confusing.
What are you looking over there for?
Look at me, darling. What's the matter?
What's happened? Don't you see? See what?
Elvira. Elvira!
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Ruth, this is Elvira. Elvira, this is Ruth.
Come and sit down, darling.
Once again, Noel embraces the new medium of television
to get his brand of wit and sophistication to a new audience.
"My TV success made Las Vegas look like a bad matinee
"at the Dundee Rep.
"And from the moment it was over, I was buttonholed wherever I went.
"The telephone never stopped ringing,
"and I didn't have a moment to go to the loo."
Do you consider yourself with it?
Well, I think after the age of 50, if you try too hard to be with it,
you end up by being without it.
LAUGHTER
Noel, may I ask you something?
I haven't had a chance to see your plays at the Queen's Theatre.
Is that right? Yeah. I understand
in one, you play a midwestern millionaire?
AMERICAN ACCENT: Yes, sweetheart.
You've got to be kidding.
Yes, I have a crew cut.
Let's hear some more dialogue.
Well, dear, I can't now because it wouldn't be sincere.
"It is hard to imagine all those millions and millions of people
"all looking at me at the same moment. When I think of the grudging
"patronage of the English press compared to this wholehearted,
"pleased generosity,
"my heart does sink a little."
Have you...have you, at one time in your career, offended
the good citizens of Brooklyn?
Yes! Noel Coward!
Noel Coward is right.
America takes Noel Coward to its heart.
He returns to England, but it feels less and less like home.
Post-war food rationing only ended in 1954 and Coward struggles with
the cold climates and the unfriendly critics.
The changes in Britain are reflected in the work of the new playwrights
whose gritty realism alienates Noel.
Their kitchen sink dramas are a million miles
from the elegance and wit of Coward's drawing rooms.
I think my play is very good indeed.
I understand that perfectly.
But you must admit that my opinion based on a lifetime in the theatre
might be the right one. Commercial theatre. Oh, dear.
I suppose you're going to say that Shakespeare wrote
for the commercial theatre and that the only point in doing
anything with the drama at all is to make money.
All those old arguments.
How would you define success?
Box office.
I don't believe in rave notices and close on Saturday.
I'd rather have bad notices and run a year.
What you don't realise is that the theatre of the future
is the theatre of ideas. It may well be, but I'm occupied
at the moment with the theatre of the present.
What do you do with it? Every play you appear in is exactly the same.
Superficial, frivolous, without the slightest significance.
You have a great following and a strong personality,
and all you do is prostitute yourself every night of your life.
All you do with your talent is wear dressing gowns
and make witty remarks when you might be really helping people,
making them think, making them feel.
There can be no two opinions about this.
I'm having a most discouraging morning.
If you want to live in people's memories, if you want to go down
to posterity as an important man, you'd better do something
about it quickly. There's not a moment to be lost.
I don't give a hoot about posterity!
Why should I give a damn what people think of me when I'm as dead
as a doornail anyway? My worst defect is
I'm apt to worry too much what people think of me when I'm alive.
Noel writes a series of articles attacking the current theatre.
He resents the critical acclaim the young playwrights receive, given
the tepid response he endures from those self-same critics.
Nowadays, a well constructed play with a beginning and a middle
and an end is despised.
A light comedy whose sole purpose is to amuse is dismissed
as trivial and insignificant.
Since when has laughter been so insignificant?
No merriment, apparently, must scratch the grim set patina
of these dire years.
We must just sit around and wait for death.
He pitched into people like myself, saying we were all
badly dressed and we didn't know how to behave ourselves
and we all dropped our Hs.
And finally, I did get slightly fed up with it and I wrote him a note
and I said, you know, we're all in the same trade and I think
you should leave us alone
because there's room for you and there's room for us.
Faced with paying the top rate of income tax of 90%, Noel decides
the only way he will save enough money for his old age
is to leave Britain permanently.
Why are you leaving England?
A very simple answer in two words.
Income tax.
LAUGHTER
"It is ridiculous for me to spend only eight weeks in England a year
"and to pay for that privilege roughly £20,000 in income tax.
"It is in Jamaica that I achieve my creative work and it is in America
"that I earn the money to make my living there possible."
The quintessential Englishman bids farewell to the old country.
"I have a core of sadness about England, sadness mixed with
"an irritation that a country so rich in tradition and achievement
"should betray itself, submitting to foolish government, woolly thinking
"and above all, the new religion of mediocrity."
# When I'm feeling weary and blue
# I'm only too glad to be left alone
# Dreaming of a place in the sun when day is done
# Far from a telephone
# Hardly ever see the sky
# Buildings seem to grow so high
# Give me somewhere peaceful and grand
# Where all the land slumbers in monotone
# I'm world weary, world weary
# Living in a great big town... #
Noel escapes Britain for Jamaica.
He'd fallen in love with the island when he rented
Ian Fleming's house, Goldeneye.
And we were driving along the coastline,
and there nailed onto a palm tree was a sign saying, for sale.
We thought this is a marvellous spot to build a house.
# I wanna get right back to nature and relax. #
He loved Jamaica.
It was peaceful and quiet and he wasn't fussed over.
"Jamaica deeply enchants me and is the loveliest place
"I have ever known.
"I know I love Goldenhurst dearly and London too, but I keep finding
"myself longing for Jamaica and the soft, warm air.
"And also, strange to say, the stimulus of America.
"I cannot evade the fact that I find my darling homeland a bit
"dull and complacent."
He builds another house in Jamaica, Firefly, on top of a hill
with a beautiful view and slips into the role
of the perma-tanned legend.
# Jamaica
# Land of my birth
# It is the place that I ought to be... #
He contents himself by having friends to stay
at his island paradise.
# ..in Kingston town
# I'm coming home. #
He becomes great friends with his neighbour, Ian Fleming.
He is offered the role of the villain in the first
James Bond movie, Dr No.
His response?
Even the Queen Mother makes a point of visiting him.
"The Queen Mother did me great honour by driving 80 miles
"off her course to come and see me.
"We sat on the veranda and introduced her to bull shots,
"vodka and beef bouillon.
"The view was dazzling and absolutely at its best.
"She was more enchanting than ever,
"and I really do believe she enjoyed it.
"My philosophy is as simple as ever.
"I love smoking, drinking, moderate sexual intercourse
"on a diminishing scale,
"reading and writing.
"I eat breadfruit, coconuts, bananas and rather curious fish.
"I lie in the sun and relax and paint a series of pictures in oils,
"which are somewhat amateur but great fun to do."
But this is not the ending he planned.
No longer relevant.
Never quite accepted.
Noel remains the outsider.
He has climbed the mountain, but not reached the summit.
The quintessential Englishman seems destined to die, forgotten in exile.
# Well, the party's over now. #
And yet...
Private Lives is revived at the Hampstead Theatre Club,
the same location as his first success 40 years before.
It gets rave reviews.
Then Laurence Olivier, now artistic director of the National Theatre,
invites Noel to direct Hay Fever,
starring Edith Evans and Maggie Smith.
He gave me the best staff, the best stage management and the best cast
I've ever had.
And I think that is more than encouraging.
I think that quality of acting that I got out of those young people
is the most exhilarating and happy thing that's happened to me
in the theatre for many, many, many years.
You're adorable. You're magnificent. You're tawny.
I'm not in the least tawny. Don't argue. This is sheer affectation.
Well, affectation's very nice. No, it isn't. It's odious. You mustn't be cross.
I'm not in the least cross. Yes, you are. But you're very alluring.
Alluring? Terribly.
How sweet of you.
I can hear your brain clicking. It's really very funny.
Yes, well, that was rather rude.
You have been consistently rude to me for hours.
Never mind. Why have you?
I'm always rude to people I like. Oh, do you like me? Enormously.
Oh, how sweet of you.
There seemed to be no...
..generation gap with Noel.
He just seemed to...
..leap right into the Sixties.
Didn't seem to make any difference that the play had been written
all those years before.
It just sort of leapt into life,
and my goodness, people did enjoy it.
He begins exchanging friendly letters with Harold Pinter
and John Osborne.
He even appears in a performance of The Kitchen
at the Royal Court Theatre.
I was in this scene from The Kitchen,
as was just about everybody we've ever heard of.
Noel was the maitre d',
and it was so exciting, I must say,
when he came on, the reaction from the audience
to see him suddenly in this, you know, Arnold Wesker,
quintessentially what we used to call the kitchen sink drama.
To see Noel Coward come on in it was just wonderful.
The audience went nuts.
CHEERING
In 1966, Noel writes and stars in A Song at Twilight, his first play
to explicitly deal with homosexuality.
Where are the letters?
I have them with me.
You have not yet told me what you propose to do with them.
Because I have not yet decided.
This is intolerable.
Come to the point.
The veiled threat is perfectly clear.
What veiled threat?
The threat to expose to the world that I have had in the past
homosexual tendencies.
Tendencies in the past?
What nonsense.
You've been a homosexual all your life and you know it.
"Well, the most incredible thing has happened.
"Not only has A Song at Twilight
"opened triumphantly,
"but the press notices have been extremely good."
A year later, homosexuality is legalised in England.
"Nothing will convince the bigots, but the blackmailers
"will be discouraged and fewer haunted, terrified young men
"will commit suicide."
Noel refuses, however, to come out publicly.
"There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don't know."
I've also brought you the Illustrated London News, sir.
For why, Keats, for why? There's a picture of the Queen in it, sir.
Hmm.
That's good of you.
Erm, sir.
Keats. I often wonder whether one day you're going to top your career
by doing a job on their house.
You must learn, Keats, that are more things to life
than breaking and entering. Yes, Mr Bridger.
He appears in The Italian Job as a monarchy-loving gangster.
By his side, his lover, Graham Payn.
He stars with Michael Caine.
It is directed by Peter Collinson,
the young boy Noel had helped at the Actor's Orphanage.
We have come here to pay our respects to great-aunt Nelly.
She brought us up properly and taught us loyalty.
Now, I want you to remember that during these next few days.
I also want you to remember that if you don't come back
with the goods, Nelly here will turn in her grave,
and likely as not jump right out of it and kick your teeth in.
I can present this very special Tony Award, it's in recognition
of an incredible talent, Noel Coward.
He's thrilled to receive a Tony Award for lifetime achievement
in the theatre.
This is my first award, so please be kind.
Noel turns 70 in great style.
His status as a national treasure affirmed once and for all.
There may have been and probably were
greater playwrights than Noel,
greater scriptwriters than Noel.
Greater novelists than Noel.
There were probably greater librettists,
greater composers of music,
greater pianists, greater singers,
greater dancers, greater comedians,
greater tragedians, greater stage producers,
greater film directors,
greater cabaret artists,
and greater TV stars.
If there are, there are 14 different people.
Only one man combines all 14 talents. The master.
"During lunch, the Queen asked me whether I would accept the offer
"of a knighthood.
"I kissed her hands and said
"in a rather strangulated voice, 'Yes, Ma'am.'
"Apart from all this, my 70th birthday was uneventful."
# Mad about the boy
# I know it's stupid to be mad... #
Is there any thing that you can do now as a knight that you were not
able to do before? No, there are lots of things that I can't do now
as a knight that I could do before.
# ..the sleepless nights I've had
# About the boy...
# On the silver screen
# He melts my foolish heart in every single scene... #
"I've been away too long, but it is truly moving to come back
"more triumphant and more loved than ever."
# ..traces of the cad
# About the boy... #
"I did love England and all it stood for. I loved its follies
"and apathies and curious streaks of genius.
"I loved British courage, British humour, and British understatement.
"I loved the people.
"And what is more, I belonged to that exasperating,
"weather-sodden little island.
"And it belonged to me.
"Whether I liked it or not."
# In the fury of a... #
Noel Coward died today at his home on the island of Jamaica
in the Caribbean. He was 73.
Sir Noel was a lower class Englishman who became the epitome
of the upper class Englishman, and he carried off the role
for better than 60 years.
A hard, painstaking worker
whose debonair appearance and offhand manner
disguised just how hard he did work
with that talent to amuse.
# I'm feeling quite insane and young again
# And all because I'm mad
# About the boy. #
How would you like to be remembered?
Well, as somebody who contributed to the pleasures of other people.
A good friend and rather an amusing character.
# I could employ... #
APPLAUSE
# A little magic that would finally destroy
# This dream that pains me and enchains me
# But I can't because I'm mad
# I'm mad about the boy. #