Coward, Noël Peirce ___ 1899-1973 ___ British ___ writer, actor

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Coward was born at Teddington, near London, and began performing on the stage at an early age. He appeared, for example, in several productions with Sir Charles Hawtrey, a victorian actor and comedian. In 1923, he had some success with a play called 'The Young Idea', but it was 'The Vortex' - with veiled references to drugs and homosexuality - a year later which brought him into the public eye. Several very successful plays - including 'Hay Fever' and 'Cavalcade' - followed in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 'Private Lives', Coward starred with his famous stage partner Gertrude Lawrence. Alongside writing and performing plays, Coward was also a prolific song writer and a talented singer. During the war, he entertained allied troops (hence his Middle East Diary) and, clandestinely worked for the intelligence services. After the war, one of his stories was turned into the film 'Brief Encounter' and his play 'Blithe Spirit' broke box-office records for a West End comedy. Thereafter, Coward's popularity tailed off a little, but he continued writing and producing plays, appearing on television and in films such as 'The Italian Job'. From the 1950s, he became a tax exile, residing in Bermuda, Switzerland and finally Jamaica. He was knighted in 1970.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1941-1969 ___ travel theatre film music people society

WEB TEXT LINKS
a few pages
about
a bit about

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Birmingham University Information Services, Special Collections Department

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Middle East Diary
The Noël Coward Diaries
 

May 2005, September 2008, March 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.