by Noel Coward
The Revue business is extremely unsettling—Chariot had a long talk with me today—I am to do the book, music and lyrics—if by any chance I find the whole undertaking too much for me, I am to do as much as I can and he will call someone else to fill in. He is terribly keen on my playing the lead, if Courtneidge will release me…Of course it will probably mean £30 a week salary to start with and so much more as the New Editions are produced. I must have a serious talk with Courtneidge. I don't wish to sacrifice The Young Idea by substituting someone inferior. The Revue will open in the second week in April. That would give me two months with The Young Idea, I wonder if Courtneidge will turn up trumps and let me go for such a wonderful chance. Perhaps he will suggest someone else playing The Young Idea altogether. If so, I'm not at all sure it wouldn't be a good plan, because it would enable me to go to America with Char-lot (all expenses paid) for a fortnight in search of new ideas. He's very keen on my doing this but of course it won't be possible if I do open at the Savoy. I have a feeling that everything will come out all right in the end but I am extremely what's known as “Put About”.
Charles Cochran [Andre Chariot's fierce rival as a producer of revues] is bringing over George M. Cohan, the famous American Actor-Author-Composer, and Chariot means to let the world see that England can produce the same combination of talents in me! When I think of the actual production with me, everything is in my favour. Anything I don't like—out! And everything I want—in! It sounds all talk but it's genuinely true—I am leaving the Business side of things to Curtis Brown [Noël's agent], because I know nothing about Revue terms. I shall get an advance but not until the beginning of January …
It really seems as tho’ the chance that all the fortune tellers have foretold is coming at last. The Revue is almost certain to run a year. It's going to be colossal—I sing “The Russian Blues” with the most marvelous Molyneux Russian Ballet costume, coming on in a sort of dream Parade! Laddie Cliff is to arrange the dances—I chose him because he's so wonderful at steps—which I must learn!
The whole production will cost about seven thousand pounds to put on! And when you consider that bright particular star will be me! It's a bit breathless! Apart from being an epoch breaking achievement, it will be gorgeous to do—specially with people like Maisie and Gertie. I have written Maisie a divine burlesque musical comedy song—very vivacious with full chorus. She is to wear a fair wig and very “bitty” clothes and look quite 55. She does a parasol dance after the song with the male chorus—falling once or twice on her fanny. It's one of the wittiest burlesques I've ever done. She's also to sing “What love means to girls like me” and “Touring Days” with Morris Harvey (if we get him, but I think we shall). I'm writing her a cockney song and a male impersonator Burlesque—“ I'm Bertie from the Bath Club but I've never learnt to swim.” Gertie will sing “Prenez Garde, Lisette” (New and excellent), “Tamarisk Town,” “Carrie was a Careful Girl” with full chorus in lovely Victorian dresses, all very demure, and two duets with me—“ I'm so in Love With You” (Newish) and a Fortune Telling duet, “I'd Like To See” (one of the prettiest tunes I've ever done). There is also a small sketch attached to it. I am to give myself a new song to open with—with full chorus and dance—then “The Russian Blues,” probably “Louise” with a wonderful mountain panorama—and “Every Peach” with two extra verses I've written—very good ones—and then I act in two or three sketches. My clothes (all paid for by the management) will be marvelous.
I do hope I shall be able to manage Courtneidge. Of course, I haven't any contract with him but still I think that makes it worse. I don't think I can possibly tackle him until after the 6th of January, because then Chariot will be able to give me a definite opening date. Another great advantage of Revue is that Chariot will release me for a month or two whenever I need a holiday! Isn't it all thrilling, darling?
Please,please don't be miserable about Christmas. It's damnable of it to come just now! I'm sunburnt and marvelously well—I'm afraid I'm getting fat! Constant food and such food!
All my love, darling
SNOOP
Berlin—Wilmersdorf
Guntzel Strasse 26'iv
December 10th
I had an amusing journey here and laughed a good lot at the people.
This is a beautifully comfortable flat with lovely food and everything
I want.
Tonight I'm going to this new operette, Madame Pompadour to see the greatest living German Comedy Artiste, Fritzi Massary. The whole show with her is coming to Daly's [Theatre] later on. I have naturally booked the most expensive seats in the front row of the stalls—2/—each!
My pocket book is bulging with notes—I've never felt so rich—it is only the change out of 1 pound.
You say you expect Ned is putting up money for the Revue. Certainly he is—it's his solely and entirely. Chariot is on salary as Director and Producer! My music will make me a star, I hope—everyone seems to think so, even Chariot! Who is the usual taciturn manager. He's been charming to me, and asked if I'd agree to let Clifton Webb play in it with me! (Clifton's salary is £80) I said of course, providing that I was indisputably in the superior position! Aren't I a dear!
I'm now going for a drive before lunch—it's a beautiful city.
SNOOP
Ned (Third Earl of) Lathom (1895-1930). Noël's patron for his first Chariot revue, London Calling!
Tuesday and Wednesday
Darling,
I've been shopping all day, things for Ned's Davos Christmas Tree— The shops are lovely—I'm looking out for a nice winter coat for you…it's a lovely city, enormous squares and buildings and general grandeur…My French has suddenly become really fluent in a miraculous manner…German is a terribly funny language to listen to—I get weak at moments and laugh in people's faces!
I leave for Davos on Monday 18th.
Goot Nacht, mem Frau.
Snoop Hohenzollern
Grand Hotel—Davos
Boxing Day
Darling,
We had a divine Christmas and I've had some lovely presents. Beautiful Florentine initialed handkerchiefs, etc.
Gladys Cooper is here and Maxine Elliott and Elsa Maxwell and Molyneux. Chariot arrives on Thursday….
Just off en masse to watch ski jumping—marvelous. I'll write tomorrow.
SNOOP
And play in The Young Idea he most certainly did. It opened at the Savoy Theatre on February i, and in general the reviews were significantly better than they had been for 77/ heave It to You:
The play is going quite well—marvelous house Monday matinee and not bad evening and tonight. I've had several more ecstatic letters, Maxine Elliott adored it and has written to America post haste and hey presto about it!….
We seem to be doing quite good business….
Nonetheless, despite his optimism and the “ecstatic letters” and the “quite good business,” the show posted the notice to close after only eight weeks. The problem he had foreseen of not being available for his own revue was, unfortunately, no longer a problem: “London is outraged at the play coming off—everyone is talking about it and it's doing me a lot of good. I haven't written before because I've been working hard at The Vortex,“
•
VIOLET RETURNED to Ebury Street that summer and firmly snatched back the reins of office from Arthur's hands. Noël hired Lorn MacNaughtan to work as his part-time secretary, sharing her services with his friend, the highly regarded young actress Meggie Albanesi. When Meggie died later that year at the tragically young age of twenty-three, Lorn began to work for him full-time, and continued to do so until her death in 1967.
The “Revue”—now titled London Calling! after the call sign of the exciting new medium, radio—was in active preparation. It had now been decided (though not by Noël) that entrusting the task of doing the whole show to a single pair of twenty-three-year-old hands was too much of a risk and that the writing of the book should be shared with Ronald Jeans and th
e music with Philip Braham. Maisie Gay had been cast, as had Gertrude Lawrence, but Clifton Webb was no longer being considered and the part to have been played by Morris Harvey would now be filled by Tubby Edlin. There remained the question of the male juvenile lead. Noël retained the power of veto and, by some strange chance, found all the names suggested unsuitable. In the end he was reluctantly persuaded to accept the role himself.
To help him with the music, he recruited a “small sharp-eyed” chainsmoking lady called Elsie April. She was to be his musical amanuensis for many years to come. When asked why, with all her skills, she had never composed anything herself, she replied, “Well, dear, I never seem to have any time.”
•
LONDON CALLING! opened at the Duke of York's Theatre on September 4, 1923, and was hailed by most of the critics as a considerable success—except for Noël's own performance—and it certainly put Gertrude Lawrence on the West End map as an indisputable star. It ran for 316 performances.
There were, however, three particular critics whose combined thumbs were most definitely turned down—the Sitwells: Edith (1887—1964), Osbert (1892-1969), and Sacheverell (1897-1988).
One of the sketches in the show was a send-up of modern free verse, which was to remain one of Noël's pet hates. He created a fictional trio— two men and a woman—he christened The Swiss Family Whittlebot, and the Sitwells were not amused by lines such as Hernia Whittlebot's “Life is essentially a curve and Art is an oblong within that curve. My brothers and I have been brought up on Rhythm as other children are brought up on Glaxo.”
A feud ensued that lasted for some forty years. Most upset was Edith, and when Noël realized that instead of seeing the joke, she was bitterly offended, he decided—but only three years later—to write her a letter of apology. She replied:
Edith Sitwell with brothers Osbert and Sacheverell.
22 Pembridge Mansions
Moscow Road
W. 2
December 6th, 1926
Dear Mr. Coward,
I accept your apology.
Yours sincerely,
Edith Sitwell
And there matters formally and uneasily rested until 1962, when Noël confided to his friend, film director George Cukor, that he had much admired Edith's (now Dame Edith) recent book on Queen Elizabeth, The Queen and the Hive, When he heard that Cukor was at that very moment off to see her, Noël asked him to convey his congratulations. Cukor said he would but also advised Noël to write to her himself. That evening Noël did just that.
He received first a telegram:
delighted stop friendship never too late invite you
birthday concert and supper festival hall october 9TH
8 P.M.
EDITH SITWELL
The date was not possible for Noël but shortly afterward he received:
Dame Edith Sitwell
Flat 42
Greenhill
Hampstead
NW3
September 26th 1962
Dear Mr. Coward,
Thank you so much for your letter in answer to my telegram, and above all let me thank you for your charming previous letter, which pleased and touched me more than I can say.
I had to answer by telegram as I had acute writer's cramp (indeed I have only just emerged from bandages and a sling). How I wish that unprofessional writers would suffer sometimes from the disease!!
I am very greatly disappointed that you will not be able to come on the 9th and am very sorry for the cause [Noël had an appointment to go into hospital]. I do hope the operation won't be very painful, and that you will soon be able to escape from hospital, (Oh, those smiling Christmassy faces—Oh, those cups of tea!)
The 9th should be a day for all present to remember. Never before, I think, has anyone attended their own Memorial Service. (The Press is madly excited at my being 75, one is looking forward avidly to my funeral.)
I do hope you will find time to come and have sherry or a cocktail with me when you come to London. Do please ring me up.
I am giving Osbert your message. He is at Renishaw, [the Sitwells’ Derbyshire country house] so I send you his love on his behalf. The operation was fairly successful on one side—the side of the operation. But the whole thing is dreadful and heart-breaking.
All good wishes
Yours ever
Edith Sitwell
After the celebrations (and now the “Dame” has been crossed through):
October 15 th
Dear Mr. Coward
Osbert and I were so very sorry you couldn't come, so was Sachie. The concert and supper party were fun, in a way. But it was all like something macabre out of Proust. The papers excelled themselves—the Sketch particularly. I had never met the nice well-meaning reporter who “covered” the event, but according to him he sat beside me as my weary head sank into my pillow, and just as I was dropping asleep, I uttered these
Famous Last Words
“Be kind to me! Not many people are!” Very moving I think, don't you?…please don't forget that if you can spare the time, you are coming to see me when you are in London.
Yours very sincerely,
Edith Sitwell.
Osbert sends his love
Soon after, Noël paid the dame a visit.
November 23rd
Dear Mr. Coward,
I cannot tell you what real pleasure it gave me to see you the other day. I enjoyed our talk so much. Please don't forget you have promised to come and see me again after you return on the 6th. Do ring me up any time and say you are coming.
It was so good of you to send me your Collected Short Stories, There are no short stories written in England in our time that I admire more. I think “Aunt Tittie,” for instance, a real masterpiece. I am not a cry-baby but it brings tears to my eyes every time I read it—and I have read it over and over again. I can't think what you must have gone through, piercing into the hearts of those two forlorn human beings. The end of the story is almost unbearable. You have done more, so quietly, than most writers do by yelling at the tops of their voices.
All the stories have that extraordinary quality of reality, so that although the endings are perfect endings, one feels the people go on living after the stories, qua stories, are finished and one wants to know what happened to them, beyond the stories.
I am almost halfway through the book, and shall write again when I am the whole way through it.
I may say that I had a very bad nightmare, last night, about “What Mad Pursuit” [one of Noël's short stories]. I dreamt that George [Cukor] said I had to go to stay with some people in Hollywood “for a rest.” But I was saved at the end, because the maid had hidden all my belongings, so I missed the boat train by two minutes!
I am having rather a harassing time with lunatics, because I was televised the other day.
One wrote to say I ought to be ashamed of myself, and that I have senile decay and softening of the brain, which—oddly enough— makes him respect me. Another has written me a very long letter about Einstein, telling me I will never get into Space or Time.
I am sending you my Notebook on Shakespeare. The cover is so unspeakably appalling that I nearly faint when I contemplate it. I do not know if it is meant as a portrait of me if I turn blue, or if it is supposed to represent a map.
I am not supposed to show any of my Autobiography to anyone at all, but I can't resist sending you my portrait of Wyndham Lewis, hoping it will make you laugh. I'm afraid it is rather a battered copy, but it is the only typescript I have got. Don't bother to return it. Please do come and see me again very soon.
All best wishes
Yours ever
Edith Sitwell
The American masters who published my Notebook, not content with inflicting that scarifying cover on me, won't allow me to be an Hon. D. Litt. of Oxford. One shouldn't mind, but I do take it hard!
She sent Noël her last letter a few months later.
March 3rd 1963
Dear Mr. C
oward,
I was so delighted to get your postcard.
I am obliged to send this to your address in Switzerland, because I don't have your present address. It must be heavenly being there.
Will you really give me a “Coward Original” [painting]? How much I look forward to having it. You won't forget you have promised it to me, will you?
I have been really fearfully ill—one of these mysterious viruses that baffle the doctors. Mine was turning into pneumonia, which I missed by a few hours. The whole of Harley Street practically camped out here and have now ordered me to go on a sea voyage. So I am off on Tuesday (5th) with my nurse, heading for the Pacific. (The sharks there can't be much worse than the little pets who prey on one here.) I shall be back here on the 19th of May, and shall hope so much to see you then.
If the so-much-looked-forward-to “Coward Original” should be on its way here before then, I've got a trustworthy caretaker, Miss Lewis.
A Club here have seized a poem of mine, “Still Falls the Rain” without my permission, and have recited it with their heads out of a window! Evidently they don't know it is a poem about the bombing, but think it is an advertisement for mackintoshes!
Some people might be rather cross.
Osbert has just been here and sends his love.
I look forward so much to seeing you when we both get back to England.
Your ancient friend (ancient God knows)
Edith
Dame Edith died in 1964, a few months after this letter was written.
INTERMISSION
“DEAREST DAB….”
JACK WILSON (1899-1961)
Mad about the boy,
I know it's stupid to be mad about the boy
Although I'm quite aware
That here and there
Are traces of the cad about the boy
“MAD ABOUT THE BOY,” FROM WORDS AND MUSIC (19 52)…
AND
“LORNIE, DEAR LORNIE….”