by Noel Coward
On January 16, 1935, the play opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, scene of the Lunts’ Design for hiving triumph.
“We've had a very trying time over the play,” Noël wrote to Violet in January.
The first night was awful, very dull and resentful audience. I think they all expected a gay champagne comedy and that, most emphatically, they didn't get! The press was very abusive, three good notices and the rest awful. They do hate me breaking away and trying to do something different, anyhow we are playing to marvelous business and New York is fighting wildly over the play. It has certainly been sensational all right. We ought to run comfortably until about June! So to hell with the notices as usual!
However, in his next letter he had to admit that the play was “only hiccoughing along.”
Noël, who had tasted failure, could be reasonably philosophical about it, as he wrote to G. B. Stern:
March 5 th
Well, dear, in spite of all our predictions, Point Valaine was a flop. The press and the public refused to accept our beloved Lunts spitting in each other's faces; they said a lot of very unkind things and my pants are in tatters. But, oddly enough, my darling, I have risen above it with that old world resilience which you know so well, and I am flouncing off to China on Friday to finish my book, write seventeen plays, a couple of operas and every now and then a postcard to you. I shall be back in London in June, so keep the lamp in the window. P.S. After all, Ibsen and Shaw got bad notices, didn't they, once? And what I always say is that we writers must be brave and true and stand by (not lie on) our convictions.
As a supportive fellow writer, “Peter” (G. B. Stern) wrote to tell him that it “is your best play”
The Lunts were not so forgiving. They always considered it their one and only flop, and they had long memories. Over a decade later, Alfred was to say, “All I can think and hope for is that that entire opening night audience was dead long ago.”
Noël—as so often—refused to see the danger signs. From the Boston preview he had cabled Woollcott:
DECEMBER 27TH
PRESS ENTHUSIASTIC BUSINESS CAPACITY PLAY WENT WELL ALL PERFORMANCES SWELL ALFRED SUPERB AND VERY DEPRESSED STOP ARRIVING MONDAY MORNING PLEASE PREPARE LOVE NEST STOP HAVE HEAVY HEAD COLD HAPPY CHRISTMAS STOP MR. COWARD
And later:
DECEMBER 29TH
ESSIE PLEASIE KINDLY RESERVE COMFORTABLE ROOMS AMBASSADOR WEST FOR FIFTH EARL [AMHERST] AND ME STOP DO THIS EFFICIENTLY AND WITHOUT MUDDLE STOP PUT FLOWERS IN BOTH ROOMS CHARGED TO YOURSELF STOP AM IN NO MOOD TO TOLERATE ANY MORE OF YOUR INCONSEQUENTIAL RADDLED BOHEMIANISM LOVE AND WET KISSES STOP COWARD
CHAPTER 13
THE SCOUNDREL … AND STILL TRAVELING ALONE
(1935-1936)
The world is wide, and when my day is done
I shall at least have travelled free
Led by this wanderlust
That turns my eyes to far horizons …
I travel alone.
“I TRAVEL ALONE” (19 54)
The Scoundrel, Noël's first “real” film. The horse fancier is Julie Haydon.
TO VIOLET:
The Waldorf-Astoria
New York
Monday, December 3rd 1934
Darlingest,
I've got a bit of news that I know will please you. I am going at last to do a picture here at the Paramount studios. Ben Hecht and Charlie MacArthur (who did Crime Without Passion) are writing a special story for me and I must say it sounds pretty thrilling! …
The story is dramatic with a certain amount of comedy in it and I think will give me every opportunity to do my stuff. We've had a series of conferences and now they have gone off into a huddle to write it!
I'm very interested to see whether I like it or not, at any rate they do things far more quickly than the Hollywood people, so even if I hate it, it won't last long!
January [?] 1935
My picture is going to be very good, I think. The story and dialogue is marvelous but, oh dear, I'm afraid it will upset you as it is very tragic and I have to die in it! I play half of it as a dead man! I will send you a complete script soon so you can read it first and be fully prepared. I have done some good tests and they all seem to think that I'm fine, so that's that! Hope [Williams] is playing in it with me and in one restaurant scene Alfred, Lynn, Katherine [sic] Cornell, [Elisabeth] Bergner and Ina Claire are walking on! I'm at the studio all day. I get up at seven a.m. and don't get back until the evening when I go straight to bed. It's a hard routine but actually I rather enjoy it! Sugar [Louis Hayward] has made the most enormous personal success (in Point Valaine) and is inundated with film offers. He is signing with Metro Goldwyn and getting ten thousand dollars for his first picture, fifteen thousand for the next and so on. It really is lovely for him and we are all very glad.
Noël was only receiving five thousand dollars for his own efforts, but this, he felt, was just the beginning. He wrote to Clifton Webb, “Jean Harlow had better look to her laurels.”
February [?]
The film is three-quarters done and seems pretty good. Everyone concerned seems to think I am wonderful gorgeous superb and magnificent, which means that I give an excellent performance on the whole! I had a grueling time the night before last, I had to walk up and down a street (scene) for four hours in a deluge of ice cold rain with a wind machine going full blast, although I had tumblers of neat whisky after each shot it gave me a slight cold but the effect on the screen is quite extraordinary, just a sea of umbrellas and my face wandering through them. I'm drowned halfway through the picture and play all the last part dead, which means no make-up, which is lovely. I have a natty little conversation with God at one point while I'm floating in a wild and ever so stormy sea! (Tank) I electrified the studio the other day by playing an emotional scene over and over again and actually crying each time without having menthol sprayed into my eyes. They are apparently unused to technical acting in the movies! … I'll send you some of the still photographs.
Having spent many uncomfortable hours in studio rain, Noël later turned down
the lead in The Bridge on the River Kwai, claiming, “Everybody seemed
to spend so much time under water.”
The Waldorf-Astoria
New York
March 8th
Darling,
This is just a scribble before I catch my train for Hollywood.
I saw the film all through this morning and it looks fine. I'm afraid I am doomed to be a picture star but I shan't do more than one picture a year.
In fact he didn't make another until 1942.
•
THE FILM OVER, Noël took the train to the West Coast and Hollywood, where he was “the belle of the ball and feted all ends up.” Word of mouth or possibly Hollywood jungle drums had been at work, and all sorts of lucrative offers were waiting for him to star, write, “write and star.” He even did a screen test for Irving Thalberg at MGM. It was all very flattering but he kept his head until he was safely on the SS Tatsuta Maru on his way to Honolulu at the beginning of the Far East trip that would take him to China, Japan, and Singapore.
March 19th
Darlingest,
Here I am, relaxed at last. I'm afraid I didn't get time to write from Hollywood. I was only there such a short time and was on the go unceasingly … I can never tell you how lovely it is to be on the sea again. I've slept and slept and also written a lot of my book [Present Indicative} which must and shall be finished before I get home …
Well, dear, I'm afraid I shall have to fall for the movies after all. I've almost but not quite decided to do three pictures in two years for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. It only means six weeks to two months at a time and they're offering me such marvellous terms it seems a little silly to refuse. I asked for a percentage of the gross which they never give and to my amazement they said yes! So I quickly got onto a boat and disappeared. I don't intend to sign any contracts until after the Hecht/MacArthur picture has opened on Broadway April 3rd. I hav
e a dreamy artistic feeling that I shall get a higher percentage still after that! All this is extremely secret at the moment, so don't tell a soul …
I was seen off by Ruth Chatterton, Ronnie Coleman [sic], Norma Shearer, Constance Collier, Cary Grant, etc., etc., so the commotion on the boat was terrific! They all brought hampers and flowers and God knows what so I've done very well. Constance has definitely fallen on her feet and has a fat five year contract. Isn't it lovely for her? She was practically down and out when she arrived.
The Lunts are rehearsing madly for The Taming of the Shrew which we [Transatlantic Productions] are doing in conjunction with the Theatre Guild, which is a good joke anyway.
La Pietra
Honolulu
March 28th
Well, I've been here a week and I'm sailing tomorrow on The Empress of Canada, Honolulu has grown a lot since I was first here and I have had a very gay time, so much so that I shall be glad to get on the boat tomorrow. Oh dear, the parties and the picnics and the general doings!
It's very lovely sitting on the terrace in the moonlight with Hawaiian Orchestras playing and Hula dancers wiggling about. I've come home each evening hung with LEIS, which are chains of fresh flowers—carnations and jasmine and gardenias …
I'm getting on very well with the book … I made a semi-official visit to the Hospital today and went through all the wards dropping words of comfort and behaving like a good celebrity should! …
In June he was back in Goldenhurst and working on his “Autumn play,” which turned out to be several plays. Lynn was the first to welcome him back to civilization.
Genesee Depot
June 18th 1935
Darling Noëly:
This is to welcome the distinguished traveler from foreign parts, becomingly tanned with that peculiar keen look in his eyes that only sailors have.
We have come to roost in our little nook and cranny and I must say after a good deal of bucketing from one frightful hotel to a worse and one great auditorium to a greater, it is very pleasant.
Can't you be in New York for the opening night? You must try. It would be too lonely without you.
We are dying to have your news. Have you written another play? Have you finished your book? What you're going to do next? Do you have a regular movement every day? How is Gladys's garden coming on and did she try any new seeds, if so, did they come up?
We are still waiting for another script, preferably with a large cast of men to play alternately with the Shrew, as we are rather afraid there may not be a long life in Shakespeare.
I've just done such a funny thing, darling. I ran out of cold cream and Hattie had gone to bed and the light was turned out in her room so I crept into her bathroom (your bathroom) and dug the last remaining bit out of the crevices of an almost empty jar, rubbed it lightly over my face and came downstairs to continue this letter, when I was greeted with shouts of laughter. It appears I had got into the silver cream she puts on her hair and I had made my entrance with a bright silver face.
We saw The Scoundrel the other night and thought it most original, with some fine direction and YOU superb. The story of the picture after your death didn't come off, as far as I was concerned. I mean, I didn't believe it. Either I was in a very material mood or it seemed faintly absurd but, of course, we had a lovely time. The epigrams too got a little self-conscious after a while, the writing, I mean. You were always perfect and so handsome, such a beautiful face, my little Noëly-Poly.
Yours ever,
LYNNIE GO PINNIE
•
OVER IN LONDON, Noël is preparing the nine one-act plays he and Gertie are to perform under the title Tonight at 8:3 o. As light relief, he took time off to keep up with old friends, such as Somerset Maugham:
Goldenhurst Farm
8/7/35
Darling Mr. Maugham,
Imagine my embarrassment on hearing obliquely from a certain lady novelist of my acquaintance [G. B. Stern] (if you'll pardon the term “lady”) that you never got a copy of Point Valaine. Oh dear! Am I mortified, or am I mortified! Anyhow here is one and I love you very much.
Maybe your chocolate eyes will brighten when I tell you that during my recent travels in the oh so glamorous Orient I lived on an exclusive diet of Somerset Maugham, re-reading practically everything you have ever written and taking off my topi and shorts to you as being, I am afraid, a very great writer indeed.
I may appear on your doorstep suddenly during the next 3 months, so keep yourself in a state of suspended vivacity on the off chance.
All my love, Willie dear, and whack that black-browed Peter [G. B. Stern] for me with one of her own walking sticks.
Noël
17 Gerald Road
16/8/35
Darling Acky-wacky-wocky-weeza-peeza
It was ever ever so nice to get your absolutely ripping letter all about your jolly doings and the fun you are having which, although liable to bore the fuck out of anyone less fond of you than I am, really gave me a nostalgic longing to see your pretty face again and nuzzle my head on your shoulder like I always do.
Jack and Lorn and Temple and Sybil Colefax and Mother and I are arriving at the Island next Friday week. You don't have to pay any attention to us as we are all quite content to have what you have.
Oh dear, how I wish I could! But I'm actually working like mad on a new dainty for Gertie and me for the Autumn, which I will write you more fully about later …
I'm going out for a provincial tour with Gertie opening on October 17 th and finishing in December. Then we open in London on January 6th and will, I hope, play through till about May.
Love and big wet kisses,
Noël
•
THE SUMMER MONTHS brought bad news and good. Noël's new friend T E. Lawrence was killed while riding his motorcycle down a deserted English country lane. The cause of the accident was never satisfactorily determined, and there was speculation about suicide.
When in 1963 Richard Aldington wrote a book viciously “deconstructing” Lawrence, Noël reflected: “I wish now I had probed a bit deeper when I knew him. Whatever they may say of him, however, he was unquestionably a great writer of the English language.”
Then one Sunday at Goldenhurst Noël received a phone call from a woman claiming to be Marlene Dietrich. He hung up, assuming it was one of his friends playing a practical joke, but Dietrich rang back and told him firmly that she was calling to congratulate him on The Scoundrel, She later sent him a cable to “Golden Hearst Farm.” (Clearly William Randolph Hearst made an indelible impression in Hollywood!) It was the beginning of a beautiful, almost forty-year friendship.
INTERMISSION
MARLENE DIETRICH: ‘OUR LEGENDARY, LOVELY MARLENE”
We know God made trees
And the birds and the bees
And the seas for the fishes to swim in
We are also aware
That he had quite a flair
For creating exceptional women.
……………………………………………………….
Though we all might enjoy
Seeing Helen of Troy
As a gay, cabaret entertainer
I doubt that she could
Be one quarter as good
As our legendary, lovely Marlene
NOËL'S INTRODUCTION TO DIETRICH'S CABARET DEBUT, AT LONDON'S CAFE DE PARIS (JUNE 21, 1954)
JULY 3OTH 1935
MARLENE DIETRICH
PARAMOUNT STUDIOS
HOLLYWOOD
(CALIF.)
DEAR MARLENE WAS SO TOUCHED AND CHARMED TO HEAR YOUR VOICE TONIGHT IT WAS SO SWEET OF YOU TO CALL ME SENDING PHOTOGRAPH IMMEDIATELY MY LOVE TO YOU NOËL.
JULY 3 I ST
I SEE YOU EVERY NIGHT AND TALK OF YOU ALL DAY STOP
MARLENE
June 1954. “The world's most glamorous grandmother” arrives in London for her cabaret debut at the Cafe de Paris.
And that was how it began—and for nearly for
ty years this superficially unlikely pair cared for and about each other. When Noël was in town—be it New York or Los Angeles—at the same time as Mar-lene she would meet his ship or plane, cook him the occasional meal like the good German hausfrau she was underneath the glamorous fagade— then wave him off. He called her (fondly, it should be quickly added) his “Prussian cow” and, occasionally, “Darling Achtung.”
So efficient was Marlene that he reported on one occasion that she had washed everything in sight including his hairbrush, “which was already perfectly clean.”
Which is not to say that each was totally uncritical of the other. On Marlene's fiftieth birthday Noël sent her some of her favorite champagne with the accompanying verse:
To celebrate your birthday, most adorable Marlene,
I have been to an immense amount of trouble
To get you this expensive bottle of champagne
Please remember that my love's in every bubble!
She apparently drank the champagne there and then and threw the verse into the bin.
What they had in common, other than a genuine affection, was the mutual and admiring recognition that each was a magnificent self-creation. And over the years they would watch out for each other when they sensed a threat.
In the postwar years they faced similar professional problems. For both of them the ritual procession of success ground to a halt. Noël was his own factory, but the product was not in such demand. Marlene couldn't pick and choose the plum glamour roles as she once had. They had to find other creative outlets.
Noël decided to try his luck in cabaret. A successful season in 1951 at the Cafe de Paris led to several more and eventually to Las Vegas, where Marlene's introduction to arranger/accompanist Peter Matz was to transform the vocal quality of Noël's entire performance.
In June 1954, Noël persuaded Marlene to appear at the Cafe, too:
DARLING CERTAINLY THINK YOU SHOULD APPEAR CAFE DE PARIS STOP ROOM AND AMBIENCE PERFECT FOR YOU STOP YOU SHOULD GET ONE THOUSAND POUNDS A WEEK STOP MONTH OF JULY VERY GOOD AUGUST TOO LATE IN SEASON ALL LOVE NOëL