by Noel Coward
In this limbo nothing has happened and there is no interesting news to give you. So take this merely as the pleasure of hearing a voice, even if it is jammed. Jammed is the word for this war. We all move around as if in treacle. I send off a fresh batch of glowing testimonials to myself every two days to the particular department I'm supposed to be working with, but nothing happens. I also do an occasional morning of sitting at a telephone box in a cellar, but no one has ever rung me up! I can't tell you the maddening effect it has to see one's friends doing work and not being able to oneself …
Despairing of my Ministries, I've just taken on a temporary weekend job of cooking for policemen. If they'd rather lose the war on my sausages than win it on my German, well, that's England's loss. Olwen is coming as kitchen maid … By the way, I read this in the small hours in Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, “The human race is the seminary of Heaven.” I have done with Swedenborg! PS. Have just come home after frying 53 eggs and ten pounds of bacon. I smell to heaven—and feel much better.
Oh, how I do love shabby England … I didn't ever before realize quite how much; or how contented the war has made one with what one has.
•
IF NOëL WAS NOT entire ly sure of what he was meant to be doing, some of his show business friends were even more confused. Adrianne Allen— whom he had once nicknamed “Planny Anny” (or “Anny Planny”)—lived up to her nickname by writing to him suggesting he should tell Chamberlain and French prime minister Edouard Daladier that they should insist on President Roosevelt's providing a formal declaration of moral support. Noël replied by cable:
DARLING PLANNY THOUGH INTERNATIONALLY BOSSY I AM NOT YET INTERNATIONALLY AUTHORITATIVE. FEAR GENTLEMEN YOU MENTION MIGHT CONCEIVABLY RESENT MY TELLING THEM HOW TO READ THEIR LINES.
By early 1940 he had settled into the apartment at 22 Place Vendome and could tell Alec Woollcott something of the life he was leading, painting a rather rosier picture than he really felt for the benefit of his American friends:
January 26th 1940
I can honestly assure you I have never worked so God damned hard in my life. I am delighted to have a job that is most of the time passionately interesting, of course there are boring moments and I find it peculiar to sit this royal can down at an office desk every morning at nine o'clock! I cannot unfortunately go into details about what I am doing because of the so weecked spies who can't wait to read my letters, listen to my telephone conversations and follow me in and out of public lavatories. All I can tell you is that I am learning a whole lot of things about a whole lot of other things and I dread to think what I shall be like at the end of it. Perhaps it will mould my character into the most fantastically beautiful shapes, making it impossible for me to play with anyone but Eva Le Gallienne and in anything but Tchekof. On the other hand, I might emerge gnarled and cruel and twisted and beat the living Jesus out of you at backgammon. In either event it is bound to be fascinating.
I hear that Ruth [Gordon] and Helen [Hayes] have been making strong representations to Jack to persuade me to give all this up and return to the theatre! If you should see them at any time you might explain sweetly and tenderly for me that the reason I cannot at the moment return to the theatre (madly important though I know it to be) is that I am an Englishman and my country is at war! If you happen to have a trumpet handy at the moment so much the better.
I am a trifle saddened by the behaviour of many of my actor countrymen of military age who scuttled off with such inelegant haste to New York or Hollywood. There really is a great deal to be done. This is a sinister and deadly war, in many ways more so than the last one. There has not been so much bloodshed as yet but, with the kind assistance of press and radio, some very dreadful things are happening to the human spirit. There is no knowing what will survive and what we shall all feel and think. I expect a lot of things will change. I certainly hope so.
The above is the address of my flat which is very natty and comfortable. I have, in addition, a smart office at 18 Place de la Madeleine and a very high Hispano which I think was made for the late Empress Frederick. It cost only a very few francs. (Have you noticed how many verys there are in this letter? Oh dear!)
I occasionally hurtle up to the front and sing firmly to the troops who are so sunk in mud that they can't escape.
All my love dearest Ackieweeza
LYNN WA s BUSILY keeping the home fires burning, even at a distance:
Temple Theatre, Birmingham, Ala.
January 8, 1940
Darling, darling,
We received your lovely letter intact, uncensored, it was wonderful. It made us laugh an awful lot, such a good letter and we were so glad to get it, the first since that dark curtain closed down on us.
We had a big Christmas dinner party for the company in Fort Worth, Texas, fifty of us, and very wild it was, too. We bullied the hotel into giving us quite a decent meal; daquiri cocktails, turkey,
Christmas pudding, of course, and champagne. I didn't get drunk, but I lost one of my diamond clips! Don't worry, darling, it's insured, and what with the expense of doing over the house, I had just as soon have the money and it will help pay for the party, oi, oi.
We had another party, which I enjoyed even more, on the train in the club car, quite unexpected like. It was the day of the British victory over the GrafSpee, it began with Frank Compton, who was a little, not very tight, suddenly beginning to sing in a very pleasing voice, “Rule Britannia,” at which, everyone joined in hysterically. We went from there to all the old war songs: “Tipperary;” “Pack Up Your Troubles;” “Keep the Home Fires Burning;” “Madelon;” “It's A Long, Long Trail;” “Mademoiselle From Armentiers;” it was lovely.
The party ended up with the only German in the company (whom we strongly suspect of having pro-Nazi sympathies) standing up with Frank Compton and me, the only English, and singing with tears rolling down his cheeks, “God Save the King.”
•
THE FRUSTRATIONS CONTINUED to mount for him as the phoney war dragged on. There seemed to be nothing but protocol and more protocol.
None of the things he was required to do seemed to make any practical sense to him.
•
ONE OF HIS most difficult tasks was to explain to friends and “family” why he was doing what he was doing:
January 29th, 1940
My dear Jack:
I have just had a letter from you that I feel I must answer immediately. You said in it that there was a certain movement among my friends in New York to induce you to induce me to give up the job I am doing now and return to the Theatre. I do so very much want you to explain to them that what I am doing now is, to me, even more important than a successful play however well written, well directed and well played. You will have difficulty over this. The quality that I love most in my friends of the Theatre is their hundred per cent concentration. They live far away from what is happening now and what has been happening during the last years. Do tell them also, with my love and a great deal of nostalgia, that I miss them very much and that there are many moments when I long to be with them.
Unfortunately, however, we are at war. (I hope they won't be frightened by the word “we” it is certainly not propaganda!) We are at war in defence of all that makes their performances possible.
I am sure that art and the Theatre signify a great deal in life (if they don't I have been bloody well wasting my time for thirty years) but at the moment I can't feel that they matter quite so much as they did. I admit that up to date there hasn't been overmuch bloodshed and that consequently the headlines in the press haven't been vastly entertaining, but in the meantime the war is being waged on more subtle terms. It is a very dreadful war because it is doing bad things to people's minds. It would be quite impossible for me to act in New York while my friends were fighting in Europe. I am using my intelligence and my brains for my country until the war is over. Some of my work is interesting and a lot of it is dull but at least I know I am doing the only thing
possible for me. Perhaps when it is all over I might emerge from it a better writer and a better actor in which case there will be that much gained. On the other hand what has happened and is going to happen might bitch me for ever which will be that much lost! In either case I cannot help feeling that there are other things that matter more.
You can tell them for me that my life is unheroic in the extreme. I have a comfortable flat and a comfortable office (when the heat's on). Compared with what many English actors are doing, who have far more to lose than I, I am on velvet. I fully realize that several thousand miles of ocean between America and Europe make it difficult for people over there to understand what we are feeling over here. I am sure they occasionally read the press notices of this particular production, but we all know how unreliable critics can be. This play hasn't been very well directed so far and the first act, according to many, is too long and rather dull. I am afraid however that I cannot walk out on it. Please give them my love; show them this letter; thank them for thinking so well of my talent and reproach them, affectionately, for thinking so poorly of my character.
All my love
Signed Noël
•
THE WEEKS DRAGGED BY with nothing to show for their efforts that Noël could see. The Germans continued to advance—Norway, Denmark, with Holland and Belgium clearly in their sights. Chamberlain continued to see the silver lining in this blackest of storm clouds. Mr. Hitler had “missed the boat,” he cheerfully claimed.
All of which made Noël fretful that he was not doing more to help his country. To him one thing was abundantly clear: the phoney war was now most definitely over. By March, Sir Campbell observed his protege and had a distinct feeling of “the frenzied beating of wings.” He suggested—to Noël's pleased surprise—that Noël take a six-week sabbatical, go to the United States and report back on the sentiment toward the war he found there. How strong was the isolationist movement, for instance? Which important people were saying what and to whom? Noël began to pack his bags and wrote to Violet:
March 30th
I am very gay and excited because I am going to America for a month sailing on April 20th in a nice safe American boat! I have been given six weeks leave to arrange my business affairs! (I will explain the real story to you verbally when I come home in about two weeks time!)
TO NOËL GOING TO AMERICA IN WAR-TIME (TO ACCOMPANY A POUND OF “BEST ASSORTED SOFT-CENTRED CREAMS”)
My dearest Noël, hard it is for us
to lose you for six weeks to the Americas,
to know that you must plough the wine-dark seas
wearing the waistcoat of reality,
while we in garden-England sit at ease
and fuss.
But you know, don't you, we plant our spring delight of daffodils and aricas, go to the latest “night” or other such banality, because these toys help us to keep our poise? Remember, won't you?
And, Noël, if—
if the fat wench in stone
with a smug sniff
waves her synthetic torch
of Liberty at you on your arriving
in New York's water-porch,
and chatters of a “phon-
y Armageddon”,
and how the English always miss the bus,
don't let her get away with it,
not for one day with it!
Tell her we're thriving, thriving
upon our iron dreams:
Then offer her the sort of thing she's fed on
—soft-centred creams!
FROM CLEMENCE DANE, APRIL 6TH 1940
WHEN THE WAR was over Noël summed up his feelings about the whole Paris episode in ¥uture Indefinite:
On looking back now on those strange, frustrating months, I find it difficult to believe that I ever lived them at all. They seem in my memory to be, not exactly vague, but irrelevant, almost as though I had dreamed them.
At the time, though, the frustrations were all too real and immediate.
To Lornie:
The bloody Americans have already started to be tiresome by refusing to allow me to embark at Gibraltar after all, as it infringes their neutrality laws, or some such cock. So I'm going with a diplomatic visa via Italy. Oh dear!
On April 18 he sailed from Genoa on the SS Washington.
CHAPTER 17
‘THEN ALONG CAME BILL”
(1940)
Then along came Bill,
Who's not the type at all.
You'd meet him on the street
And never notice him.
P. G. WODEHOUSE, “BILL”
THE NEW WORLD, when Noël arrived, seemed more than a world away. He was plunged back into reunions with old friends he had not expected to see again until the war was over, if ever. Jack and Natasha Wilson, the Lunts, Neysa McMein, Alec Woollcott—it was as though he had never left.
Sir William (“Little Bill”) Stephenson (1896-1989). Noël's wartime spymaster. “Little Bill saw where my celebrity value would be useful…which was very smart of him. My disguise would be my own reputation as a bit of an idiot—a merry playboy.”
He was soon to make a new and important one. In Paris his colleague Paul Willert, an old friend of Mrs. Roosevelt's, had given Noël a letter of introduction. Feeling that Washington was the obvious place to start his fact- or, rather, feelings-finding mission, Noël flew there and settled into the Carlton Hotel. He sent Willert's letter around by special messenger and proceeded to set up his appointments, one of which was lunch at the British embassy. There he found himself seated next to Mrs. Richard Casey, wife of the Australian minister. She reminded him that her husband had met him in Paris and had something he wished to discuss. Later Noël would recall that in that conversation “one more link was forged that was to lead me across the world.”
The next day, a note arrived from Eleanor Roosevelt inviting him to dine that evening. Noël had expected a simple exchange of social pleasantries. Instead, President Roosevelt took him aside privately, mixed him a mean martini (in fact a whisky sour), and proceeded to discuss the state of the war in Europe in considerable and well-informed detail. He was clear about the fact that, while he supported the British position personally, he had to balance his own inclinations with the local political realities. In America at that point the isolationists were every bit as powerful as the appeasers had been in Britain. A focal figure was Charles Lindbergh (1902—1974), a national hero since being the first man to fly the Atlantic solo. Even then the “media halo” had its potency in the public mind.
Noël left the White House with the clear feeling that the president intended to “manage” events toward the desired outcome but that the process could not be rushed.
There was more ground to be covered and not much time to cover it. Noël returned to New York, from Los Angeles where he stayed once again with Cary Grant, who was to become another important figure in future events.
Day by day the war news got worse. The German forces continued to occupy country after country with Teutonic precision. The British Expeditionary Force was trapped at Dunkirk, and the bodies of many thousands of men were likely to litter those famous beaches. In the end some 224,000 out of 394,000 men were rescued, but that was some days off as Noël sat looking out at the Californian sun and watching people going about their daily business. He knew he had to get home.
Back in New York he found cables from Sir Campbell Stuart telling him that Chamberlain had been forced to resign. Churchill was now head of a National Government, and Noël's old friend Duff Cooper was the new minister of information and effectively their new boss. Noël immediately sent off a cable of his own to Duff, saying that he intended to return on the first available plane, something easier said than done. (There would be days to wait. The first flight he could get was not until June 8.)
Then, on June 3, he received a telegram from the president's secretary:
THE PRESIDENT WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU TOMORROW AT FIVE P.M. EXECUTIVE OFFICES AND MRS. ROOSEVELT HOPES
YOU WILL STAY FOR DINNER AND SPEND NIGHT AT WHITE HOUSE. PLEASE CONFIRM.
Noël confirmed.
This time the atmosphere was both more somber and sober. Coca-Colas appeared instead of whisky sours, and the conversation focused on the war. Roosevelt was visibly moved by the epic events of Dunkirk and by Britain's unique ability to turn a devastating defeat into a moral victory. Did Noël believe his country could withstand Hitler? Noël replied that he was convinced “beyond all logic and reason” that it could and would.
Later—after making them both a martini after all—the president retired for the night and Noël accompanied Mrs. Roosevelt to an appointment she had at the annual Agricultural Students’ Dance, where she spoke and Noël was persuaded to say a few words himself. Looking at those fresh young faces he realized that he was looking at the people who would, perhaps all too soon, be called upon to help correct the balance of world affairs.
On the way back to the White House, Mrs. Roosevelt instructed the driver to go via the Lincoln Memorial. The night was clear and the moon was high. President Lincoln looked out enigmatically, and Noël could only hope that the current president, like his forebear, would do everything that needed to be done to ensure that “government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Back at the St. Regis he wrote:
June 6th
Dear Mr. President,
You have been more than kind in giving me so much of your valuable time and I can never begin to tell you how deeply I appreciate it. Please allow me to say how much I admire your wonderful humour and sanity at a moment when the world is battering at you. It was a great privilege to be with you and there will be many times when I am back in Europe that I shall long to be in the warm friendly atmosphere of your study enjoying your very special cocktails.