by Noel Coward
The American people must awaken to this real “Fifth Column” …
A lengthy diatribe ends with:
KEEP AMERICA OUT OF THIS IMPERIALIST WAR! STARVE THE WAR AND FEED AMERICA! NO BLITZKRIEG AGAINST THE BILL OF RIGHTS! MOTHERS SAY WE WANT OUR SONS NOT GOLD STARS THE YANKS ARE NOT COMING!
In an August 28,1940, “Memorandum for the Director,” it is noted that in the Congressional Record for the Senate a Mr. Lundeen names several Englishmen “supposedly engaged in disseminating propaganda designed to secure the intervention of the United States in the present war.” Among those names are Lord Northcliffe, Sir Gilbert Parker, and Sir George Paish. A Mr. Holt added Sir William Wiseman “(official of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.)” and “Noël Coward (playright)” [sic].
By March 31, 1941, his every move is being monitored. In a secret “Internal Security” document, a lonely sentence isolated among the stark black censoring reveals that the “Subject” (unknown) “entertains extensively. On March 30th 1941, NOËL COWARD, British playwright, visited [name deleted] at Hotel.”
On June 9, 1941, another “subject” is clearly having his or her office conversations recorded. Two of them are involved with a magazine called IN FACT, which had obviously caught the FBI's attention. They are reported to have unwrapped a package with copies of the magazine in it. And then “they mentioned the names of NOËL COWARD and [name deleted] as being agents of a foreign country.”
The surveillance continued even after America had entered the war. On August 25, 1942, the Cleveland, Ohio, FBI office reported on yet another subject that in several of Noël's letters he had stated that
he had found it necessary to travel to England and that while there he had gone to [deleted] place on the Isle of Wight and that “the usual crowd was there including NOËL COWARD and his American friend.” He believes that [deleted], whom he states is [deleted], and COWARD both favor appeasement and friendship with Germany and he believes that the fact that gatherings were held at [deleted] place would be of interest to the English Government.
This information is being forwarded to the Bureau for whatever action is deemed advisable.
Considering that “appeasement” had ended—with both a whimper and a bang—on September 3, 1939, and that Britain had been at war for almost three years, it is not immediately clear what possible use the special agent in charge who submitted the report can have believed his report could be. It is to be hoped that some of the bureau's other information had a little more relevance.
•
AUGUST 21, 1 940, and Noël is now well into a multi-city tour of the United States on behalf of British War Relief, where “I sang my songs and spoke nicely to my hosts. I went out and opened bazaars and shut them again and carried on and behaved like a traveling celebrity.” From San Francisco he appeals to Vansittart:
FAIRMONT HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO
Please forgive me for not having answered your letter before. I am so sorry that the Foreign Office is agitated about my Press utterances.
I was very much distressed by the shindy in the House of Commons about me being sent over here and I am most awfully sorry if it caused you any embarrassment. I cannot help feeling a trifle embittered by the fact that although I have given up all my own affairs in order to do anything in my power to help my country I mostly seem to be getting only kicks for it.
Would it be possible to tell the State Department the truth, which is that I was sent over by the Ministry of Information to work, with your approval, at gauging various cross sections of American opinion and reporting on it? I think I should be only too delighted to register as a Government agent and I think it would do away with a lot of false rumour and wild surmise. I am most definitely not over here on personal business. If I were I should be carrying on with my own career and earning a certain amount of money.
I detect a strong note of rather dreary grievance in this letter for which I apologise, particularly as you were so sympathetic and understanding when we talked in Washington the other day. Please believe that I shall continue to do my best, as discreetly as possible, to find out anything that might be of the slightest use and contribute all I can towards winning the war. If however it were possible for me to be not quite so disowned in all directions I think it would strengthen my hand.
I have a good deal to tell you which I would prefer to do verbally when I get back.
I am very much cheered by the news from home and deeply proud and I must say I thought the Prime Minister's speech yesterday was magnificent.
When talking to the Press I am sticking to my original story that I came over on a mission to you that has now been discharged. Is this all right?
The accreditation he wanted was not forthcoming. Meanwhile, he continued with his travels for Little Bill:
In the United States I just talked about Britain under bombing … I had a terrible time with some of the Senators—one or two who thought we were finished. They were such silly old idiots that I didn't mind very much. In fact, I was rather sharp with them, because they really did talk such unconscionable nonsense. I put them down and pointed out that I was not doing any subversive propaganda of any sort. What I was doing was travelling around the world at the express wishes of my government to talk about the British war effort and, above all, what was happening in Britain during the air raids—to let them know how the British were taking it, etc. So I told them— “Really, calm down, keep your hair on. Nothing really dangerous is going on.” They suspected me to start with, obviously, of being a spy—which, of course, technically I was, as America was a neutral country at the time.
His itinerary took in another stop in Hollywood, and while the sight of old friends was welcome, he now saw the “British community” there with new eyes. Here was their country at war, yet young men of service age continued to sit in the sun, apparently unmoved by their nation's plight. Conscious, perhaps, of the fact that there were those at home who chose to think he was about to become one of them, he wrote to Violet, whom (with Auntie Vida) Noël had now moved to the safety of a New York apartment: “If I ran away and refused to have anything to do with the war and lived comfortably in Hollywood, as so many of my actor friends have done, I should be ashamed to the end of my days.”
There were, of course, numerous “Brits Abroad” who were anxious to do what they could to help the war effort. One of them was Lynn Fontanne. She described to Noël her collecting box:
Alvin Theatre, New York
June 28th, 1940
I have a little tin box on my dressing table which Larry made for me out of an empty coffee can. Jim, the carpenter, made a beautiful wide slot to encourage dollars, and soldered a little Union Jack on it, and Dickie painted British Relief Fund in red and a large GIVE, in blue, and you know how I hate visitors after the play; now I am quite interested and whenever anyone wants to see me, no matter who they are, I stun them with my welcome with tin box in right hand, autograph hunters too, have to pay.
Antoinette [Keith, her sister] has been trying to get to England for months, but has given up the idea in favor of taking care of a couple of evacuee children from England, and I think that will be more useful. I can't tell you how I feel when I think of those poor wretched mothers saying good-bye to their children, perhaps forever. It's the most monstrously cruel thing that ever had to happen.
Vivian [Vivien Leigh] and Larry [Olivier] went up to Canada and saw the Commissioner there, I forget his name, who completely and utterly discouraged them from going over, he said that they were not needed, but now, the British Government has ordered him to come home. So it's all settled; he doesn't know when, as there are one hundred thousand young men of military age in America and they have to wait until the facilities for getting them over are completed. Between you and me, I don't think Hitler would keep them waiting long, do you? Meanwhile, Larry is learning to fly every day, and has begun to like it, so that means he will be good. He says he is going to be an ace!
We are all thinking at the moment of c
hildren that are coming over. I am standing sponsor for Mrs. Michael Redgrave [actress Rachel Kempson] and her two children. I filled in the papers this afternoon. I don't know what it entails, but we are preparing for everything. I am going to take a house with a lot of rooms in case there are some left over that nobody seems to want, or perhaps we could take temporary care of some of them until they are settled. We will see, we will see what happens when they start arriving.
He brought Lorn up to date on his activities, which included his embattled attempt to bring over children from the Actors Orphanage.
September 6th, 1940
Darling Lornie:
I haven't written before because I have been on the go all the time and have now got back to my flat here slightly exhausted. First of all, I went to Hollywood where I found most of the English actors up in arms against me because they resented my having talked to the Ambassador about those who were not of military age going back. I also achieved the great distinction of being cut dead by Gladys Cooper—as you know, John Buckmaster [her son] is appearing gallantly in a night club here and I expect she felt self-conscious about it. The fussing and fuming going on over the Orphanage was something terrible. Poor old May Whitty, who was going nearly mad because all the actors kept on coming to Committee meetings and having wonderful ideas and then going away and talking to their lawyers who refused to let them do anything about anything at all. Cedric Hardwicke, oddly enough, was one of the few sensible ones … but as the whole thing seemed to be getting more and more chaotic every minute I put the whole thing in the hands of Fanny Holtzmann who, bore or no bore, proceeded to bash about, cut red tape and get everything straightened out in a flash. This was very noble of me really because it means that I sob and cry and shrink into corners every time I hear the telephone ring.
I don't know whether or not you know it but the Hollywood stars decided to give three weeks’ performances of the entire Tonight at Eight-Thirty cycle in aid of the British War Relief. These were such a triumphant success that they are to do them all over again for another three weeks. I didn't see the first bill which was young Doug [Fairbanks] and Constance Bennett in “We Were Dancing,” Basil Rathbone and Gladys Cooper in “The Astonished Heart,” and Binnie Barnes and Reginald Gardiner in “Red Peppers”. All the reports say that Binnie was marvelous. I saw, however, the second and third bills. Roland Young in “Fumed Oak,” who played it like a dim Foreign Office attache and was awful, “Family Album” with Joan Fontanne [Fontaine], Claire Trevor, Philip Merivale, etc. and Aubrey Smith as “Burrows”—this was charmingly done and the success of the series, “Hands Across the Sea” with Judith Anderson, Isabel Jeans, Nigel Bruce, Ian Hunter, etc., was a lash-up on account of Zazu Pitts never having been on the stage before and playing “Mrs. Wadhurst”. Every laugh she got went to her head and she did more and more clowning until not one word of the play was heard. The third bill was pretty horrible except for Bart [Herbert] Marshall, Rosalind Russell, Una O'Connor and Edmund Gwynn [Gwenn] in “Still Life”. “Ways and Means” was played by Brian Aherne and Greer Garson with all the lightness and speed of a performance of King hear given by a church social. But the pearl of the whole evening was “Shadow Play” with Georges Metaxa and a rather aging, Jewish actress called Dorothy Stone; this was terribly macabre. Georges, who is now quite square, was completely incomprehensible and sang very loudly indeed. Dorothy Stone danced so much that I was afraid she would have heart failure; unfortunately she did not … The shindig in the House of Commons, which was headlined in all the papers here, caused me a great deal of inconvenience and unpleasantness. I want you to do the following; first of all, send me a copy of Hansard with a verbatim account of the debate in it, then check up through dear Herrings on the histories of the gentlemen saying those unpleasant things about me. There will come a day when the pen will prove to be a great deal mightier than the sword. The performance of the Air Force and the people of England generally, is having a tremendous effect on the people over here. I get into awful states now and then when I read of the bombings and wish I was there with you all very much indeed. Sometimes being so far away is almost more than I can bear. I am astounded that Golden-hurst is still standing. Mother and Vida are apparently having a whale of a time in Atlantic City. I only saw them the day they arrived but they were very happy, and I expect them to come back next week …
Love, love, love—
MASTER
NOËL COWARD
What's going to happen to the tots? Noël leads an enthusiastic chorus of kids at the Actors’ Orphanage. (Notice the girl second from left, at the back, who is clearly wondering if she should now get an agent.)
As the saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished,” and Noël's Children's Crusade was no exception. The British press remained unwilling to see even a glimmer of silver lining in the dark cloud they insisted on placing over his head. Even old friends were persuaded to have their doubts from time to time.
Beverley Nichols wrote apologetically:
Butchers Barn
Dane Hill
Haywards Heath
September nth 1940
Dear Noël,
You will probably have seen a few words I wrote about your American visit. I wish that I hadn't written them, because they must have seemed unkind, and because I hate to think that after praising you for twenty years in all sorts of journals, I should have administered this sudden scratch. However, you must blame the quite incredible ineptitude of your press agent. You would get quite as hot as I did if I were to quote a selection of the remarks attributed to you by cable. When on top of this, it was announced that you were leaving for Hollywood “to evacuate children,” together with the other remarks about your “nerves,” I am afraid that I lost my sense of humour.
Your return makes me feel a complete fool. And this letter of mine gives you a perfect opportunity of making me feel an even more complete one. However, I am quite sincere in saying that if I have done you any harm, my only wish is to undo it. I know that you are in a position where you can afford to ignore journalists. But I hope you will never feel yourself in a position where you can ignore old friends.
Yours ever,
Beverley
Noël writes to Gladys Calthrop:
September 12 th 1940
Darling,
These last two weeks have obviously been hell and every minute fraught with anxiety and unimaginable imaginings, and it's sick my heart is with the longing to be with you. I still believe, however, that I was dead right to come back, despite the fact that my generous countrymen both in the House of Commons and in the press have done their damndest to make my job here a thousand times more difficult. When the smoke clears away and there is a respite from all this horror I shall have something to say, but now I cannot. I must say I feel deeply ashamed of the way the English press has treated me since the beginning of this war. Unfortunately, of course, a lot of the muck gets reprinted over here and in Canada. However, I am rising above it as well as I can and getting on with the job … I may be able to let you know more details about this later on but at present it is impossible.
I have been traveling around a great deal talking to politicians, journalists, ex-Presidents, gallant English actors and even Mormons. I am now back in my apartment here working very hard, which is all part of the plan. If you will cast your mind back to two evenings before I left London, when Winnie, Lorn and you and I ate sandwiches with J. B. Priestley, you will have an inkling of what I am up to, it is, in fact, a carefully thought out series which is what I am working on now.
I think it is time that somebody of importance in England rose up in my defense and explained the truth about my activities, since I chucked up the whole works to do a job for my country. I don't mind scurrilous attacks when I am working in the theatre and where, after all, I have my own plate to sit on, but this filth that has been heaped upon me is really beginning to get under my skin.
I am feeling awfully frustrated over this letter, for th
ere is so much to say that is quite impossible. Please don't think from the tone of grievance that I am in a frizz for I really am digging in and holding on to hard boiled eggs like anything, but if any mealy mouthed, cowering God can think out a viler year than this one, good luck to the bugger.
Take care of yourself—
DREYFUS
And later …
September 27th 1940
Since my return I have discussed exhaustively how best to employ my brittle talents for the good of the cause, and at long last a jolly decent decision has been arrived at, blessed by the approval of the Ambassador and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. It is this—I am now officially attached to the British War Relief Society, and my job is to travel around to all the key cities where I help organize and advise the various committees, in addition to making speeches, appearing at benefits, and what have you. This, as your slow moving, sluggish mind will readily perceive, provides me with an admirable excuse to wear my long black elbow gloves and that large shady hat with the red rose on it. It also gives me a dignified plate to sit on, which, I think, in time will silence the press. If there is any way that you could get hold of Walter Monckton, or Duff [Cooper], or Vansittart, or anybody of governmental importance to give an order for them to lay off me, it would be a great help, not particularly from my personal point of view, which doesn't really matter, but from the point of the job itself. It is perfectly idiotic that I, who am working for the country to the exclusion of everything else, should have my efforts undermined by a few mischievous little journalists who don't know what it is all about anyway. This, I think, actually is rather serious otherwise I wouldn't go on about it. I thought of writing, myself, to the Times or Winston or Duff, but I don't wish to descend into the arena with personal complaints at the moment when things of much more importance are happening. So if there is anything you can do about this privately and quietly, just have a slap at them, there's a dear, dear.