The Letters of Noel Coward

by Noel Coward

  I have now finished with Mr. Proust. He is worth reading but Oh la la, how jolly tiresome. I am furious about Ace of Clubs not being a real smash and I have come to the conclusion that if they don't care for first rate music, lyrics, dialogue and performance, they can stuff it up their collective arses and go and see King's Rhapsody [Ivor's last and biggest hit had opened on September 15] until les vaches se rentrent,

  I am happy as a bee writing my stories and I have a strong suspicion that there is a novel in the offing. I need hardly tell you that this holiday has done me more good than I could have believed possible. I feel smooth as silk and look quite wonderful. Give my dearest love to all and a great deal to yourself.

  •

  UNFORTUNATELY, 1950 hadn't finished with Noël. In September, on a brief visit to New York, he had been asked to direct and/or star in the forthcoming Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I, which they had devised specifically for Gertie at her request. It would have made a lot of money for him, burnished his image, and been an undoubted hit with that combination of talents—but it would not have been his. He turned it down.

  Instead, back in England, he had to tackle a far less appealing chore. He and Coley had to make a sad side trip to Paris to clear out the apartment in the Place Vendome. It had been put up for sale and—mindful of the currency exchange problems of the past—Noël felt it would be unwise to try to buy it himself.

  From there he traveled solo to Florence to stay with painter Derek Hill in his rather chilly little villa. It was not long before he was cabling Coley:

  HAVE MOVED HOTEL EXCELSIOR COUGHING MYSELF INTO A FIRENZE.

  Fate continued to frown. Even Jamaica welcomed him back for Christmas with clouds and rain.

  The year 1951 began with the mournful news that Ace of Clubs was closing, and a few days later Noël heard that Eleanora von Mendelssohn had committed suicide in New York. Since his 1937 visit to her Austrian schloss and her move to the United States, she, like Neysa, had been part of his New York “family.”

  He wrote to Lornie:

  The horrid tragedy of poor Eleonora von Mendlsohn [Mendelssohn] upset me very much. She came to me in despair a day or two after I arrived. Her idiotic husband, who was queer as a coot and jealous of his boy friend, had thrown himself out of the window—alas only three stories—and broken himself to bits and was languishing in a public ward in a charity hospital. He and the boy friend between them had squeezed her dry and she had no money to get him moved and pay for injections to help his pain … Then Francesco, Eleonara's mad brother, escaped from his asylum and appeared to plague her and, of course, Toscanini kicked her around for years. Apparently this was the last straw, because that night, last Tuesday, she took several sleeping pills, then soaked a cloth in ether, placed it over her face with a pillow and a bath mat on top, and that was that! I had sessions with the doctors involved, one of whom had seen a bit of a letter she had left for her neurotic little sod of a husband. The phrase he read was—”Now perhaps you will have peace!” My only comfort is that I, at least, among her friends, really tried to help, and this she knew. She's always been fairly emotionally unbalanced—I suppose she's well out of it but Oh Dear! It was all very nasty.

  There is an old superstition that bad luck comes in threes. First Eleanora, then, a day or two later, C. B. Cochran died in a domestic accident. And in early March came the news that Ivor Novello was dead. Arriving home after another triumphant performance as King Nikki in King's Rhapsody, he had succumbed to a heart attack. The Grim Reaper was busy cutting a swath through Noël's friends.

  As he had done so often in the past, he turned to his “family” for comfort. To Cole:

  Dearest Tolette,

  I have decided in my fluffy little mind that it would be well worth the spondulicks expended if you were to come out and be a comfort to your aged Master on account of I feel a certain lack of spiritual nourishment without you. Also the new lilos that Doycie sent me are much easier to fall off than the other ones and I long to open my lattice and watch you being constantly dashed against the reef. So just you go snaking up to the hard-faced Mrs. Loraine and keep on hissing in her ear, “Master wants Toley and money's vulgar anyhow,” until by sheer persistence you wear her down.

  Out of his determination to “rise above it” came at least one good thing. He set about writing a new play. Joycie happened to be staying—one of a whole string of guests who helped divert him that spring—and he was able to bounce ideas off her, very much as he had done with Blithe Spirit ten years earlier. Yes, it was about duchesses and the aristocracy, but so what? This was a world he knew and one that was changing every bit as fast as any other section of troubled postwar British society. He called the play Relative Values, At the back of his mind another idea was beginning to bubble—a satire on the affectations of modern art—but it would have to wait its turn. He would call it Nude with Violin,

  And, of course, there was always his wandering child, Home and Colonial: written for Gertie, who had shilly-shallied; offered to John Clements and Kay Hammond, who felt its British Empire topicality had missed the moment; and about to be reincarnated that summer as Island Fling for Claudette Colbert at Jack's Westport Playhouse. And even then the story would not be over.

  Then the good things began to happen.

  Nineteen fifty-one was Festival of Britain Year, a halfhearted attempt on the part of the ruling Labour government to “relaunch” postwar Britain, but without the flair or the funds to do it properly. Noël, having been asked to serve on the Festival Committee, promptly resigned when he saw the state of affairs. Afterward he wrote the satirical song “Don't Make Fun of the Festival,” which contained the lines: “We downtrodden British must learn to be skittish/And give an impression of devil-may-care …”It was the hit of that year's The Lyric Revue, in which Graham Payn had one of the leads.

  That summer Noël made two important decisions. It was time to go back to Goldenhurst. He had enjoyed St. Margaret's Bay, but it lacked the peace he craved and that the prewar Goldenhurst had given him. He wrote to Jack:

  Gladys Cooper (1888-1971) and Noël were intermittent friends from their first meeting in the early 1920s. Noël always called her “The Hag”—hence her dedication, “Your loving hag.”

  July 5, 1951

  I would really rather be at Goldenhurst.

  I could not live in it again as it was, as it is too big to run nowadays. So this is what I plan.

  I shall have my old bedroom and the library will be the main living room … The bar will be a dining room and will hold six comfortably and no more. The chinz, lacquer and paneled rooms will be as they were, except that I shall have a door put from the paneled room into my bathroom. I shall take away the big room entirely and also the newer part of the old house, which means the French room and bathroom, the big upstairs bathroom and Auntie Vida's bedroom. The rest of the old house will provide a nice bedroom and bathroom for Cole and an extra guest room for emergencies.

  With the materials of the demolished part I am going to turn the Mauretania into a 3-roomed bungalow … In between my house and the old house I am going to have a walled garden and a covered way festooned with roses which will connect the two houses.

  All this should cost comparatively little … and the demolition at Goldenhurst will mean I do not have to buy any re-building material!

  He moved back on his birthday, December 16.

  The second decision was to accept an invitation to appear in cabaret at the Cafe de Paris that autumn. His opening on October 29 was promoted as his debut, but Noël knew better. Thirty-five years earlier, when the Cafe was called the Elysee, he had appeared there partnered by Eileen Denis, to no noticeable effect.

  This time the effect was spectacular, and the season of twenty-four performances was repeated for the next three years. The cabaret was to provide the Coward bow with a new and highly profitable string.

  The fall brought another success in an area that seemed to have rejected Noël
—the theater.

  Earlier in the year he had written the first draft of Relative Values, a comedy set defiantly in yet another stately home. Even Noël was not sure if the story of a dowager countess whose son is set to marry a Hollywood glamour girl would appeal to a 1950s London audience. When the couple arrive it turns out that the countess's maid, Moxie, is the star's sister, and the star herself is anything but what she pretends to be.

  As one of the characters, Crestwell, a Jeeves-like butler, observes, “Comedies of manners swiftly become obsolete when there are no longer any manners.” Noël had his fingers crossed that his own prediction would be proved wrong in this case.

  For once he consulted other “voices” as well as his own. He wrote to Jack:

  July 5th 1951

  Binkie's criticisms of the play were very intelligent and quite gentle. One was that the characters of Peter and Odo should either be differentiated more or made into one. Another was that the balance of the play would be improved by making it in three acts instead of two and the third criticism was that Moxie was rather indistinct as a character. Having digested all this carefully, I have lengthened and improved the first act, finishing on the “She's my sister” line. I have turned the two men into one character, which is a great improvement and have made Moxie, I think, more consistent and more true.

  Actually, it was not such a terrible chore and I quite enjoyed it. The present idea of casting is Gladys Cooper for Felicity, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies for Moxie (if we can persuade her to play it), Judy Campbell for Miranda and Cecil Parker for Crestwell. None of this, of course, is definite as none of them have read it yet.

  When Relative Values opened at the Savoy Theatre on November 28, for the first time in a long time the majority of the London critics were kind.

  To Jack, again:

  December 3rd, 1951

  Well, that's that. We had a sensational opening night; Gladys [Cooper] gave a perfectly brilliant performance and knew her words for the first time; the whole cast was good and it is a smash hit and nobody can get seats, which is all very satisfying.

  On the whole he considered it had been “a good year. Let us hope that 1952 will be as amicably disposed.”

  Well, it was and it wasn't.

  The day after Noël arrived in Jamaica he heard the news that King George VI had died, and he immediately sat down to write a letter of condolence to the queen (now Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother). His notes show that he attempted several versions before he had it to his satisfaction.

  Madam,

  I heard the tragic news of the King's death the morning after my arrival in New York and I have waited to write to your Majesty until I reached the quietness of this island. I know the utter inadequacy of words of condolence but I do wish you to know how much you are in my thoughts and how very, very deeply I feel for you. The King, ever since I first had the privilege of meeting him in 1923, had always been so gracious and kind to me that I feel his loss as a personal friend. This is not as presumptuous as it sounds because all his subjects feel the same, whether they had had the honour of meeting him or not. This overwhelming sense of personal loss in the hearts of ordinary people is such an accurate and loving tribute to his quality both as a man and our King that the realization of it may, I earnestly hope, be a small comfort to you in the loneliness of your bereavement.

  You said to me, such a short while ago at Dickie and Edwina's dinner party, that if ever I had anything to ask of you, I was to write to you direct, so I know that you will not misunderstand the profound affection and sympathy that prompts this letter. All I have to ask of you is to remember, amid the desolation of your personal grief, how much you are loved and honoured and the magnitude of the debt that we all of us owe to you and our beloved King for the courage and dignity and kindness that shone so steadfastly throughout the difficult years you have reigned over us.

  My humble duty to you, Madam. I have the honour to be your Majesty's loyal and devoted subject.

  •

  BACK IN ENGLAND, Ian Fleming and Ann Rothermore took over the lease of White Cliffs and now it was Ian's turn to “criticize” the qualities of the accommodation on offer. From Ian:

  Kemsley House

  London W.C.i

  9th May 1952

  Dear Boy,

  The various repairs have been carried out. The bill comes to £ioo.ios.2d. I have consulted my solicitor and also the landlord and they both agree that these costs do, in fact, fall on the outgoing tenant rather than on the slim shoulders of the incoming lessor.

  May I assume that a cheque will reach me in due course or would you rather work this off by writing an article for the Sunday Chronicle entitled “The Most Scandalous Things I Know About My Most Intimate Friends?”

  Cordially

  IAN

  May 9th

  Dear Ian,

  As our two solicitors seem to have completely divergent views regarding the matter about which you wrote … and as we offered to leave the bookshelves and you particularly asked us to remove them I am using the good old British plan of compromise and enclose a cheque for Fifty Pounds. If you do not want it I can give you a few suggestions as to what to do with it when you come to lunch on Sunday. With regards and also with smacking great kisses.

  Cordially, Noël Coward.

  15 th May

  Dear Messrs. Noël Coward Incorporated.

  The mixture of Scottish and Jewish blood which runs in my veins has been brought to the boil by your insolent niggardliness.

  Only Ann's dainty hand has restrained me from slapping a mandamus on your meagre assets and flinging the charge of bottomry, or at least barratry, in your alleged face.

  Pending the final advice of my solicitors, I shall expend your insulting pourboire on a hunting crop and a mills bomb and present myself at one o'clock exactly at Goldenhurst.

  I shall see what Beaverbrook has to say about your behaviour at lunch today.

  Tremble

  IAN

  By now Ian and Ann's affair was an open secret, Ann was divorced, and they were married in Jamaica that March, with Noël and Coley doubling as witnesses and the entire congregation. Noël had already warned Violet: “I shall wear long elbow gloves and give the bride away. I may even cry a little at the sheer beauty of it all.”

  After the event, he reported:

  It was really rather sweet except that the dark gentleman who married them had the most awful breath and so the responses were rather muffled. I lost my head after it was over and began to tie the old shoe that we had brought on to my car but fortunately Cole stopped me in time. We threw handfuls of musty rice over them and all drove away giggling.

  Noël also marked the occasion with one of his verse letters to Ian and Ann:

  DON'TS FOR MY DARLINGS

  The quivering days of waiting

  Of wondering and suspense

  Without regret can at least be set

  In the Past Imperfect tense.

  The agonies and frustrations,

  The blowing now cold, now hot,

  Are put to rest, and there's no more doubt

  As to whether you will or not.

  We all of us knew so well

  ho and behold, can at last be told

  To the sound of a marriage bell.

  All the stories that could be written,

  The legends the world could spin

  Of those turbulent years you've lived, my dears,

  In excessively open sin,

  Permit me as one who adores you,

  An eminent eminence grise,

  To help you in finding some method of minding

  Your marital Qs andPs

  Don't, Ian, if Annie should cook you

  A dish that you haven't enjoyed,

  Use that as excuse for a storm of abuse

  Of Anna or hucien Freud,

  Don't, Annie, when playing canasta

  Produce a lipstick from your “sac”

  And drop your ace with a roguish grimace />
  While giving dear Delia the pack.

  Don't, Ian, when guests are arriving

  By aeroplane, motor or train

  Retire to bed with a cold in the head

  And that ever redundant migraine.

  Don't be too exultant, dear Annie,

  Restrain all ebullient bons mots,

  The one thing that vexes the old boy's old Ex's

  Is knowing the status is quo

  Don't either of you, I implore you,

  Forget that one truth must be faced—

  Although you may measure repentance at leisure—

  You HAVEN'T been married in haste.

  Sadly the leisurely repentance remark proved prophetic and Noël watched the marriage slowly unravel until Ian's early death in 1964. He even used it as an element in his 1956 play, Volcano—once again set in Samolo—which, curiously, he never refers to in his Diaries. (It has never been produced either in the West End or on Broadway.)

  •