The Letters of Noel Coward

by Noel Coward

  But there was more to come. After the ball was over, so to speak, and Cinderella fled, there had to be the traditional glass slipper bit. But this glass slipper had not heard of tradition. The one that was produced had the approximate dimensions of a small battleship and Mary soon made the reason clear. “The Prince has to find which foot this slipper belongs on. Now I am going to be EVERY FOOT IN THE WORLD.”

  At which point Constant Viewer appears to have turned off…

  For composer/lyricist Lionel Bart, Noël became a second father. Bart would be pleased to know that in the refurbished and newly dedicated Noël Coward Theatre, in London's St. Martin's Lane, the second bar is now “Lionel's Bar.”

  •

  ANOTHER OLD FRIEND with a subversive turn of mind was Ian Fleming (1906—1964):

  [June 17, 1958]

  I have a slight confession to make. While in Bombay, I met a very beautiful girl called Indira who has intellectual pretensions as well as a 38 inch bust. She reviews for the top Bombay weekly, which is read by all the top gurus, and proudly showed me her book collection, which contained one of your opuscula. She was so excited when I confessed to knowing you that I at once autographed the book for her, more or less in your hand-writing and certainly on the correct note of fatuity. I was drunk on coca-cola at the time (Bombay is dry) and it was only afterwards that I realized I was guilty of forgery. If you wish to get together with Stephen Spender, William Plomer and W H. Auden, you might scrape up enough money to bring a case and get some damages, for I regret to say that I also autographed their books together with appropriate messages to the Indian people.

  A late-in-life new friend was British composer/lyricist Lionel Bart (1930—1999). His big success was Oliver! (1960), and later he decided to attempt a musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  I thought I'd be able to work well on my new show Quasimodo, but I am having a hard time at this point. All I can do is think of music, and I'm being besieged with witty suggestions for titles, etc. Somebody wants me to call it Hunch, Your [Elaine] Stritch lady suggests that there should be a first act finale chorus line-up of hunchbacks singing “Consider yourself one of the family.”

  She's a funny lady.

  Joyce Carey to Noël (1963):

  I dreamt that a very tall man in an ill-fitting sandy wig was brandishing a revolver at you, and you, looking smashing in a dinner jacket, stepped forward and said very grandly: “We South Americans don't know the meaning of fear!”

  I know you are brave as a lion, and that you don't talk like that, but I'm worried about South America. It isn't significant? Just a figment of my congealed subconscious? R.S.V.P.

  Noël to Joyce:

  Three days at the Vineyard with Kit [Cornell] and Nancy [Hamilton] and Gert. It was Kit's birthday and there were great present givings and a lot of earnest ladies in trousers came in on the Sunday, seconded [sic] by a few dessicated [sic] middle-aged Queens. One of the ladies read aloud a poem to Kit which started—”Shout loud for Garbo's face, Katherine [Katharine] Cornell's voice, Bach and Coward and clear clean rage!” It went on from strength to strength, until I was under the piano (with Bach). Nan, in her cups and bright magenta, had a sharp tiff with Kit … It was all very enjoyable. Nan's house is really divine but I got that familiar feeling that I get sometimes at Snedens [Kit's house]. Too many breasts!

  To Cole Lesley:

  Croyden [the most malignant of Noël's many Jamaican cats] caught a lizard before I could stop her … and crunched it all up wriggling, tail and all, and sat down at my feet looking very pleased with herself and belched! It's Nature, really, whichever way you look at it, and it's the law of the jungle, too. I only wish the lizard had been Kenneth Tynan. I have been a little offish with her ever since but she hasn't noticed it.

  Despite their later rapprochement, Tynan (1927—1980) remained something of an irritant to Noël. To Alfred Lunt in 1967 he wrote: “I miss you with particular anguish during our Scrabble games. Did you really play against Ken Tynan? Does he know any words with as few as seven letters.”

  To Gladys: “I am reading a lovely book called The Gilded Cage, all about famous international actresses, which confirms what I have long suspected and occasionally mentioned, that all famous international actresses are silly cunts. It is comforting to be supported in one's genuine beliefs.”

  To Ginette Spanier:

  I have no other news beyond the fact that I caught a cold owing to taking a pressurized aeroplane cabin on an empty stomach. That has now gone, owing to Bismuth and Christian Science and the belief, deeply ingrained, that Life is beautiful and noble and that my heart is God's Little Acre.

  To Gladys (1965):

  When I was having a drink in the Excelsior Bar [Venice] a terrible American lady came up and hissed—”Are you Sir Cedric?” I replied—”Yes, and I'm dead!” and she went away. I do think life is hard.

  You will be pleased to hear, though, that while I was waiting for my plane a very refined voice came over the loud speaker saying— “Would Mr. and Mrs. Berry Berry kindly report to the Information Bureau?” Life has its compensations. I longed to see Mr. and Mrs. B.B. but failed to identify them.

  To Lorn, when he was staying at Chicago's Passevant Hospital in 1966 for one of his regular checkups:

  I had a mad nurse who stood at the end of the bed and just stared at me with a zany look in her eye. Then she rushed at me suddenly and wrenched the intravenous feeding contraption out of my vein, hurting me considerably in the process, and so I rang for the other nurse who was an angel and she ordered the maddie out of the room and she was never seen again. I think she'd just come in off the street. Strange people come in and out without so much as a by your leave or kiss me arse or anything. A tall lady in blue satin and covered in brooches bounced in abruptly one afternoon when I was having my snooze and said, in a dreadful nasal whine, that she was counting the water pitchers. I didn't quite catch what she said and thought she was referring to those under-sea movies. Another day a hideous dwarf with a tiny cap on top of a lot of capok put her head round the door and shrieked—”How ya feeling?” I replied—”Very ill, thank you” and she said “Good!” and slammed the door.

  On an earlier visit, he had had an operation to remove a gallstone and reported to film producer Sidney Box: “I presented the stone to Gladys Cooper to be worn as a brooch. She was beside herself, practically orgasmic.”

  •

  LILLI PALMER (1914-1986) writes to Noël (“from the German-Yiddisher Cow Department”) while her then husband, Rex Harrison, is playing the wicked Saladin in a film of Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman: “Van Johnson asked the other day what Rex was doing. ‘He's jousting,’ I said. Van gave a deep sigh and said in a hollow voice—'Who isn't? Which gives you Hollywood in a nutshell at the present moment.”

  CHAPTER 29

  GIRLS … AND SPIRITS

  (1962-1964)

  Dear Mr. C,

  I wish you glee

  With undmembled fervour,

  As Harry Kurnitz is to me,

  You are to The Observer.

  LOVE FROM KEN TYNAN (1962)

  Tammy Grimes, Bea Lillie, and Edward Woodward.

  I only like great and glittering success and then only for a short time.

  NOëL COWARD

  IN MID-1962 Noël was approached to be involved with two Broadway musicals. It was not by any means the first time he had chosen to be double-booked, but there was one important difference—in neither case did he have complete artistic control.

  The first was to be a musical version of Terence Rattigan's Coronation Year play, The Sleeping Prince, which had not been a success on Broadway with Michael Redgrave as the Regent. Now producer Herman Levin was seeking to repeat his 1956 triumph of My Fair Lady, and Noël was asked to write the score to a book to be written by Hollywood screenwriter Harry Kurnitz. Kurnitz was delighted at the prospect and wrote to Noël:

  9 Curzon Place, W.I

  Grosvenor 1051

 
Light of the World, Lion of Shepperton, Comradely, Revolutionary GREETINGS.

  I am honored and pleased (in that order) that you have accepted a role in our panto and I swear by the Sacred Stone of Grauman's Chinese [Theatre] that you will in all things find me obedient, reverent, clean, truthful, patriotic and—pity me, I have forgotten my Boy Scout oath.

  I kiss the hem of thy garment.

  Your sherpa

  HARRY

  As the project staggered along, Kurnitz continued to write:

  April 16th 1962

  I think you should know that I have been having a recurring dream in which we—you and I—are accepting The Critics’ Prize For The Best American Musical Based On A British Play and A Warner Brothers’ Movie and since in this dream you are always modest, unassuming and give me all the credit for our huge success, I know it is a real dream and not some phony drunken nightmare. Herman Levin has told me all about your other commitments and I sympathize, of course, but where does that leave me? I'm not a young man any more, Noël, and if I am to write a smash hit musical it had damn well better be SOON. That sums up my position and I close with reverent assurances of my high regard.

  Ever thine,

  BORIS PASTERNAK

  Noël, meanwhile, was occupied with the score. He wrote to Lorn:

  I am working like a slave and adoring it. I have done a number for Sleeping Prince, which you will adore. It's called “London's A Little Bit of All Right” and, incorporated in it are four (invented) music-hall songs. Really lovely ones. “What Ho, Mrs. Brisket,” “Don't Take Our Charlie for the Army,” “Saturday Night at the Rose and Crown” and “What's the Matter With a Nice Beef Stew?” They are for the Trafalgar Square scene when the young king escapes into London by himself. It needs a belter. [In the event, the part went to Tessie O'Shea.] I have virtually finished the score and I really do think that music and lyrics are among the best I've ever done.

  81 Avenue Marceau

  Paris 16

  July 30th

  Light of The World, Lion of Judah, Keeper of the 49 Umbrellas, GREETINGS:

  I send thee this day, Master, one (1) complete rough (ROUGH!) draft of a musical comedy libretto as yet lamentably untitled, unfinished, unsettled and unversed. ‘Tis a crude thing but replete with jokes, many of them brand new; others freshly sandblasted …

  I have come to believe, as I believe in God, Spring, Swiss residence and Czerny etudes, that the only great first act curtain is the exit for the Coronation. I realize that this gives us a second act of the bulk of Tristan & Isolde but, since the whole script is now wildly overwritten, I think it can be worked out. Judicious Cutting, my Hebrew editor, will help us here.

  I have done some casual re-writing and, as we used to say in Culver City, polishing throughout so, if you can bear it, please hack your way through the complete text once more.

  Levin was, indeed, intent on cloning his previous hit, clearly believing that the formula of an older, arrogant man humbled by a simpler young woman was surefire.

  Rex Harrison didn't see it that way, however, and the search for a leading man went on.

  Christopher Plummer? From a film set in Spain (where he was filming “The Rise and Tall of the Roman Empire or Samuel Bronston—I am not quite sure which”) Plummer replied:

  I can't possibly know how to begin to explain how awkward and frustrating my feelings have been towards the decision I made regarding your Sleeping Prince … I have always so very much wanted to work with you in the theatre (I think it's probably the dream of most actors) and I very much hope to do so some day in the future, but partly because of a half spoken promise to Jules Styne to do Ghost Goes West, and partly because of an actor's natural greed to jump at the chance to play two parts in the same piece instead of one, I decided against yours. I guess it was an intuitive feeling that if I missed in the diva department, I could have redeemed myself more with the added strength the two characters offered.

  You know it's funny but when one admires an artist very much, as I do you, one feels very close, and usually when the parties get together at long last, the meeting is a disappointment, partly because in our silly world and our silly youth we must make ourselves feel slightly ashamed to show our real feelings of respect— particularly when the two in question are members of the same profession.

  Not that this has been our case at all. In fact, on the contrary. You are perhaps the easiest and most comfortable person to meet but I would like you to know that the back slapping sort of intimacy I like to cover my shyness with, and the “I can play Noël Coward songs just as good as yooz can” kind of presumption with which I have come on so strong, has never been in any way an attempt to conceal the very strong gratitude and admiration I will always feel for you.

  I wish you'd send my love to Harry Kurnitz and thank him for that night at the Savoy and yourself, too, for the dinner and the delicious score you played us. It will be wonderful. Someday think of me again for something.

  Always,

  CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER

  The Ghost Goes West went west and never opened. The part of the Regent went by default to José Ferrer. Mary (the Girl) would be Florence Henderson.

  Not all of Noël's friends were thrilled at the prospect. Benita Hume wrote, “José Ferrer? Oh my dear! I'd just as soon sit under a hair dryer as listen to him sing. George [Sanders] said to associate him with sex is disgusting, or with romance is absurd or with royalty a communistic plot.”

  Rehearsals for The Girl continued—and so did the problems. To Gladys (December 13): “Joe Layton [the director] in hospital. Me taking over. Having to write a new number on account of the lyric of ‘Long Live the King, If He Can’ not being VERY tactful. [Kennedy had been shot on November 22.] However, I managed it and all is well.”

  •

  LIKE SO MANY PEOPLE, Noël remained skeptical of the supposed verdict on the Kennedy assassination as published by the Warren Commission. In 1967 he is writing to Alfred Lunt:

  Nobody here took the official version seriously. Odd that the culture of pistol-packing-cowboy should also view the maverick unofficial explanation with such stuffy dubiety. I knew Jack and the whole attractive, and devoutly self-serving lot of them. I admired Jack's vigour and his capacity to throw off the cares of office in pursuit of pleasure.

  To me, it is odd that your country is so dubious regarding the possibility of a clique of influential parties having the power, the motive, and the opportunity to assassinate poor Jack. That is far more credible than what is written and believed about the misfit Oswald and the gangster-vulgarian, Ruby.

  Having returned to Jamaica, he wrote to Joyce:

  Blue Harbour

  Port Maria

  Jamaica B.W.I.

  December 14th [1963]

  Well, Darling,

  It was certainly a fabulous opening night. The audience, apart from being star-spangled, was glorious from the word “Allez”. The Company responded and gave a fine performance (If they hadn't, they would have been shot by me). Tessie O'Shea stole the show and had a standing ovation of several minutes. They cheered and cheered not only at the end of the number but all through it! I really never heard anything like it. Crashing bore she may be but old pro she certainly is.

  José Ferrer scuttled about on his tiny little legs and was better than he'd ever been (which was not quite enough) and stopped the show with “Middle-Age”. Florence was perfect—absolutely faultless. A little less knowingness and a little more inner humility and she would have made it completely. As it was she just fell short. She has been behaving rather peculiarly anyway. She suddenly refused to play the Saturday preview matinee, because she had a throat virus (which she didn't). She let us know an hour and a half before curtain time. This might have thrown the whole show and demoralized the company the day before opening. Happily, however, the understudy, Dran Seitz went on and tore the place up. Not only because she was wonderful but because she was very very good indeed and didn't fluff one line! Florence was back like
a fucking greyhound for the evening performance but too late to recapture the respect she had lost from the Company. Poor Joe [Layton], still in hospital, was livid with her, so were we all. I don't think she'll stay off again! She was a silly girl to make such a major theatrical error. The notices were all raves except the Times and Walter Kerr, who at least was wonderful for Tessie, Florence and me He just hated the book. I think it's a smash hit anyhow.

  But a month later he is facing facts:

  January 19th 1963

  The show is going all right but it is not between ourselves the smash hit we hoped for. He [Ferrer] is largely to blame, I think, for being so splendidly unattractive and Florence [Henderson], between Boston and New York, lost the “innocent” quality.

  John Gielgud was a little more generous in his verdict when he saw the show and wrote to Noël: “He [Ferrer] put over his numbers surprisingly well with, obviously, a good many hints from a master hand! How I wish you had played the part yourself. The girl is charming, but no G[ertrude] Lawrence! As John P[erry] is so fond of saying, ‘We have seen some Majesty and should know.’ “

  The Girl managed to eke out 112 performances at the Broadway Theatre.

  •

  THERE WERE MORE dramas, alarms, and excursions on the British political scene—most notably the Profumo Affair, in which Tory Cabinet minister John Profumo, married to actress Valerie Hobson, committed the politically unpardonable sin of lying to the House of Commons about his fling with two young ladies of decidedly questionable virtue, Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies. Somewhere in the mix was a Russian spy and a society pimp, Stephen Ward, who conveniently committed suicide in his prison cell. It was a real-life plot for a B movie—and was eventually turned into one.