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Born at Teddington, Middlesex, he began performing in the West End at an early age.
Coward’s first professional engagement, and that which launched his long career, was on 27 January 1911 in a children’s play, The Goldfish. After this appearance, he was sought after for children’s roles by other professional theatres. He was featured in several productions with Sir Charles Hawtrey, a victorian actor and comedian, whom Coward idolized and to whom he virtually apprenticed himself until he was twenty. It was from Hawtrey that Coward learned comic acting techniques and playwriting
He starred in one of his first full-length plays, the inheritance comedy "I'll Leave It To You", in 1920 at the age of twenty. After enjoying some moderate success with the Shaw-esque The Young Idea in 1923, the controversy surrounding his play The Vortex (1924) - which contains many veiled references to both drug abuse and homosexuality - made him an overnight sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. Coward followed this success with three more major hits, Hay Fever, Fallen Angels (both 1925) and Easy Virtue (1926).
Much of Coward's best work came in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Enormous (and enormously popular) productions such as the full-length operetta Bitter Sweet (1929) and Cavalcade (1931), a huge extravaganza requiring a very large cast, gargantuan sets and an exceedingly complex hydraulic stage, were interspersed with finely-wrought comedies such as Private Lives (1930), in which Coward himself starred alongside his most famous stage partner Gertrude Lawrence, and the black comedy Design for Living (1932), written for Alfred LuntAlfred Lunt ( August 12, 1892 August 3, 1977) was an American actor. Along with his wife Lynn Fontanne, he was half of the pre-eminent Broadway acting couple in American history. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he received two Tony Awards, an Academy Award and Lynn FontanneLynn Fontanne ( December 6, 1887 July 30, 1983) was a famous stage and film star. Born Lillie Louise Fontanne in Woodford, Essex, England, she became famous as an acting pair with her husband, Alfred Lunt. The two were more famous for their stage performa. Coward again partnered Lawrence in For alternate uses, see Number 30. Events The Sermon on the Mount. April 7 Crucifiction of Jesus (suggested date, but it is also suggested that he died on April 21, AD 33) Births Deaths April Judas Iscariot, disciple of Jesus, reportedly commited suicide (1936), an ambitious cycle of ten different short plays which were randomly "shuffled" to make up a unique playbill of three plays each night. One of these short plays, Still Life, was later expanded into the 1945 David LeanDavid Lean ( March 25, 1908 April 16, 1991) was a British film director, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of Arabia''. He was born in Croydon, Surrey, and started at the bottom, as a clapperboard assistant. By 1930 he was working as a film Brief EncounterBrief Encounter ( 1945) is a British film directed by David Lean starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. The screenplay was written by Noel Coward based on his play "Still Life" ( 1936), one of a group of ten short plays entitled Tonight at 8:30, design. He was also a prolific writer of popular songs, and a lucrative recording contract with HMV allowed him to release a number of recordings which have been extensively reissued on CD.
The outbreak of war in 1939 saw Coward working harder than ever. Alongside his highly-publicised tours entertaining Allied troops during World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough, Coward was also engaged by the British Secret Service to conduct intelligence work. He was often frustrated by criticism he faced for his ostensibly glamorous lifestyle, unable to counter this criticism due to the clandestine nature of his work. He also wrote and released some extraordinarily popular songs during the war, the most famous of which are London Pride and Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans, as well as writing and starring in the naval drama film In Which We ServeIn Which We Serve is a 1942 war film which tells the story of the British destroyer HMS Torrin as told in flashbacks by the survivors as they cling to a life raft. The story is loosely based on the exploits of Lord Louis Mountbatten, who commanded the des, for which Coward won an honorary OscarBob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. The Academy Awards (often better known as Oscars) are the most prominent film award in the United States. The Awards are granted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a p.
The 1940s also saw Coward write some of his best plays. The social commentary of This Happy Breed and the intricate semi-autobiographical drama of Present Laughter (both 1939) were later combined with the hugely successful ghost comedy Blithe Spirit (1941) to form a West End triple-bill in which Coward starred in all three simultaneous productions. Blithe Spirit went on to break box-office records for a West End comedy not beaten until the 1970s, and was made into a film directed by David Lean.
Coward's popularity declined in the 1950s, but he still managed to maintain a high public profile, continuing to write (and occasionally starring in) moderately successful West End plays, performing an acclaimed solo cabaret act in Las Vegas (recorded for posterity and still available on CD), and starring in films such as Bunny Lake is Missing, Around the World in 60 Days and The Italian Job. After starring in a number of American TV specials in the late 50s, Coward left the U.K. for tax reasons in the 1950s and moved to the Caribbean, first to Bermuda and then to Jamaica, where he remained for the rest of his life. The late 1960s saw a revival in his popularity, with several new productions of his 1920s plays and a number of revues celebrating his music. He was knighted in 1970 and died in 1973. He is buried in Firefly Hill, Jamaica.
As well as over fifty published plays and many albums' worth of original songs, Coward also wrote comic revues, poetry, several excellent volumes of short stories, a novel (Pomp and Circumstance, 1960), and three volumes of autobiography. Books of his song lyrics have also been published.
Parodies of him and his style include: