The Letters of Noel Coward Read online

  A week later the Cowards returned to London from Southsea, and mother and son were reunited.

  •

  THE SUCCESS BEGAN in September 1910, when Violet saw an advertisement by a Miss Lila Field, who was anxious to set up a London theater for children. That particular dream eventually proved to be too grandiose, but while she was pursuing it, Miss Field decided to put on a fantasy play called The Goldfish, Violet wasted no time in writing to Miss Field, and soon received a reply:

  September 11th 1910

  Many thanks for your letter, I shall be pleased to see your little son on Tuesday next at 10:45 at my studio, 24 King Street, Baker Street, W. Yrs. v. truly, Lila Field.

  The Goldfish, “a Fairy Play in three Acts with a Star Cast of Wonder Children,” was put on at the Little Theatre on January 27, 1911, and the reviewer for the Mirror noted that “Great success is scored by Master Noël Coward as Prince Mussel.”

  Lila Field also kept in touch with her “discovery” over the years and nearly half a century later wrote to him that for her he would always be “the Goldfish to me,” clearly choosing to forget that his Prince Mussel had been a strictly supporting role.

  •

  THAT SAME AUTUMN he was hired by Sir Charles Hawtrey (1886—1923), the well-known actor/manager, for the part of a pageboy in The Great Name, From Hawtrey, he would always claim, Noël learned all the basics of light comedy acting by simply watching how the actor achieved his apparently casual effects. Hawtrey taught him how to laugh onstage— an art infinitely more difficult than it appears—and how to use his hands. Both of these techniques figured largely in the mature Coward repertoire.

  By the time The Great Name turned out to be not so great, Noël was cast as the Pageboy in Hawtrey's production of Where the Rainbow Ends, a Christmas show that for many years rivaled the classic Peter Pan,

  Most of the children for the production were provided by the legendary Miss Italia Conti (1874—1946), who, with her equally formidable sister, Mrs. Murray, “a dragon in Astrakhan,” ran a school that provided children for most West End productions. In this first season Noël's part was confined to the play's first act so Miss Conti shortly suggested that he might double as a hyena in act 2—a suggestion that did not find favor with either Noël or Violet. What was the point of leaping around in a hot fur suit when nobody knew or could see who was doing the leaping?

  Noël retained a vivid recollection of Miss Conti's habit of dosing him regularly with Epsom salts (a well-known laxative), doubtless in the belief that the secret of all evil lay in the bowels. This merely succeeded in making rehearsals extremely convulsive for him.

  Noël's memories of the lady died hard, and even ten years later he was enclosing to his mother a verse he had written about the experience:

  ODE TO ITALIA CONTI

  Oh, Italia, with thy face so pale

  Why must you float about the Stalls

  Where Mr. Haw trey sits?

  Dost think that passing thus thou wilt prevail

  Upon him to cut out the finest bits

  Which we poor principals in our parts must speak?

  We often hear the hapless ballet tremble

  When they're corrected by your raucous squeak.

  To principals you like not you will serve

  Out contracts in which cheek and guile are blended

  And then you have the most appalling nerve

  To say they must be yours till world is ended.

  In vain you've tried to lure us to your classes—

  We are not such unmitigated asses.

  Noël was not simply a boy actor; he was a homesick boy actor. In these early years this was a recurrent theme in his letters home to Violet:

  Darling Mummy,

  Thank you for your nice long letter and Chums [a popular children's comic paper]. I am sorry I did not write before but I have got such a lot to do. You know I always want you just a very little bit at night when I go to bed and I generally cry a bit but it is nothing to speak of! You are SUCH a DARLING. Please excuse me, won't you, duckie, as it is a quarter to ten (night).

  Love to everyone from your ever loving son

  NOËL

  In 1917, looking back on his own experiences as a child actor, Noël wrote a series of verses on “Concert Types.” One of them was:

  THE CHILD PRODIGY

  An infant prodigy of nine

  Is shoved upon the stage in white.

  She starts off in a dismal whine

  About a Dark and Stormy night,

  A burglar whose heart is true,

  Despite his wicked looking face!

  And what a little child can do

  To save her Mama's jewel case!

  This may bring tears to every eye.

  It does not set my heart on fire

  I'd like to stand serenely by

  And watch that Horrid child expire!

  In March 1913 Noël went away for the first time without Violet. For three weeks he was in Liverpool and Manchester to appear in Basil Dean's production of Hauptmann's Hannele,

  In that production he met someone who was to be the second most influential woman in his life—Gertrude Dagmar Clausen Lawrence (aka Gertie Lawrence)—an overly mature fifteen-year-old. From the outset they found they shared the same irreverent sense of humor. Both were cast as angels, and on one auspicious occasion the curtain rose on this highly dramatic piece to find two angelic members of the cast, gorged on peppermints, being spectacularly sick over the scenery.

  The twenty-five-year-old director, Basil Dean, was even then a martinet-in-the-making. In the 1920s he was to direct five of Noël's plays, but the balance of their relationship was established right here, in 1913. Displeased by something Dean had said, the thirteen-year-old Coward warned him, “Mr. Dean, if you ever speak to me like that again, I shall go straight home to my mother.”

  That summer Noël spent with his aunt Vida, his mother's sister, at Lee-on-Solent and his letters were in playful mood. On the page he drew four long lines, then wrote:

  Dear and most august Parent,

  This is a letter, although you may not think so. These lines are to show how much I adore you. I am still as beautiful as rotten Mangold-Wurzel. I met the Douglas woman today and told her what fun I had when I was at my Zenith! (I hope that isent a rude word!!!) Farewell Beloved.

  Your Sweet Son Noël.

  In the autumn he must have felt that he was, indeed, at his “zenith.” He auditioned at the Duke of York's Theatre for the annual production of Peter Pan and a few days later received a letter with the heading “CHARLES FROHMAN, LONDON AND NEW YORK”:

  Dear Master Coward,

  On behalf of Mr. Frohman, I engage you to play the part of ‘Slightly’ in Peter Pan on or about December 23rd, at a salary of £4 a week. Kindly write and confirm this and oblige.

  Yours truly,

  W. Lestocq

  General Manager

  It was the farewell season of the legendary Peter—Pauline Chase—who had played the part for eight successive years. Naturally, most of the audience acclaim was for her, but Noël received good reviews himself and was thrilled when, on the last night, he left the theater to cries from the crowds waiting for Miss Chase of “good old Slightly!” As critic Kenneth Tynan was to comment years later, “Forty years ago he was Slightly in Peter Pan, and you might say that he has been wholly in Peter Pan ever since.”

  The following year there was rather less to be cheerful about. Once the Peter Pan tour ended, Noël was diagnosed as having a tubercular gland in his chest and packed off to Dr. Etlinger's sanatorium at Wokingham, from which he wrote to his mother with a cheerfulness that may have been a little forced. Young actors, after all, cannot turn themselves into stars without a stage.

  Noël—Boy Actor as Boy Artist.

  Cranham, nr. Stroud, Gloucester

  Darling Mummy,

  It is simply perfect down here it's a dear little cottage on the side of a very steep hill, woods at the back and wo
ods at the side and a lovely valley in front with a lake, a cow, a horse, two puppies and a good many snakes! Today I have seen an Adder, a Grass Snake, and a blind-worm they abound, Mrs. E is so nice so is the Doctor. There is a lovely pony I ride I am going shopping on him this afternoon. There is a forest opposite us. Out of my bedroom window I can see and hear a Waterfall, The Regent's Canal begins in this garden I had a grass Snake round my neck today!!! (me don't think!). Do send my bathing dress. I dident feel a bit homesick last night. Love to everything, everybody, anyhow, anywhere.

  Your ever loving son Noël

  PS. I was up to my calfs in mud at 7 oc this morning

  •

  SOON AFTER HIS return from the sanatorium, Noël met Philip Streatfeild, an aspiring artist. One can only speculate on the relationship between a thirty-year-old man and a fourteen-year-old precocious boy, but clearly Violet did not disapprove. When Philip and his friend Sidney Lomer took a motor tour that summer, she allowed Noël to go with them.

  Brother Eric Vidal Coward (1905-1933) with Noël.

  Cornwall sur le Corn

  Dear Darling old Mummy-snooks,

  I am enjoying myself so much it really is perfectly Heavenly here. Donald Bain [another London friend of Philip's] has got the most ripping pair of field-glasses that ever happened in this wide universe and the next! If you see a little smoke on the Horizon and you look at it through the glasses it immediately turns into a huge liner! We are right opposite the “Eddistone Lighthouse” and it looks so tall and white standing straight up in the sun. We haven't had such very lovely weather its generally been a leetle beet to cold a wind to be really nice but we bathe from a sandy cove about a mile along the cliffs and then lie in the sun and dry. I am now the coulour of a boiled lobster with which these shores abound (not to say sharks! O-o-er-r Auntie!) This house is so perfectly ripping so beautifully furnished and its about 300 feet above the sea and I climb right down every morning to catch fish for my aquarium which is a clear pool in the rocks. Philip has bought me a net with which to catch le denizens de la deep (Bow-wow!) We have a boat in which we have been as far as the mouth (or gaping jaws) of the Harbour and then we came back because Philip said it was too rough. Philip and I are going to send you a tin of Cornish cream once a week. I received le sweater et le let-tre all right and it fits me, Tres chic!!! (More Bow-wows!) I haven't been very homesick but I have been a little (bless you). I shall have to stoppp now as I am going to wallow in Bacon and eggs so goodbye and love to Daddy and Eric and Florrie and Tinker and any old thing you like to munch!

  Hope you are quite well as leaves me at pres.

  Your everevereverever loving

  NOËL RS. I will write every Saturday.

  “Little Flapper” comes of age. Noël at the theatrical garden party. (At extreme right is Nigel Bruce.)

  And write every week he did—not just on this holiday but for the rest of her life when he was away from her, with abject apologies when he missed a date. In this letter, for the first time, the tone is jocular, the handwriting bolder; there is the playful use of French (however inaccurate!) and already one sees the consistent use of the diaeresis in “Noël.” A young man beginning to feel self-confident in an adult world.

  The mention of Eric is a rare one. The brothers were never close and the only letter of the period is a rather stilted one from Eric.

  Dear Noël.

  Tink swallowed a bone today and she was sick three times and brought it up the first time. She was a good dog yesterday she went to her box three times running. Did you like the Forth Bridge? Good bye for now.

  From Eric.

  At the end of the jaunt Philip dropped Noël off at his aunt Laura's house in Charlestown. There was the familiar lake and the garden. There were his cousins Walter and Connie Bulteel, always ready to create a little harmless chaos.

  On this occasion the devilry they devised was for Noël to dress up as a girl for one dinner party to see how long he could carry off the deception. It was almost too successful, for one young man—perhaps overstimulated by fruit cup—fell madly under the spell of this bewitching young woman and declared his passion in the garden. Noël briskly steered him indoors to the safety of the crowd but managed to keep up the act until the party was over.

  Next morning the young man returned to press his suit, only to be told by the Bulteels that the charming young lady had already left. However, should he care to leave a note for her…He did care.

  White Hart Hotel, St. Austell

  May 13th 1914

  My Dear Little Flapper,

  You can imagine my feelings when I arrived at the Bulteels this morning, to find you had flown. I was fearfully sick and wished your friends a long way off, as I was looking forward to spending an exceedingly pleasant morning with you on the lake and was beastly disappointed. I do call it real hard lines and I am still feeling beastly depressed. I meant to have traveled up with you as far as Plymouth and now all my nice little plans have been upset. I have got a little remembrance of you which I am loath to part with—your cigarette holder. Am I to send it to you? If so, let me know and I will grudgingly do so. When are you coming down to Cornwall again? Can't you get your Aunt to ask you to Charlestown again before August or must I wait till then before I see you again? I hope to get to town sometime in July and if so, I shall come and call on you and I shall be very bucked if I can manage that.

  Now, be a dear and write and tell me how you are getting on; will you let me write to you occasionally and, if so, will you promise to answer my letters? Should I be presuming too much if I asked for your photo? I hope that I shall hear from you soon and that you are not going to ignore and forget me altogether.

  Wishing you the best of luck and with best love

  Yours ever

  But, strangely, “Dear Little Flapper” was never seen or heard from again. She might as well have drifted off into the mist of morning, like a character in a J. M. Barrie fantasy.

  THE FRIENDSHIP WITH Philip Streatfeild continued, but the golden days of summer were now clouded with the prospect of war. On August 4 it was declared.

  Philip enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Sherwood Foresters on November 10. Just before Noël rejoined the Peter Pan company for the 1914/15 season, he wrote to Violet from Philip's London address.

  53 Glebe Place, Chelsea

  Friday

  Ducky old Diddleums,

  Philip is now a soldier! (cheers) and I am going to stay tonight with him as I shant see much of him when he is drilling all day. I took him to The Little Minister last night [a revival of J. M. Barrie's play that was at the Duke of York's Theatre in the evenings, while Peter Pan occupied it for matinees] and Mr. Matthews promised to let me have two more seats when I wanted them. I couldn't say anything about Peter Pan because he was surrounded by people but I will when I go with you. Peter Pan is still up in the box office so I expect it is going to be produced.

  The play is ripping the most beautiful scenery you ever saw and Marie Lohr is sweet but its all in very broad Scotch so unless we get stalls you won't hear a word. I am going to see Captain Charlton this morning and Captain Somers is going to take Philip and Captain C and yours truly to a box at a Music Hall tonight. No evening dress required. Good bye for now.

  Ever your own

  Dinkybobs

  By June 1915 Philip was training and Noël visited him:

  The Moorings, Harpenden, Herts.

  Just a line to tell you I shall be back in time for Friday afternoon. I am having the time of my life here. I have just come back from a long day with Somer's division and I've marched 10 miles! And I'm so tired all the officers are so nice to me and all wanted to share their lunch with me. You've got a fascinating youth for your son, my dear. George is teaching me to drive the car so good bye now, darling.

  Ever so much love,

  Dinky

  •

  ALTHOUGH THE E xc i TE ME N T of his older male friends preparing to go to war was more immediate, there w
as another friend who was exercising a more important and lasting influence on Noël's life.

  In that first 1911 production of Where the Rainbow Ends with Sir Charles Hawtrey, the leading lady was “a podgy, brown-haired little girl with a bleating voice.” Her name was Esme Wynne.

  They met in January and Noël records her attending his twelfth birthday party the following December. By that time they were “best friends” and practically inseparable, according to Violet Coward.

  They gave each other affectionate, if not very flattering, nicknames. She was “Stoj” and Noël was “Poj.” They would spend hours discussing the key issues of the universe—sex, religion, life and death—though what conclusions they reached, if any, are not recorded. Esme's religious convictions, though passionately held, were somewhat volatile in nature, and her anxiety to bring Noël to the latest Truth was the one source of friction between them—and one that grew as later years went by.

  To mitigate the arguments, they would eventually draw up a semifor-mal document they called “Rules of Palship”:

  RULES OF PALSHIP BETWEEN ESME WYNNE AND NOËL COWARD

  We must not tease one another and if we begin we must stop directly we are asked.

  We must take it in turns to go and see one another and if one goes twice running to the other's house, the other must do the same afterwards.

  We must never split on one another even if the PALSHIP is dissolved and we must hold all confidences sacred.

  We must share all profits in any transaction made together, however slight the help of the other may be. Profits are excluded from any expenses incurred during the said transaction.

  In case of serious quarrel a week or a fortnight may be taken to think things over before abolishing the PALSHIP.