The Noel Coward Diaries

Saturday 28 March (1953)

We are all dreadfully sad about poor Vivien. She is in a mental home and has been asleep for a week. She had apparently really gone over the edge, poor darling. Larry, wisely, has gone away to Italy. This is just as well for she has turned against him. It is a tragic story and my heart aches for both of them.

Several things have happened this week. Poor Queen Mary was buried. Russia has decided to make peace overtures to the Western powers, and the international atmosphere, although sceptical, is perceptibly brighter.

Wednesday 22 April Brighton

The week moved quickly. Rehearsals, of course, all of every day. On Wednesday morning I went to see Vivien in the hospital and was deeply relieved to find her calm and normal and really very sweet. She solemnly promised to be good in future and not carry on like a mad adolescent of the twenties. In the evening Larry came and told me graphically the saga of his married life during the last few years; a curiously depressing saga it was too. Apparently things have been bad and getting worse since 1948 or thereabouts. It is really discouraging to reflect how needlessly unhappy people make themselves and each other. They are now going to start afresh down at Notley, which may work or may not. I shall be surprised if it does. Attractive and enchanting women can certainly wreak havoc when they put their silly minds to it. I am sorry for him and for her. They both have so much and are so lacking in common sense

Monday 8 May

Last Wednesday I went to the Comedie Francaise party on the stage of the St James's' to see Larry get the Legion of Honour and be kissed by Monsieur Massigli. Larry made an excellent speech in French and managed, most touchingly, to look like a pompous manager and a wayward small boy at the same time.

Thursday 16 July

Larry and Vivien came to The Apple Cart last week and supped here afterwards. Vivien looked papery and rather frail but there was no sign of there ever having been a mental breakdown. She was calm and sweet and gay and with no tension. I do hope that she will remain so

Sunday 12 June

.... I have just had a batch of notices from London of Larry and Vivien's Macbeth at Stratford, and their ignorance and meanness and cruel, common personal abusiveness have made me sick. I know they can't be right, but even if Larry and Viv were not perfect (which I doubt), the tone of the notices is beneath contempt. Much the same as I usually get from the mean, envious little sods.

Sunday 7 August London

Last night at Stratford-on-Avon I saw Larry Olivier play Macbeth....After this glorious treat I went back to the house with them and observed, to my true horror, that Vivien is on the verge of another breakdown. She talked at supper wildly. She is obsessed, poor darling, by the persecutions of the Press'; her voice became high and shrill and her eyes strange. This morning when she had gone to a fitting, Larry came and talked to me. He is distraught and deeply unhappy. Apparently this relapse has been on the way for some time. She has begun to lose sleep again and make scenes and invite more and more people to Notley until there is no longer any possibility of peace.

Their life together is really hideous and here they are trapped by public acclaim, scrabbling about in the cold ashes of a physical passion that burnt itself out years ago. I am desperately sorry because I love them both and I am truly fearful of what may happen. The cruelty of fifth-rate journalists has contributed a lot to the situation but the core of the trouble lies deeper, where, in fact, it always lies, in sex. She, exacerbated by incipient tb, needs more and more sexual satisfaction. They are eminent, successful, envied and adored, and most wretchedly unhappy.

"Lilli Palmer arrived with her new lover, Carlos Thompson, and they drove me back to London. Lilli is now over her miseries about Rex and is madly in love with Carlos, who seems charming and so she's all right for the time being. She is a close friend of Viv's and we discussed the situation ad nauseam.

If only the Oliviers could continue to be together as far as the public is concerned, and yet live separately and sleep separately. If only Vivien could hold out until this season finishes in November and then set her career in a different channel from Larry's. However good she is, she will never be accepted in the big tragic roles. She should develop along her own lines and become a witty, light comedienne, which she could do better than anyone I can think of because she has wit and humour and could achieve a position in which she was unassailable. I must try all I can to help her, but I sadly fear that the trouble has gone too deep..."

Friday 26 August

The Olivier situation is worsening by the hour. Graham and I drove down to Stratford with Cecil Tennant on Tuesday. He is deeply perturbed and wanted to discuss the whole business. On arrival we dined and went to the opening night of Titus Andronicus. Peter Brook had done a stupendously good production, really most impressive and extremely clever in avoiding pitfalls. Larry was wonderful although, at moments, a little funny. Vivien was frankly not very good.

She looked lovely throughout regardless of ravishment and her tongue being cut out and her hands cut off. Her clothes and hair-do were impeccable and her face remained untouched by tragedy. It is a very, very silly play with some good moments. Vivien was in a vile temper and perfectly idiotic. Larry was bowed down with grief and despair and altogether it was a gloomy little visit.

Personally I think that if Larry had turned sharply on Vivien years ago and given her a clip in the chops, he would have been spared a mint of trouble. The seat of all this misery is our old friend, feminine ego. She is, and has been, thoroughly spoiled. She also has a sharp tongue and a bad temper. This, coupled with incipient tb and an inner certainty that she can never be as good an artist as Larry, however much she tries, has bubbled up in her and driven her onto the borderline. Fond as I am of her and sorry as I feel for her, I would like to give her a good belting, although now I fear it might push her over the edge and be far, far too late.

Last night I dined with Tarquin' 'on guard' at St James's Palace. It was a perfectly sweet evening. Three very young officers and one slightly older one. Lovely manners and good old shabby, traditional glamour. Tarquin is bright and attractive although too small. He obviously is worried about Vivien and Larry. He's been at Notley a good deal and seen it coming. I do so hope, if only for his sake, that another rip-snorting scandal can be avoided.

I am popping over to Paris this afternoon just for the devil of it. I always miss Paris more than anywhere else when I am away in America and this is my only chance of seeing it again for a long while. Ginette will meet me and I shall eat delicious food and probably get thoroughly livery, but to hell with it.

There has been a great fuss and fume because Mike Todd asked me to ask Larry to play the scene with me in Around the World in Eighty Days. Larry, as usual, havered and said he might, then finally said he wouldn't. Today Mike called me to say that Johnny Gielgud was going to do it.

Wednesday 5 October

A long letter arrived from Binkie who had seen Larry and Vivien and who is palpably worried about Vivien's health. It would be so wonderful for her and for all of us if she could do South Sea Bubble and make a success in it, but she is apparently in a bad state mentally and I personally doubt if she will be able to last out the Stratford season without cracking up again. This is cruel bad luck for she is madly enthusiastic about the play. Perhaps 'madly' is too much the operative word! At all events I have written to Binkie telling him to press on on the assumption that everything will be all right. It is all very worrying

Sunday 12 February

Larry and Vivien have decided to present a united front to a deeply concerned world, and so Peter Finch is not going to be her leading man in my play or out of it. Larry is going to make a movie of The Sleeping Prince with Marilyn Monroe, which might conceivably drive him round the bend but, after his ill-paid season at Stratford, during which he gave the greatest performances of his career and was miserable throughout owing to poor darling Vivien's carry-ons, a good, solid, commercial enterprise will be very comforting and to hell with eminence

Sunday 26 February

I had an enchanting cable from Vivien last night. Rehearsals are apparently going well and she is straining every nerve to try to arrange the Dublin week. So there is still perhaps a little hope, because she is a determined girl and usually manages to get her own way. It is miraculous that she is now, it appears, completely herself again and the second crack-up, which I thought was inevitable, has been averted. I am deeply fond of her and of Larryboy, and it really does look as though they have arrived at a sensible working arrangement. I have a feeling that South Sea Bubble had a good deal to do with it, and if this is true then I am gladder than ever

Wednesday 11 July

On Friday I received a long and affectionate letter from Vivien explaining that she is going to have a baby and will be leaving South Sea Bubble on 1 August. This was a considerable shock, particularly as they, she and Larry, have waited so long to let me know. This I consider fairly unforgivable of them, but I rose above my shock commendably and cabled and wrote loving congratulations. Not entirely insincere because, if she does manage to produce a tot and it's an all right tot, it will possibly steady her down and make that uneasy menage more tranquil. I do really hope this will happen, but I do wish so very much that they had had the moral courage to take me into their confidence before.

Larry could quite easily have flown over to see me in Paris but he just didn't. Binkie and I have been exchanging agitated cables ever since. Nobody we want is available. There is a dim chance that Katie Hammond might go in for a limited period, but it is a very dim chance. The only other possibility apparently is Elizabeth Sellars^, whom I know to be an excellent young actress, but whether or not she is an experienced enough comedienne to carry that arduous part remains to be seen.

Judging by all accounts, darling Viv was far from ideal. Charming, distinguished and lovely to look at, but technically insecure. My guess is that the business will inevitably drop when she leaves but will come back again providing the part is well played....

I also think, from Vivien's point of view, that it is a highly perilous enterprise. If anything goes wrong, it will very possibly send her around the bend again; she is over forty, very, very small, and none too well balanced mentally. I am filled with forebodings and a curious sense of having been let down. Not because of her having the baby, but because they could so easily have let us know before and given us more time to find a suitable replacement. I have had a guarded, business-like letter from Binkie, saying nothing about his personal feelings, but I think I can guess them. Larry irritates him to madness anyway and has been extremely tiresome over the whole production

Tuesday 14 August

What I, most irritably, expected has now happened. Vivien left the cast of S.S.B on Saturday night, had a gay farewell party with the company, drove down to Notley and had a miscarriage on Sunday. She was five months gone and it was a boy. The Press shrieked with headlines on Monday, viv loses HER baby! etc.; meanwhile the wretched Elizabeth Sellars had to open to a not very large audience in an atmosphere of gloom. Apparently she did all right but of course the business took a nose-dive. Poor Vivien is, of course, miserable and sleepless and everyone is worried about her.

Personally I am naturally very sorry for her, but the hysterical, disorganized silliness of the whole thing infuriates me. In the first place, to try to have a baby at her age is fairly foolish; secondly, it is not very bright, if pregnant, to dance about at the Palladium with Larry and Johnny Mills^ and go out to parties while playing an arduous part eight times a week. The miscarriage was about as inevitable as anything could be. Meanwhile a smash success is destroyed, she is wretched and on her way round the bend again, Larry is wretched, a large number of people, including me, are inconvenienced, and all for nothing.

I am also pretty angry with them for not replying to my, in the circumstances, very magnanimous cable and letter, which I sent immediately I received their letter with 'the great news'. They should have warned me when I was in Paris anyhow, so that I could have concentrated on getting someone more suitable than E. Sellars, and they should certainly have written to me, even if the letter was bubbling with insincerity it would at least have been a gesture.

As far as I am concerned they have most emphatically not behaved like the loving friends they are supposed to be. South Sea Bubble, if only they had had the sense to see it, was a life-saver for Vivien. It gave her a glamorous success on her own, away from Larry's perpetual shadow, and she should have played it for at least six months and not left it until a really first-rate replacement could be found.

Altogether I'm sick to death of them both at the moment. I've been bored and involved with their domestic problems for years and done all I could to help, and as they haven't even troubled to write to me they can bloody well get on with it. I am saddened by this, but not surprised or unduly depressed. Friendship is a rare business and fair exchange is one of its essentials. I have enough true friends anyhow.

Saturday 6 October

On Thursday Vivien arrived with Binkie. She had telephoned me in Paris and also written me a contrite letter. I met her at the airport with full Press dishonours. After the play and after supper she and Binkie and I retired to my sitting-room and a very great many beans were spilt. All was well until Binkie confessed that he had known about the 'baby' when he saw me in Paris but had sworn to Larry not to tell me! This really made me lose my temper and let them both have it. The scene lasted until 3.30 a.m., but it finished amiably enough. I at least had the satisfaction of saying what has been fomenting in my mind for a long time. Vivien was really very sweet and I think and hope the air is now cleared.

Sunday 21 October New York

Marlene and I went to the opening of Around the World in Eighty Days, which is a great big smash hit. It really is a fascinating picture and none of the multitude of star bit-players attempts any hogging. I have also seen Judy Garland at the Palace; she was superb. ....

Mike [Wilding] opened on Monday night. He was fairly all right but mumbled dreadfully and was quivering with inside nerves. He moved well and with assurance but his speech is a serious problem. Nothing can be done until he has played it for a couple of weeks, then I shall come down with my cohorts all gleaming and beat the fuck out of him. Afterwards there was a party at Teddie's. Not a very good party really, owing to a few deadheads. Larry and Viv were there. Larry had been to see me privately in the afternoon and told me ghastly stories about poor Viv^.

The whole thing is a nightmare. It is awfully difficult to judge the true situation. Vivien, who can be so charming and gay, can also be a terrible little bitch. This I remember from way back when she suddenly attacked me with full viciousness over 'Lie in the Dark and Listen'-'. They are undoubtedly a curious couple. I am fond of them and desperately sorry for them.

The following evening I took Molly Buccleuch to the opening of The Prince and the Showgirl^ A great big booming film premiere. The crowds lining the streets ...The picture is too long. Larry is superb and, as usual, none of the idiotic critics has noted the exquisite comedic subtlety of his performance. Marilyn Monroe looks very pretty and is charming at moments but too much emphasis on tits and bottom. It is, to me, a charming picture, but then I have always liked the delicate irony of the story. It has had bad notices

Who knew Noel Coward could be so boring?

Sunday 2 February

Larry arrived in New York last week on the day when I collapsed. I was supposed to dine with him at the Algonquin between the shows, but of course I couldn't. Now he is in Boston opening The Entertainer^ and I have missed him, which saddens me.....

Sunday 11 May New York

Last night I dined at Sardi's and went to The Entertainer. There is no doubt that Larry is a wonderful actor but I detested the play. I thought it formless, inaccurate and silly. Brenda de Banzie was good but, by now, a little too sorry for herself. George Relph was good too but the girl, Joan Plowright, was bad, but then it's a bad part.

Larry did a few minor miracles here and there, but I somehow wished he wouldn't and hadn't. It isn't a worthy enough play or part for him. We had supper afterwards at Sardi's and he came back to the flat and we gossiped. He said he couldn't really take living with Vivien any longer. This surprised me, as I thought they were safe in each other's arms again. However, we shall see. I personally don't think either of them is willing to face the contumely and publicity of a divorce. Also, deep down, I'm convinced that they're mad about each other. It's all too peculiar

Friday 14 November

.....Larry is miserable. He has firmly left Vivien after terrible dramas - how long for nobody knows. He now has to fly back again because his brother has died. He clings to me rather when he's in trouble, which I find touching. I'm very fond of him. I'm very fond of Vivien too. But, oh dear - what a perpetual carry-on!

Sunday 7 December

Larry returned late on Friday night and saw us off yesterday. He has had several more ghastly scenes with Vivien and buried his brother at sea. Apparently, as usual, the Royal Navy did everything impeccably and Larry was deeply moved. I feel desperately sad for him. Not only on account of Vivien and his brother but because everything seems to be downbeat with him at the moment. I think he rather self-indulges this, but I am sure he is genuinely lonely and unhappy.

21 December (1958)

Larry has left her, and I for one don't blame him; she is certainly barmy up to a point, but she has been so spoilt and pampered for so many years that the barminess becomes ugly and dull. Everyone is in a state about her, particularly Binkie and those who really love her. I am very fond of her, but I am beginning to lose interest in the drama. For all her beauty and charm and sweetness, she has let Larry down for years and really tormented him. If he can succeed in breaking away, good luck to him. Women of Viv's temperament, looks and exigence can raise too much hell for themselves and everyone near them.

I'm quite aware that the poor thing is frantic and lonely. I am also aware that she is the biggest draw in the business and has been making a conceited ass of herself for years. Of course I'm sorry for her, but I'm so bored with the initial premise of her whole behaviour that I would really rather she didn't play Lulu in the English production, draw or no draw. I feel in no mood to cope with the carry-on. If she can manage to pull herself out of this ghastly degringolade by taking a six months' cure and really facing up to things, I shall be relieved and delighted. She has a strong character and maybe she will. One thing, however, is quite certain: nobody else can do it for her, so she had better get on with it chop-chop double pronto.

Any comments about his partner Graham Payn or other lovers, OP? Of course, the quote in R16 about Larry "clinging to me when he's in trouble" will cause several raised eyebrows on the DL.

R18 Yes, He mentioned Graham a lot But there're not any detailed or special stories about him...

Thanks. What about John C. Wilson or the Duke of Kent? (Possibly wishful thinking on the latter, haha).

Sunday 8 February

Vivien is in despair about Larry leaving her. I had a long quiet session with her. She was very pathetic and perfectly sane and sweet, and I feel that the shock of Larry packing up and going may have done her a power of good. It is difficult to resist her charm and pathos when she turns them on. I cannot understand why she should be surprised at Larry popping off" after all the ghastly scenes. Personally I think he will eventually go back to her, although he swears he won't. It is depressing to reflect that two such talented and enchanting people should torture each other so

Tuesday 5 May London

Vivien I have seen twice. She is calm, sane, incredibly beautiful and heartbroken. She is counting the days until Larry's return and refuses to envisage the possibility that he really intends to leave her for ever. I hope, really for both their sakes, that she is right. Maggie Leighton and her Larry are in slight doldrums, but I expect it will straighten itself out. Marriage in the 'theatre' is not an enviable state.

.....So far this voyage has been peaceful. I have conversed - in the Turkish bath - with Louis Rawlings, a rich Jewish wholesale dressmaker who wishes to launch 'Noel Coward' cologne, to be followed by 'after-shave', 'bath oil', 'soap', etc. This sounds quite a good idea providing that the product is very good, and I might make a lot of money out of it. If Larry and Gerald du Maurier can advertise cigarettes I can't see why I shouldn't advertise toilet water. It's certainly less degrading than playing in Lolita

...I went to A Taste of Honey., a squalid little piece about squalid and unattractive people. It has been written by an angry young lady of nineteen^ and is a great success. Personally I found it fairly dull.

Saturday 28 November London

Last night when I went to fetch Vivien and heard the audience (excellent house) roaring and applauding, I felt really good and mad. I'm awfully sorry for Vivien because Larry's off to America, doesn't wish her to go with him, and she has now no excuse, from the Press and public point of view, for not going! I have asked her to Les Avants for Christmas. She is desperately unhappy inside although very good and gay outwardly. Larry is still enamoured of his newfound bachelorhood and I think he intends to hold on to it. The fact that all this was tremendously her own fault in no way mitigates the fact that she's jolly miserable and, apparently, mad about the boy! Really, people are very peculiar

Saturday 12 December Paris

Larry came here this evening for a heart-to-heart. He is in a bad state. He's madly in love with Joan Plowright and has had to tell Vivien. He obviously hates hurting her but is equally obviously determined not to go back to her. I am desperately sorry for her although it is mostly her own silly fault.

Sunday 27 December

Vivien, poor darling, had one breakdown, with Coley not with me, and sobbed her heart out. This was when we got home on Christmas night. Whether or not Larry will ever come back to her there is no knowing, but if only she would face up to the fact that he probably won't, and get on with her life until the great old Healer does his job, it would be much better. But her longing for him has become an obsession. It is genuine, sad and almost irritating

....Larry came on Thursday and stayed two nights. He was absolutely sweet and at his most beguiling best. I really am becoming more and more convinced that he won't go back to Vivien. He's happier than I have seen him for years. I hope he won't get a divorce yet and marry Joan Plowright, but I have grave fears that he will. Vivien has gone to America, miserably, to play Duel of Angels. If only she has a great success in it, which she probably will, it will be a step in the right direction. She will have to face up to the truth sooner or later and the sooner the better. She will inevitably suffer less as time goes by, but she's still at the stage when she doesn't wish to believe this.

On Monday I took Marlene to Sweet Bird of Youth. Like all Tennessee's plays it has moments of brilliant writing, but Miss Geraldine Page, who is supposed by the critics to give the greatest performance since Rachel, I thought jerky, mannered and competent. It is a great part and needs a great actress. What it gets is technical efficiency and some good and bad tricks. Paul Newman was very good and the production fine. The play is not really good. None of the characters is really valid and the emphasis on squalor - drugs, syphilis, castration, sex, sex, sex - is too heavy and almost old-fashioned

R20

"Personally I am immensely relieved and happy. Roger was nice to me over Nude with Violin^ etc., and I wanted him to do the musical for sentimental reasons. Sentimental reasons, however, are not the thing in business, as I have learned to my bitter cost over the years. Cochran, Chariot^, John C. Wilson. I have been taken advantage of by all of them and downright cheated by some of them. I am now sixty-one and at long last the penny has dropped. I intend that my declining years shall be at least thoroughly secure."

Thursday 2 June

The Larry and Vivien situation has now bust wide open and they are going to divorce and he is going to marry Joan Plowright. Poor Vivien is, I am afraid, on her way round the bend again. I am deeply sorry for her. Duel of Angels., in spite of her enormous personal success, failed to run even for its specified three months. She is apparently staying on in America for the time being. Meanwhile Joan Plowright has left the cast oiRhinoceros (which is transferring, unwisely I think, to the Strand Theatre). Joan's father owns the Scunthorpe Daily something or other and she has delivered a muted message to its avid readers. She is a good actress and seems a nice enough girl, but I do wish Larry wouldn't marry her. However, that's his look-out. He has never been remarkable for organizing his life efficiently.

The American magazines have refused Pomp and C. on moral grounds! The American magazines are very, very silly.

...Vivien has appeared in London and is busily employed in making a cracking ass of herself. She is right round the bend again, as I suspected, and looks ghastly. What has driven her round the bend again is the demon alcohol; this is what it has always been. I suspect there is far less genuine mental instability about it than most people seem to think.

I went to see her 'alone' and found the flat full of people. She arrived from Notley, where she had been insulting the new owners. She was almost inarticulate with drink and spitting vitriol about everyone and everything. The next morning she called me at 8.30 and said she wanted to see me alone, and I refused flatly and said I didn't want to speak to her so long as she continued behaving like that, whereupon she said 'Oh God!' and hung up, and that's the end of that.

I have a dreadful suspicion that all this disgraceful carry-on is really a vino Veritas condition! She has always been spoilt and when she fails to get her own way she takes to the bottle and goes berserk. Of course I am fond of her and of course I am sorry for her, but however upset she may be about Larry she should control herself and behave better. It's all her own fault anyhow and I am now abysmally bored with the whole situation. It has been going on for far too long and I'll have no more of it

Sunday 9 October

Larry and Joan Plowright have opened in New York and both made smash hits apparently.^ This is lovely for them but, of course, horrid for Vivien. The mills of God!

Sunday 6 November

Flew back last Monday. Met by Vivien, Jack Merivale' and Coley. Vivien in splendid form, outwardly at least; inwardly she is still hankering after Larry. However, she is putting up a gallant performance and seems very fond of Jack, who is constantly fulfilling a long-felt want. They were gay and sweet guests and left on Wednesday.

6 December

Kay Thompson gave an eccentric party for me which was highly enjoyable, although it started with near disaster as she had forgotten to order any food at all! The Burtons', Joan [Plowright], Larry (I find it so difficult not to say Larry and Vivien), Tammy Grimes, Rex [Harrison], etc., were all famished so we sent out to Steuben's and ultimately all was more than well and it went on until nearly five. We played double pianos, everyone sang and performed, uninhibitedly and repeatedly. Ginette was in seventh heaven. There were only a few civilians^ present.

Thanks OP

R14 He wrote these diaries for himself; they aren't meant for entertainment.

R18 Graham can be seen in Coward's worst film 'The Astonished Heart' (1950)

R29 Yes, OP, thank you indeed!

Monday 9 April

Vivien and Jack [Merivale] came on Friday and stayed only until Saturday afternoon. She was perfectly sweet and normal, and I think that Larry's marriage really has made her face up to the inevitability of not getting him back. Jack is good with her and a gentle, nice creature. I wouldn't care to change places with him. Anyhow, the visit was a great success and it was lovely to see her cheerful and happy again. I'm very fond of her, although there are certainly moments when I could throttle her

Monday 8 January

Tarquin is really a bright and sweet boy. Jill [Esmond], rather surprisingly I think, has been a wonderful mother to him and he quite genuinely adores her. Larry, as a father figure, has not come off quite so well. Tarquin is small, pale, vulnerable and, I think, fairly tough. He recently spent twenty-one months in Indonesia living, in acute discomfort, with the natives and working out theories about how the West can ultimately understand the East. Personally I think this unlikely, but in any case he seems to be very dedicated and has written a book on the subject, which he is now rewriting, as well as working nine hours a day doing a news broadcast service in Berne. I do hope he has genuine talent for writing and that his book is good. My other godson, David Niven [junior], nearly but not quite broke his leg skiing last week and is now in a cast and unable to return to his studies in Grenoble, which delights him

.... Today we have lunched with Vivien in her new Sussex mill where Maggie [Leighton] fell down and bruised her bum, and tonight we have sat through Gone with the Wind'^ and found it quite remarkable and Vivien's performance superb. Tomorrow we - Coley and I - fly to New York

Tuesday 11 December London

In the evening and the fog I went by myself to see Larry in Semi-Detached^. It had had vile notices and I prayed it would be good. But it wasn't. It's a dreary, untidy little play with Larry good in spots. Oh, what a bad judge he is. To do this play was a major mistake

...I have enjoyed my two weeks in London on the whole, but it has been bitterly, bitterly cold. I have seen The Physicists, the new Diirrenmatt play, well played but not as good as it ought to have been. I spent a day at Brighton and saw Robin [Maugham], Kate [Hammond] and John [Clements], Joan and Larry, etc., and made a conquest of Cuthbert Worsley', sincerely amiable but fairly idiotic. I also, after the Palladium pantomime, had a rapprochement in the White Elephant with Kenneth Tynan, who was also amiable. All his views on life and the theatre are diametrically opposed to mine, and I discovered that he is deeply scared of the atomic bomb. I mean genuinely, gibberingly scared! This I find surprising. It seems to me far too vast a nightmare to be frightened of.

....Marilyn Monroe committed suicide yesterday. The usual overdose. Poor silly creature. I am convinced that what brought her to that final foolish gesture was a steady diet of intellectual pretentiousness pumped into her over the years by Arthur Miller, and 'The Method'. She was, to begin with, a fairly normal little sexpot with exploitable curves and a certain natural talent. I am sure that all the idiocies of her last few years, always being late on the set, etc., plus over-publicity and too many theoretical discussions about acting, were the result of all this constant analysis of every line in every part she had to play, and a desperate longing to be 'intellectual' without the brain to achieve it.

It is a sad comment on contemporary values that a beautiful, famous and wealthy young woman of thirty-six should capriciously kill herself for want of a little self-discipline and horse-sense. Judy [Garland] and Vivien in their different ways are in the same plight. Too much too soon and too little often.

Tuesday 5 November New York

I saw Peter O'Toole's Hamlet^ and thought it wonderful and enjoyed the whole production. I lunched with Princess Marina and dined with Princess Margaret and Tony and Marlene! A curious evening. I didn't feel exactly a warm glow between the two ladies. ... I visited Larry and Joan in Brighton, also Robin [Maugham], John [Clements] and Katie [Hammond], Terry and, on the way home, visited Vivien at Tickeridge. She is much better. I dined with Binkie, who was back on form and very sweet. In fact the whole visit passed in an enjoyable flash.

Sunday 10 May

Larry has made the success of his life as Othello ^ I can't wait to see it.

Saturday 6 June

I discussed Hay Fever with Larry and took Edith Evans to lunch. She is rather morally bound to do The Chinese Prime Minister^ but I think she wants to do Hay Fever more. I certainly hope so.... I lunched with Vivien at Tickeridge. She was fine and gay. I went to Brighton to see Larry and Joan, and dined with Terry [Rattigan] and Robin [Maugham] and finished up at Alma Cogan's^ in London at 12.30, where I met two Beatles'*

Sunday 2j September London

First of all I am sublimely happy with Hay Fever. The cast is fine, disciplined and quick and wonderful to work with. Edith is being very good - a great actress. Bob Stephens, Lynn Redgrave, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, all first rate. In fact there was only one sore thumb, which was Sarah Miles who, fortunately, after the first day's rehearsal, swallowed a fish bone, got flu, and hasn't been seen since. Meanwhile her understudy, Louise Purnell, is so pretty and such a good actress that I told Larry I must keep her. So after, apparently, some tears she - Sarah Miles - is shedding her inaudibility and lack of technique on The Crucible and The Recruiting Officer'^. It has so far given me such deep pleasure directing these lovely actors that I feel quite reborn

Sunday 2^ October London

During the week poor Joan [Plowright] had a miscarriage, so poor Larry had to open The Master Builder on Friday night with the understudy, Jeanne Hepple, who incidentally was quite brilliant. Celia [Johnson] marvellous, Larry superb, and the play beautifully done. Larry has been very, very sweet to me all through and, Edith or no Edith, I am very proud to be with the National Theatre

4 October

Socially I have had a varied week. A large dinner party for Charlie^ rendered embarrassing at moments by J.B. Priestley making a cracking fool of himself. A lovely evening with the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire and John Betjeman. Another enjoyable evening with Vivien in honour of Tarquin [Olivier] and his fiancee, who is a nice, intelligent girl and very pretty. Diana [Cooper] was there - enchanting as ever - Vivien a bit strained but looking wonderful.

Tuesday 20 April

We saw Ship of Fools in New York. A badly-directed^, dull picture except for Vivien [Leigh], Simone Signoret and Oskar Werner. I also saw Natasha, who is off" the booze and looked sweet, almost back to normal except that her legs are wobbly. I really am beginning to hate New York. It is getting commoner and commoner.

Thursday 22 June

Darling Larry-boy has cancer of the prostate. It is at a very early stage so there is hope of a successful operation, but this has to be postponed for a week or so because he developed pneumonia as well. I've just talked to Joan [Plowright] on the telephone and he is much, much better.

..... a visit to Vivien, who is in bed with a recurrence of tb! Oh dear! However, it's apparently very mild and curable.

Sunday 2 July London

Coley, Graham and I arrived back here on Monday. On Tuesday I went off on my district visiting. First of all Lornie, who looks ghastly but was quite lucid and cheerful. Then Vivien, who was sitting up in bed looking pale but lovely, and smoking, which she shouldn't have been doing. She was gay and enchanting as she always is. Then Larry, writhing about on a bed in St Thomas's Hospital. I was relieved to find that although they have diagnosed cancer of the prostate, it is apparently very slight and is responding to treatment satisfactorily. I hope to God this is true, but at least he showed no sinister physical signs. The colour of his skin was good and none of that grey-yellowish look. He was also cheerful.

Sunday 16 July

I can't even remember the date of the morning that Coley came into my suite at the Savoy, suffused with tears, and told me that Vivien had died^. The shock was too violent. I mind too deeply about this to go on about it very much. She was a lovely, generous and darling friend, and I shall miss her always.

Apparently Jacko [Merivale] came back from his theatre, saw her sleeping peacefully and went to warm up some soup for himself in the kitchen. When he came back a few minutes later she was lying on the floor in a welter of blood, having had a haemorrhage. Jacko, with almost incredible courage and tact, cleaned up all the hideous mess because he knew that she would hate anybody, even the doctor, to see her like that. Then he telephoned for the doctor.

Jacko is a good and kind man. A day or two later he rang me up and asked me to read the address at her memorial service which is, I believe, to be on the twenty-fourth. I lovingly but very firmly refused. I truly do not believe I could have done it without breaking down and making a shambles of it. I know this was cowardly, but I can't regret it. The emotional strain would be ghastly, and as I am not feeling any too well at the moment it would possibly cause me great damage. All my own loved ones agree and I can only hope that they're right. If it could have helped Vivien in any way I would have done anything, but it couldn't because she's gone for ever. I loathe and despise the miserable Christian trappings of death.

[quote]....Marilyn Monroe committed suicide yesterday. The usual overdose. Poor silly creature. I am convinced that what brought her to that final foolish gesture was a steady diet of intellectual pretentiousness pumped into her over the years by Arthur Miller, and 'The Method'.

Brilliant.

Such a bitch. You just know if DL had been around, NC would have been on it.

I would love if Coward had used Connie Stevens in a stage production in the 1960s (because a rich backer insisted), and then had to write about it in horror!

(She wanted to do [italic] My Fair Lady...) [/italic]

[quote]Larry ... managed, most touchingly, to look like a pompous manager and a wayward small boy at the same time.

Best description of Lawrence Olivier ever.

Thanks for this, OP.

R30 Do celebs (especially writers) ever trust their diaries aren't for posterity? It's not like he ordered them destroyed upon his death. I wonder if the idea that they would be read could have formulated long, long before that.

Yeah, Coward would have fit right in here... particularly in any thread that touches on any medical issue.

When he writes about Leigh's bipolar episodes, sounds just like the average Datalounger discussing any illness he doesn't understand! "It's female ego, it's not taking proper care of herself, she just needs a slap upside the head, etc." At no point dies he have a clue she had a genuine chronic illness that needed to be treated, but is totally confident that he understands everything.

Just like one if us!

Quick interjection: right now this thread is directly above the "DL Catnip: Millennial Social Influencer" thread, and it's pretty funny to note the similarities between Mr. Coward's picture and the Millennial dipstick's picture. Of course, it's probably moved by now, but do have a look.

Monday 17th

Raymond, the enchanting East End rentboy turned up sporting a simply blissful matelot ensemble borrowed (at least I hope so - he is so acquisitive) from dear Cecil. I spent most of the evening dialing his delightfully pale sphincter with my recently manicured hand. He then had the temerity to demand payment of ten pounds, no less! I asked him did he want a role at Drury Lane as well! The ungrateful grasping youth of today make one weep. Yes, after he left there were tears. I stood at the mirror - the lovely Georgian one that dear Binkie gifted me on the second anniversary of Cavalcade, and gazed at my tear stained face. I was profoundly shocked. I looked positively dewy!

Thanks OP. This was a fun read (even if it describes a lot of misery).

OP, thank you indeed, if only just for his usage of the word "degringolade."

I, for a very brief moment, wondered if NC had made it up - it is so, so delicious.

OMFG, I LOVE him. Just watched all four movies he did with David Lean; I was particularly impressed with "In Which We Serve". He plays a man who's modeled on Lord Mountbatten, which is so ironic I just love it.

R48 = Fake post

Your typical (oblivious) patronizing misogynist. What a bore.

R53 You obviously don't know Joyce, Lorne and Gertrude.

Could someon post excerpts of Cecil Beaton’s diaries?

R55 No, someone should NOT post excerpts from Beaton’s diaries.

Cecil wrote to be entertaining and he was skilled but he was silly and egotistical and cultivated feuds with his friends.

He turned against George Cukor during 'My Fair Lady' and he harboured a long feud against Larry (and Viv) from '45 (because they didn't gush appropriately over his 'bustier' for Isobel Jeans in 'Lady Windermere's Fan'.

Thanks,OP. This was a good read.

I lent him the top to my thermos flask and he never returned it. He's shallow, that's what he is........

He went to a marvelous party......

I hope this was a marvellous party.

Even though it's an unflattering picture, Greta Garbo laughs. Cecil grips Noël's hand and another old queen (Lord David Cecil is sitting on right). (Now could that be Jackie Kennedy and Lord Harlech at the back?).

degringolade. Must use. Soon. Before my degringolade.

I don't think his work has aged all that well. Except for PRIVATE LIVES, which is always really enjoyable.

R62 I agree that the bulk of Coward's plays 'haven't aged all that well'.

But I think his song lyrics are genius—

"Mrs Worthington "Nina" "Mad Dogs and Englishmen"

Coward's plays are rather flimsy and almost devoid of plot.

Most of the characters are frightfully arch and only expert players can make them sympathetic.

Maggie Smith is an expert—

Cole Porter's songs might have more interesting melodies but his lyrics can't compare with Coward's.

Blithe Spirit holds up reasonably well, along with Private Lives.

R66, Disagree. Coward wrote some witty songs, but there's a bigger range of emotion in Porter's lyrics.

[quoye]R67 Blithe Spirit holds up reasonably well,

I tried to watch it recently, and could only get halfway through. The concept's good, and the Madam Arcate character is a hoot...but the rest of it isn't as scintilating or charming as legend would have it.

^ I like Rex Harrison but David Lean didn't know anything about comedy.

And that fat-faced green woman is rather annoying.

R68 It's some cold fish named Kay Hammond.

They should have tried for Kay Kendall.

Kay Kendall would have been delightful but she was still a teenager at the time.

That green woman (Kay Hammond) was a success on stage but she does NOT have a suitable face for the big screen.

Vivien Leigh would have been fab?

What does he say, if anything, about Liz Taylor?

When I saw Blithe Spirit decades ago I loved it. Recently I listened to a recorded performance and just didn't like the way the characters treated each other. Seemed like the actors were struggling with the material to get a response and the audience wasn't laughing much at all. Past its due-date maybe.

Monday 4 April Paris

I came back to Paris and went to two films on my own. The first, Suddenly Last Summer, beautifully acted by Kate Hepburn, Liz Taylor and Monty Clift, was poor Tennessee Williams at his worst. It was full of horrors, so many really that it was idiotic. Madness, brain operations, queerness, cannibalism and a few high-flown observations on life, no particular shape and badly directed by Joe Mankiewicz. Fresh from this fragrant affair, I went to see En Plein Soleil with Alain Delon in it. He looked handsome, as usual, and acted much better. He played a wicked, murderous little villain with charm. As he was in bathing trunks throughout most of the picture the charm was adequately displayed.

Saturday 16 July

Last Sunday Coley, Graham and I drove down to Kent. We lunched with Gladys and Patience [Erskine] and had tea with Elizabeth [Taylor]. It was a nostalgic du temps perdu and I wasn't somehow all that sorry that the temps were perdu. Gladys was snarling at Patience and vice versa. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was very gay and amusing and her house is far the nicest of the lot. We drove back through pissing rain, but it was all a duty done

"On Thursday evening I went to Valentina's, a small cocktail party, very gay. Garbo was there for a little, looking lovely but grubby. On Saturday I had a day of peace and went to Rebel Without a Cause., a horrifying film about juvenile delinquency. Poor James Dean gave a wonderful performance. It is a great loss to the screen that he should have been killed"

"Clifton and I flew to Salt Lake City on Wednesday and stayed the night at the Utah Hotel. We gave some Press interviews, graciously allowed ourselves to be photographed, ate an inedible dinner and saw Giant, one of the slowest movies it has ever been my lot to endure. James Dean had some good moments and Rock Hudson and Liz Taylor acted well here and there, but the whole thing was defeated by its own, and the director's^, lack of tempo."

Thursday j November

Poor Princess Margaret has made a sorrowful, touching statement that she will not marry Peter Townsend. This is a fine slap in the chops for the bloody Press which has been persecuting her for so long. I am really glad that she has at last made the decision, but I do wish there hadn't been such a hideous hullabaloo about it. Apart from church and royal considerations, it would have been an unsuitable marriage anyway. She cannot know, poor girl, being young and in love, that love dies soon and that a future with two strapping stepsons and a man eighteen years older than herself would not really be very rosy. I am terribly sorry for her. Private sorrow is bad enough but public sorrow is almost unbearable.

I am sure she is right to stick by the job. It has all been a silly, mismanaged lash-up and I cannot imagine how the Queen and the Queen Mother and Prince Philip allowed it to get into such a tangle. At least she hasn't betrayed her position and her responsibilities, but that is arid comfort for her with half the world religiously exulting and the other half pouring out a spate of treacly sentimentality. I hope she will not take to religion in a big way and become a frustrated maiden princess. I also hope that they had the sense to hop into bed a couple of times at least, but this I doubt.

Thanx OP! Always enjoyable.

Is he the one who was the anti-Semite, or was that Cecil Beaton?

R77 Are you the dope, or the fool?

I think you should keep your naivety to yourself and do some reading and then you will realise that you're talking about people from another century.

And bear in mind that your grandchildren and your great-nephews in the 22nd century will be laughing at YOU for not following THEIR prejudices.

BORING

[Quote]dialing his delightfully pale sphincter

My impression is that there was quite a lot of casual anti-semitism in Britain, although it comes across as more classist. Cecil Beaton seems to have been an unpleasant man but Gielgud’s published correspondence has some snooty anti-Jewish commentary, which surprised me.

R81 But John Gielgud played a perfectly wonderful, clever Jew in 'Disraeli'.

Thanks, OP, for a rare pleasant thread on DL.

Coward sure was right on the money about "Sweet Bird of Youth" as well as "Suddenly Last Summer". He has no time for Tennessee's indulgences knowing very well Williams was capable of writing very good plays.

Coward's accounts of Vivien's breakdowns seem very true.

And he says some wise things, for instance in R11— "Friendship is a rare business and fair exchange is one of its essentials."

"I hope she will not take to religion in a big way and become a frustrated maiden princess."

Ha! One of the rare instances where a Margaret went wild.

[quote] He plays a man who was modelled on Lord Mountbatten, which is so ironic.

Not really ironic apart from their shared vanity. Coward was merely gay: Mountbatten was a polyamarous cunt drawn to everything from teenage girls to small boys - obtained for him by famed prositute Barbara Harris - who he used to get tiddly on brandy and lemonade. But hardly the worst of his crimes given how he readily sacrificed the lives of those under his dangerous command.

R87 You speak with so much anger that you sound like a small boy who was made tiddly with brandy and lemonades.

Do you speak from personal experience or is it an anecdote heard second-hand from your father, perhaps, or the 'Daily Mail'?

saw Blithe Spirit once on bway with Angela Landsbury and Richard Chamberlain.

it was ok.

they were divine tho....theyr mere prescence was captivating . (saw richard once 8 yrs ago in whole foods in frisco: lookd soo good) . considering.

the diary/autobio of Kenneth Tynan is biting good fun.....he kew em all.....was a fab nasty critic.

capote's letters are jolly.

No ace to grind, R88. Apart from generalised contempt for hat doffing to scum like Mountbatten. As it happens I knew the journo who interviewed - the naval rating who had been Dickie’s personal driver for a year during the war, and who being terminally ill, had decided to ‘spill his guts’. I believe even the Daily Mail avoided publishing the report: boys being dandled in the late Admiral of the Fleet’s lap was too raw even for the Daily Mail. Even in his 70s Dickie and Peter Murphy were getting young ratings drunk for their purposes. Private Eye published a para about them falking out of his Belgravia digs. I think royal procurer Babs Harris might have gone to God by then.

Beaton was utterly brilliant but tiresomely snobbish — he never got over being born middle class. When he was going through that ridiculous “I might be a teensy weensy bit heterosexual!” he turned up at a friend’s country house in full rig, but spying the pool full of naked young men cavorting, promptly turned on his heels and left. As the host said: “Fuck her!”

r88 More about Mountbatten's pedo exploits.

Noel was rumored to be a horse-hung top......did Noel get to 'enjoy' Larry?

R91, I saw a strange story not long ago about Beaton accosting a woman in the bedroom of her country house. She was understandably flustered by his pouncing upon her as she had invited him there strictly to discuss decorating ideas.

[quote] I'd never heard that before

Series 3/Ep 1 of The Crown: “Kindergarmaggeddon”.

Beaton accosting a woman? Alert the media! He liked. Scotty Bower’s cock, that’s for sure. He details their assignation in his 60s diaries.

There’s a book written about a ships doctor or surgeon by her daughter. I forget the title. She said her father told her he’d been taking a bath when Mountbatten made a pass, so it wasn’t just boys or girls with him — he was definitely ‘anything with a heartbeat types.

There’s a recent memoir - can’t remember the title - that pulls away the spangly curtain about Coward. Someone who’d stayed at the Swiss house and said it was sheer utter hell: Coward was a depressed alky, utterly miserable about aging; the ex boyfriend Payne was a banal moody alky: and the secretary Coley despairing and trapped. So much for the jolly fantasy!

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

He seems obsessed with Larry and Vivien. It's so boring and a bit crazy.

It's sad to constantly namedrop in a diary, especially the same two people about the same things.

[quote]Cole Porter's songs might have more interesting melodies but his lyrics can't compare with Coward's.

Coward emulated Porter, even to the point of writing songs as Porter parodies, not the other way around.

"He seems obsessed with Larry and Vivien. It's so boring and a bit crazy."

Well, the OP is cherrypicking every mention of Viv and Larry from hundreds of pages of diary, which might give a false impression of obsessiveness.

But I can believe they were close, Coward and Olivier were lovers back in the 1920s or 1930s, Coward "discovered" Olivier and did a lot to make him a star - which means that yes, Sir Lawrence Olivier fucked his way to the top back in the day! So there would have been a bond of shared experience and Coward's fondness for celebrity friends, even if Olivier hadn't married a fascinating, charming, beautiful, and famous woman who would also become a close friend. it's very sweet that he stayed close to both of them after the divorce, and stayed friends with Viv as her career, health, and beauty declined. Not every socially ambitious A-gay would do that.

That article is terrific R99. Thanks.

R102, I read an account of one of Vivien's harrowing psychiatric hospitalizations. As I posted elsewhere in the thread about Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, this was before the advent of mood stabilizing drugs and antipsychotics, and there was little medical treatment other than forcibly sedating and restraining patients. Noel Coward made sure that the first thing Vivien would see when she awoke from her ordeal was an array of beautiful flowers and gifts he had bought for her including a bottle of her favorite scent, the face powder she liked to use, her lipstick, and so on. It had not occurred to Olivier to do this for her, but Coward did.

“The Letters of Noel Coward” is a great read as well. And a perfect companion to his diaries.They span from childhood until the last years of his life and are a fabulous read.

Coward was much more than a sharp tongued social climber, he was a British spy during WW2, meeting with FDR and Churchill. Churchill prevented him from receiving a Knighthood after the war because he was squeamish about Coward’s homosexuality. Poor Noel didn’t get his gong until1970 or so, just a few years before his death.

It's ironic that his friend Cecil Beaton first became famous as a photographer, and yet that work of his (like Coward's plays) looks so dated and thin-spirited today.

Beaton did take that one fantastic pic of Marilyn Monroe, which I believe was actually one of her personal favorites...but then, she was a really exceptional camera subject.

[quote]My impression is that there was quite a lot of casual anti-semitism in Britain, although it comes across as more classist.

Nothing "casual" about ancient, entrenched, institutionalized Brit anti-Jewish bigotry and hatred. Brits show their contempt and disdain by characterizing someone as "Jewish" or "of Jewish ancestry". See R82 for details.

Yeah...that whole antisemitic attitude of his class is hard to swallow, these days.

It was pretty rampant.

R107 Are you complaining about the fact that the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was a 'perfectly wonderful, clever Jew'?

What are you complaining about?

Boring. I expected more from the bitch

I need to buy this book...in fact, not sure why I already haven't in the past.

[quote]looks so dated and thin-spirited today.

WTF is R106 going on about?!!!

The photography of Beaton is even more venerated today than it was in his lifetime! The Beaton Archive, which is owned by Sothebys, is a real moneyspinner.

Oh I just realised R106 must of seen that silly scene with ‘Beaton’ in The Crown — wildly wrong.

An aristo told me that when he wanted his sitters to relax their mouths he asked them to say ‘Lezzzbiannn’.

R5 I’m amused at Noel’s advice to Larry to give Vivien ‘a clip in the chops’. He did say it just after her tongue had been cut out on stage in ‘Titus Andronicus’. It may very well have spared him ‘a mint of trouble’ and that at R6 he twice describes Tarquin as ‘too small’,

In R13 he mentions 'Lie in the Dark and Listen’. Is that a quote from some play?

It seems the entry for R3 is from 1955 and R16 is 1958.

R14, R53, R77, R79, R108 are anonymous bitches. R44 is misspelling and incorrect.

surprisingly boring

[quote] Mike [Wilding] opened on Monday night. He was fairly all right but mumbled dreadfully and was quivering with inside nerves. He moved well and with assurance but his speech is a serious problem. Nothing can be done until he has played it for a couple of weeks, then I shall come down with my cohorts all gleaming and beat the fuck out of him.

I wonder what THAT meant...

He was such an unrepentant snob. Of course he had to be: he climbed his way from the bottom of the lower classes by dint of his splendid wit and style, and he was always afraid he wouldn't get to dine anymore with Princess Marina and Princess Margaret if he didn't always take their side against the unwashed masses.

I love his disdain for [italic]A Taste of Honey.[/italic] He must have been absolutely baffled by the popularity of kitchen-sink drama in the fifties--it was the absolute antithesis of what he was about.

Great thread, christ read the diaries decades ago but it all comes flooding back

R117 You say he was an "unrepentant snob".

Why should he be "repenting" of anything to anyone except a dreary Socialist who wants to bring everyone down to their own level of kitchen-sink unhappiness?

R110 You sound like a drunk movie producer who saw Sinatra fawning over Coward at Las Vegas.

You paid big money arranging for screen test and couldn't cope with the reality of Sir Noel Coward.

Coward dismissed everything that didn't concern grand duchesses with comic relief menials R117, it was a very narrow view. His plays are incredibly creaky now , even the most notable, Private Lives, goes on for an interminable three acts and ends in the same way many of his plays do with characters tip-toeing away from the action in very much the way he avoided reality with the brittle, varnished character he created for himself. He was his own best creation, an outstanding performer and certainly a brilliant wordsmith, but a colossal snob. Snobbery still sells today with the likes of Downton Abbey but it isn't to everyone's taste as it is a sickly and artificial flavor.

R121 I agree he was hopeless at plots in his plays.

But you need to see the movies 'This Happy Breed', 'Cavalcade, and 'Brief Encounter' which deal with all classes and counter your narrow, one-eyed summary.

Why are you obsessed with 'snobbery'? Are you a Socialist?

I've seen them R122 dated, but touching once you tune into the clipped manner, In Which We Serve is very good too. I'm not R117 who you also used a condescending and accusatory tone toward . You seem to have a robust dislike for Socialism, it's not an obscene word ( or practice ) as far as I'm concerned, whereas snobbery does hold negative connotations of social climbing, pretentiousness and an empty admiration for those perceived as betters.

Noel Coward and Cary Grant lived together. Noel wrote "Mad About The Boy for Cary.

bump

R125 OK, I'll bump with Noel's rhythmic rhumba with all its delightful rhymes

Beaton was a notorious antisemite. In 1938 he was living in New York, working for American Vogue as a photographer and fashion illustrator. In one of his drawings there were tiny squiggles along the edges of the page. Nobody noticed until after the issue was published that the squiggles were actually text, an antisemetic rant ending with "and Babe Paley is a k*ke."

He was ruined in New York. Vogue fired him and he was completely ostracized by his society friends. He had to return to England to find work and it was several years before he was able to come back to the US.

127 Babe Paley deserved every possible description and/or insult.

She practised mental abuse; she was psychotic at close range. She was an uber-monster and your fourth sentence proves the fact.

Poor Cecil was crying out at the mental-abuse meted out to him at such close range.

Yes, r28, but he didn't call her an abuser or pyschotic or an uber-monster. He called her a K*KE! In Vogue! And that was only the tail-end of the nasty things he wrote about other people too. He thought that people would find it funny.

R129 "He thought"

I suggest to you that your speculation as to the thought processes of a dead man from the better part of a century ago is an outrageous piece of speculation and a sorry example of empathy towards the abused in a position of powerlessness.

R130, I was responding to the conversation about Beaton's well known and well documented antisemitism earlier in the thread. Hugo Vickers explores the Vogue incident in detail in his excellent biography of Beaton and it's even mentioned on Beaton's Wikipedia page.

Now stomp your little feet again so I can have another giggle.

R131 Your last sentence sounds very abusive.

You are right, it does. You have my most sincere apology.

Oh, wait. I posted documented fact and even sourced it and you accused me of posting "an outrageous piece of speculation."

What to do, what to do....

[quote]R130 your speculation as to the thought processes of a dead man from the better part of a century ago is an outrageous piece of speculation and a sorry example of empathy towards the abused in a position of powerlessness.

Oh, puh-LEAZE! You want to speculate that Beaton had [italic] good [/italic] motives in that disaster?

From Tom Wolfe in the New York Times, 1986:

[quote]In January of 1938, to accompany a Vogue article on New York society by Frank Crowninshield, Beaton did a montage drawing of skyscrapers, the entrance to El Morocco, a nightclub band, a nightclub table, nightclub patrons, a nightclub camera, drinks, cigarettes, a chaise longue, an angora-pompon dressing-gown slipper, flowers from the florist, a telegram and tabloid newspaper pages featuring the gossip columns. In tiny letters, illegible without a magnifying glass, the telegram said PARTY DARLING LOVE KIKE, and one of the gossip items said 'Mr. R. Andrew's Ball at the El Morocco brought out all the damned kikes in town.'

And this was while Jews were being herded into concentration camps, no less!

What an asshole!

R134 Jews were being herded into concentration camps in 1938?

It couldn't have been Babe Paley anyway. She wasn't even Mrs. Stanley Mortimer yet - she married him in 1940. She was still Barbara Cushing of Brookline, Massachusetts. She wasn't Mrs. Paley until 1947.

Near Enough is Good Enough

R89, you may have seen Angela Lansbury and Richard Chamberlain on Broadway in BLITHE SPIRIT but not together; they were in separate productions: Chamberlain in 1987 and Lansbury in 2009.

Nina declined to Begin The Beguine when they besought her to.

And with language profane and obscene she cursed the man who taught her to.

I freaked out when I first saw this ancient TV clip.

1) Horrid face in horrid close-up. 2) Such over-exaggerated facial contortions!

I realised later that he did that Buddha-like epicanthic-eye thing.

I also found out later that he was OBSESSED with enunciation! 'How can my audience be expected to appreciate my wit', he asked 'without understanding my brilliant lyrics?'.

How true!

Noel's "over-exaggerated facial contortions" are rather similar to the singer in this clip.

He should be played by the aged Joel Grey.

R141 That clip of Noel Coward's exaggerated facial contortions reminds me very much of this clip.

It was the first time I ever saw a Negro.

I adore Noel's rolling Rs.

Binkie Beaumont

^ That's a lovely picture of Binkie.

He was a success because he give audiences what they wanted.

Later on he was reviled by the so-called Angry Young Men who called him vapid, decadent and homosexual.

And, of course, fifteen years later half of those formerly Angry Young Men were vapid, middle-aged homosexuals tripping to Morocco for gigolos.

Cheers !!

OP thanks a lot for your thoughtful selection from The Noel Coward Diaries. I think they give a good sense of who he was. The Noel Coward Wikipedia article filled in a lot of the gaps. It's well-written by people that seem to know and admire him and was nicely complimentary. It's always interesting to see how gay culture has evolved and how a prominent and essentially "out" gay man lived his life in the 1940's and 1950's.

Noel visits Fire Island in 1963 and is shocked:

[quote] I don’t really think I shall ever go again ... Never in my life have I seen such concentrated, abandoned homosexuality ... I wished really that I hadn’t gone. Thousands of queer young men of all shapes and sizes camping about blatantly and carrying on – in my opinion – appallingly. Then there were all the lesbians glowering at each other ... I have always been of the opinion that a large group of queer men was unattractive. On Fire Island it’s more than unattractive, it’s macabre, sinister, irritating and somehow tragic.

I wonder if he saw some sort of generational change there, for him, and he felt left out? If he was in his 50s or 60s that makes sense.