There's a biographical article about Noel Coward up at the BBC. I knew little of his background, and did not realise how incredibly successful he became at a young age, after having an early nervous breakdown that kept him out of World War 1:
From the age of 14, he had some sort of relationship with 36-year-old
artist, Philip Streatfeild – possibly sexual – before Streatfeild died
of trench fever in World War One. Coward's other close friend, John
Ekins, also died in the war. In 1918, at the age of 18, Coward had a
nervous breakdown in an army training camp before seeing any action, and
was hospitalised for six weeks.
"Coward is of the generation that came out of the First World War and
the global pandemic of the Spanish Flu, and thought that the future was
deeply bleak, with another war on the horizon," says Soden.
How to deal with this bleakness? Sing and dance and laugh through it.
Make-believe had always been Coward's escape: he'd been acting
professionally from the age of 10, and even as a teenager was churning
out plays and songs and novels. Boundless ambition was matched by
determined graft.
"He's
spat out into the 1920s with this hole at the centre of his life which
only fame and success can adequately fill," says Soden. "It's as if
there can never be too much of it." And soon, there really was silly
amounts. By 25, Coward was "more famous than the prime minister," says
Soden, with four plays on in London in June 1925. He stormed the US,
opening three plays on Broadway by the end of the year: The Vortex, Hay
Fever, and Easy Virtue – the latter featuring another woman frank about
her enjoyment of sex, and stifled by the disapproving and hypocritical
upper-classes.
By 1926, 3,000 productions of Coward's plays had been staged
worldwide, and his annual income was estimated to be at least £50,000
(£15 million today). He had become the highest paid writer in the world,
but the relentless schedule soon took its toll. In autumn 1926, Coward
found himself unable to stop crying during a performance and collapsed
in his dressing room afterwards.
While wary of offering posthumous diagnoses, Soden tentatively suggests
that Coward may have had bipolar disorder. What is clear is that his
life was marked by periods of "astonishingly manic activity, rehearsing
nine to five, a show an evening, partying till 2am… and then he
crumbles."
He then did try to help the war effort in World War 2:
He ended up with several [war jobs]: spying for an underground new secret
service, running a propaganda department in France, attempting to
stealthily influence important Americans to support Britain and enter
the war, even holding meetings in President Roosevelt's bedroom.
It may have been his greatest role – all that mask wearing proving
excellent practice for going undercover. The fact that no-one took him
seriously was his "best qualification for being a spy," says Soden. But
Coward was, arguably, too convincing: the press disparaged him for
apparently jollying about in America while everyone else suffered, while
his international playboy status was frequently seen as a liability by
politicians. Both reactions deeply hurt Coward; war service was one area
of life where he desperately wanted to be taken seriously.
So, he was certainly in the Bright Young Thing crowd in the 1920's. Did Evelyn Waugh ever meet him, I wonder? Ah - yes, he did:
He had lunch with Noel Coward (‘He has a simple, friendly nature. No brains’)
Ha.
By the way, this article gives more (autobiographical) detail of Coward's near entry into the military in 1918. It was not a simple case of "nervous breakdown" - and it was also at the very tail end of the war.
More potted biography of Coward's war time efforts can be found in this article at The Guardian. Surprisingly, there is an Australian connection, too, despite it being somewhat hard to fathom that a somewhat camp-ish demeanour would go over well in that era here:
He was immediately sent to Bletchley and seconded
to D section, but was swiftly moved to Paris as head of the bureau of
propaganda, a job that seemed to entail nothing more strenuous than
dining with the beau monde. All this was viewed in Britain with
understandable mystification; there were questions in the Commons about
the usefulness of his activities. He persuaded Stuart to send him to the
US, where, astonishingly, he had two meetings with Roosevelt. What
appeared to be his triumphal progress through America caused a huge
furore in England. He was seconded to British War Relief, but by now the
US press was attacking him too, not least because of his first world
war record.
He then went to Australia, where
he received a gratifyingly ecstatic response; but was told that his
wartime mission was suspended. This command can only have come from the
highest level. His return to London was greeted by a hostile press,
which seemed all of a piece with the requisitioning of his magnificent
country house, Goldenhurst, and the bombing of his London home. He moved
to the Savoy Hotel; there he found other similarly dispossessed chums
such as Margot Asquith. The blitz was in full swing; he was now right at
the centre of the British people's experience of war, though of course,
in a very Noël Coward sort of way. Supping at the Savoy on a Saturday
night in April 1941, he noted: "Had a few drinks. Pretty bad blitz, but
not as bad as Wednesday. A couple of bombs fell very near during dinner.
Wall bulged a bit and door blew in. Orchestra went on playing, no one
stopped eating or talking. Blitz continued. Carroll Gibbons played the
piano, I sang, so did Judy Campbell and a couple of drunken Scots
Canadians. On the whole a strange and very amusing evening. People's
behaviour absolutely magnificent. Much better than gallant. Wish the
whole of America could really see and understand it. Thankful to God
that I came back. Would not have missed this experience for anything."
And finally, I guess a summary of his extremely active and often scandalous gay love/sex life is in order, and which outlet is better at that than the Daily Mail?
Update: Oh look! The State Library of Queensland has a post about Coward's visit to Brisbane at the start of WW2.
I suppose I was being a bit facetious when I said above that it is hard imagining him being popular with Australian "diggers" given his camp reputation - the article seemingly confirms he was mobbed by women, and I do recall an anecdote in which he said he never wanted to "come out" because he had convinced so many middle aged women that he was worthy of being their heartthrob.
The oddest line in the article is perhaps this:
The following day (21 November 1940) was also extremely busy for Coward .
He was due to visit a Brisbane abattoir in the morning, however he
decided to cancel this in favour of rehearsing for his afternoon
concert. Coward politely told The Telegraph newspaper that "It was not because he particularly disliked abattoirs. He had seen lots of them in his time".
