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1999 marks the centennial of the birth of Noel Coward and Great Performances
provides us early in the year with this two hour biography from the BBC. Lushly produced
and carefully researched, the program takes us chronologically through Coward's life,
utilizing interviews with many of Coward's biographers and surviving contemporaries,
videotaped interviews with Coward himself, as well as onsite visits to the many places he
lived during his life.
The program
takes a rather factual approach, honestly including aspects of his life that Coward
himself would probably have left unspoken. It is an entertaining and useful document that
left this viewer longing for more analysis and insight into the meaning of the
life, as well as a critical look at the work that Coward created. But perhaps that is a
different show.
Several themes loom
large in this exploration of Coward's life. His father was a piano salesman and the family
lived in genteel poverty, frequently moving due to financial need. Coward's early success
as a child actor evidently kept the family afloat. His "friendship" at age 14
with painter Philip Streatfield (the only relationship about which the program is somewhat
coy - homosexuality may have reached a greater level of acceptance today, but man-boy sex
is still taboo) led to a connection with aristocrat Mrs. Ashley Cooper, and indeed,
residence at the Cooper estate. Mrs. Cooper's granddaughter takes us on a tour of the
mansion, pointing out that Coward lived on the farm, not in the house. "It wasn't
considered, a boy of his background, staying in the Hall, now was it?" she says.
The rigidly
stratified class structure of England was surely a motivator for Coward. He transcended
his unglamorous family background and moved successfully into the highest reaches of
English society, finally achieving knighthood at age 70. The ascent was accomplished with
talent, hard work, and perspicacious opportunism over the course of his career. While
Coward may have tested the edges of upper class proprieties, it would appear that he
thoroughly integrated their values. Pauline Kael has referred to his archness as "a
smart, dissonant style to cover the traditional pieties."
A second
running theme in Coward's life was his homosexuality. Note that Oscar Wilde was thrown
into prison in disgrace just twenty years before Coward made his stage debut. Clive Fisher
describes Coward in his biography: "the languid, fey dilettante with dressing
gown and caustic tongue." That Coward was homosexual was unmistakable to the public;
so long as it was handled discretely, he was allowed to
"pass."
"Keeping
his image polished was precious to him, but not only for pure publicity concerns. His
image also worked to protect him from the attacks of a society that would not tolerate the
open admission of homosexuality," Fisher wrote. And yet, Coward's first major
success as a playwright was in 1924 with The Vortex, a scathing picture of
the English upper class which included a "toyboy" for an older woman,
drugs, and hints of homosexuality as well. His instinct for the theatrical edge, for
notoriety and the attention it would draw to his work, tested the edge of what was
acceptable, but he seemed to know just where to stop and protect his flank, as it were.
The program tells us of his first
extended relationship, with American stockbroker Jack Wilson. While they were in Hawaii
together, Coward suffered a nervous breakdown, mentioned here, but left unexplained. The
strain of the relationship? The emotional toll of living a double life? Those questions
are not addressed. The Wilson alliance lasted about a decade. Coward's later partner,
Graham Payne, an actor, appears here in an extended sequence in their home in the
mountains of Switzerland.
Coward's
period of major productivity was from the late 1920's into the 1940's. The best of the
works are titles still familiar, sometimes revived: Hay Fever, Private Lives,
Design for Living, Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter. Then the creativity seemed somehow
to dry up and little of substance was created in the later years. Coward successfully
reinvented himself as a cabaret performer, playing on his fame, his show business
connections, and the familiarity of some of his songs to attract a new generation of
admirers.
The Life of Noel Coward loses
some steam in the second half, providing us more detail than we really need about the
Swiss and Jamaican residences, how the lobster mousse would not defrost when the Queen
Mother was coming for lunch, about the recipe for Bullshots, Coward's favorite cocktail.
Nonetheless, the show provides a fine introduction to Coward and the events of his life.
He is quoted: "I liked to be contemporary and bright as a button, but I don't think I
was all that keen on being significant."
A sequel that focuses on analyzing and evaluating the significance of
the body of work he left behind would be an invaluable companionpiece.
- Arthur Lazere
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