NOEL COWARD’S LIFE.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 402, 8 April 1937, Page 2

NOEL COWARD’S LIFE.

HIS EARLY SUCCESS First Role at the Age of Six. At the age of 36 Noel Coward has written his autobiography, says George W. Bishop In the London Daily Telegraph. It is a frank and lively book of more than 400 pages, which will settle once and for all many of the doubtful stories in the Coward legend. For instance, it is quite true that his father did act as waiter on occasion in the Ebury Street apartmenthouse which was taken to help the family income. He talks of the visitors’ embarrassment when father came “waltzing ,'nto the room with the lea-tray,” hie son having overlooked the fact that friends were invited on the housemaid’s afternoon | out. The first part ot (he book is devoted to the early struggles. The family had tremendous fun, but Mr Coward states that “at times there wasn’t quite enough food.” His education seems to have been somewhat spasmodic, for he was very young when he started his stage career—-as Prince Mussel in “The Goldfish,” in which June was Princess Sole —and he attended school with little enthusiasm. He often played truant, and used to spend the whole day in Waterloo Station or Clapham Junction watching the trains. “Once I bought a pennyworth of crepe hair at a "chemists, and walked up and down the Embankment with a red beard,” he says. First Appearance. Mr Coward’s first public appearance was at the age of six, when he sang “Coo” from “The Country Girl,” and also a piping little song about the spring, for which he accompanied himself at the piano. He “brought down the house,” and the following summer he had no difficulty in winning the children’s competition run by Uncle George’s Concert Party on the sands at Bognor. It was Charles Hawtrey who gave him his first real engagement in the West End as a page-boy in “The Great Name.” Shortly afterwards he appeared in the original production of “Where the Rainbow Ends.” When he was 14 he reached the Mecca of the youthful actors’ dreams —he was engaged for “Peter Pan,” to play Slightly, at a salary ot £i a week. Shortly before that he appeared in Liverpool in Basil'Dean’s production of “Hannele,” and a member of the company was “a vivacious child with ringlets, to whom I took an instant fancy. “She was very mondaine, carried a handbag with a powder-puff, and frequently dabbed her generously turned-up nose. tShe confided to me that her name was Gertrude Lawrence.” It was his first meeting with an actress who was to be associated with him in some of his greatest successes. He owed a good deal to Charles Hawtrey. It was under Hawtrey’s management that he blossomed forth in “The Saving Grace” as a “juvenile.” After the opening performance at Manchester, Hawtrey told the audience that they had better watch him carefully in the future, as he was undoubtedly going to be a good actor. A Letter From Shaw. Noel Coward's war experience was brief and inglorious. It was shortly after he left the Army that he sold his first play, "The Last Trick,” outright to an American management for 1500 dollars. In 1920 his comedy, “I’ll Leave It to You,” was done at the New Theatre, but although the critics proclaimed the discovery of a new playwright, the piece ran tor only five weeks. Mr Coward states frankly that in writing “The Young Idea” he was "primarily inspired” by Shaw’s “You Never Can Tell.” “I felt guilty of plagiarism, however inept,” he writes, “and when the play was finished J. E. Vedrenne kindly sent it to Shaw to find out whether or not he had any objections. “A short while afterwards I received the script back from Shaw, scribbled all over with alterations and suggestions, and accompanied by a long letter, which, to my lasting regret, I was idiotic enough to lose. However, the gist of it was that I showed every indication of becoming a good playwright, provided that I never again in my lite read another word that he, Shaw, had ever written.” Charles B. Cochran entered the Coward scene before the author had become a success. The production of "The Young Idea,” which ran for only eight weeks, brought a letter of generous praise from Mr Cochran, but it was Andre Chariot, at the suggestion of the Earl of Lathom, who I presented his first revue, “London

Calling,” which really put. him on the map as author, lyricist, and composer. Although he was very young, Mr Coward limited his own engagement in “London Calling” to six months, a policy he has adopted throughout his career. Bored With Acting. “I consider myself a writer first and an actor second,” he writes. “If I play the same part over and over again for a long run, I become bored and frustrated, and my performance deteriorates; in addition to this, I have no time to write.” It was not until “The Vortex” was produced at the tiny Everyman Theatre in Hampstead that Noel Coward, the dramatist, really emerged from obscurity. The story of that adventure makes fascinating reading. Michael Arlen provided the cheque for £2OO for the production, and Lilian Braithwaite was not cast for the leading part of Florence until a day or two before the first night. There was also a last-minute duel with the Lord Chamberlain, who had to be persuaded by the author that the play was a “moral tract.” That was in December, 1924, and from that date Mr Coward became one of the most enviable young men living. Shortly afterwards he had three pieces running in the West End. ■"Everyone but Somerset Maugham said that I was a second Somerset

Maugham, with the exception ot a. few who preferred to describe me as a second Sacha Guitry," he says. Mr Coward has had some failures since that time. In a dressing-room at the Selwyn Theatre, Chicago, there is written on the wall in his handwriting. "Noel Coward died here.’’ That was after the unaccountable failure of “The Vortex,” which was immensely successful elsewhere in America. Anoth sr was the famous first night ot “SirKcco,” at Daly's, when the “curtain finally fell amid a bedlam ot sound.”