Noel Coward kept a detailed diary from the early Forties to 1969 -
he elegantly laid aside his pen when news of his knighthood arrived
- but readers in search of new revelations will be disappointed:
the Coward biographer, Cole Lesley, had access to the Diaries for
Remembered Laughter (1976); and, as far as his own love-life was
concerned, Coward was utterly discreet, even in private. (There's
virtually only one such reference here - to falling-in-love again
at 58: "I can already see all the old hoops being prepared for me
to go through. Ah me!") Still, if there's no news in these
massively footnoted 704 pages, there is wit, hilarity, aphoristic
genius, theater-lore, some gossip . . . and magnificent affirmation
of Sir Noel's essential decency, compassion, and gentlemanliness -
qualities not often associated with the show-biz world. He was
conservative, of course, in both art and politics: Waiting for
Godot is "pretentious gibberish," Death of a Salesman "boring and
embarrassing"; the assassination of Gandhi is "a bloody good thing
but far too late." He was not good with children. (On a friend's
noisy grandson: "I should have liked to cleave his winsome little
blond head in two with a meat axe.") There are devastating
backstage portraits of the leading ladies involved in each Coward
show - Bea Lillie, Edith Evans, Claudette Colbert, Lili Palmer
("the mixture of female film star and Kraut is not entirely
felicitous"), and sometimes-beloved Mary Martin. There are
diatribes against critics, theater parties, Germans, American
taste, television, Mary Renault ("Oh dear, I do, do wish
well-intentioned ladies would not write books about
homosexuality"), campiness, religion, and Graham Greene: "He has a
twisted, tortured mind but, like most of God's creatures, aches to
be loved." There is a good deal of self-deluding explanation for
the lack of great success (except as a performer) during these
decades. But the combination of common-sense and ever-good-humored
eloquence is the dominant tone here - whether following the
year-after-year turmoil in the Vivien Leigh/Laurence Olivier
marriage or writing, with great patriotic sincerity, about
England's decline. And this is, with very few lapses into the usual
journal trivia, a Grand Tour of a Diary: an uncommon display of
effortless stylishness, a valuable (if joyfully biased) record of
transatlantic theater in the postwar period, and an irresistible
surprise package overall - cutting, kindly, loyal, vengeful, but
always professional . . . and very rarely ugly or sad. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Noel Coward is remembered as the most witty and elegant of
theatrical personalities. He left behind over fifty plays,
twenty-five films, hundreds of songs, and several books.
Fortunately, he also left behind these diaries chronicling the last
thirty years of his life, from 1941 to 1973. Moving through the
theatrical, social, political, and historical worlds on both sides
of the Atlantic, the impressive cast of characters includes
Laurence Olivier, Frank Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, John and Jackie
Kennedy, Harold Pinter, members of the Royal Family, and the
Beatles, among a host of others. "The Noel Coward Diaries" is a
social and theatrical chronicle as stylish and irresistible as the
man himself.
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