Noel Coward

Noël Coward was the quintessential, slightly eccentric, upper class English gentleman, especially to Americans. In reality though, he was not University educated, did not attend a public school, and was not to the manor born. And, amazingly, although he literally dominated the English theatre and musical in the 1930s and remained a force in music long after, he had no formal musical training. Noël Peirce Coward hailed from Teddington on the fringes of London; born into "genteel poverty" on December 16, 1899, he started life as a child actor, training at the Italia Conti Academy, which in spite of its name is in London rather than Italy.

"Forbidden Fruit", his first "completely integrated song" was written in 1916, but his first published song was the simply awful ditty "The Baseball Rag", which he co-wrote with Doris Joel three years later.

In 1918, Coward failed a medical board for active service in what was then known as the Great War. In May 1921, he sailed to New York on the S.S. Aquitania, hoping like so many others before and after to make his fortune in the Promised Land. Although songwriting and later performing, were a mainstay of his career, it was as a playwright that he first really hit the headlines. In 1924, The Vortex - sensational and controversial at the time - scored on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1926, years of hard work caught up with him, and after the failure of This Was A Man he spent some time in Hawaii, recovering from mental exhaustion and a serious illness. While lying dozing on the beach, the song "A Room With A View" came into his head, and he returned with a vengeance. His 1927 production Sirocco - which he wrote in 1921 - was greeted with boos and jeers, and was savaged by the critics, but it was followed by the revue This Year Of Grace!, which Coward said was the best of all his revues. Shortly he produced Bitter-Sweet, a full scale musical.
Coward also recorded many of his own songs, including "Don't Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs. Worthington", written at the height of his powers to deter adoring mothers, and his signature tune "Mad Dogs And Englishmen", which resulted from his travels in the Orient.