Sir Noël Pierce Coward

Noël Pierce Coward was born in 1899 and made his professional stage debut as Prince Mussel in The Goldfish at the age of 12, leading to many child actor appearances over the next few years. His breakthrough in playwriting was the controversial The Vortex (1924) which featured themes of drugs and adultery and made his name as both actor and playwright in the West End and on Broadway. During the frenzied 1920s and the more sedate 1930s, Coward wrote a string of successful plays, musicals and intimate revues including Fallen Angels (1925), Hay Fever (1925), Easy Virtue (1926), This Year of Grace (1928), and Bitter Sweet (1929).His professional partnership with childhood friend Gertrude Lawrence, started with Private Lives (1931), and continued with Tonight at 8.30 (1936).Writer, actor, director, film producer, painter, songwriter, cabaret artist as well as an author of a novel, verse, essays and autobiographies, he was called by close friends ‘The Master’. His final West End appearance was Song at Twilight in 1966, which he wrote and starred in. He was knighted in 1970 and died peacefully in 1973 in his beloved Jamaica.

For further information :

https://www.noelcoward.com/timeline

The Noël Coward Society Public Archive contains detailed pages of information about Noël Coward, his contemporaries and his work. The archive is open to everyone. http://www.noelcoward.net/html/archive.html

If you wish to read Noel Coward's plays online, you can visit Drama Online. https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/person?docid=person_cowardNo%C3%ABl

If you wish to watch Noel Coward's plays online, many full-length productions are on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/