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Noël Coward

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127-453: Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise". Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As

254-425: A baritone dove, he gave us "I'll See You Again" and the other bat's-wing melodies of his youth. Nothing he does on these occasions sounds strained or arid; his tanned, leathery face is still an enthusiast's.... If it is possible to romp fastidiously, that is what Coward does. He owes little to earlier wits, such as Wilde or Labouchere . Their best things need to be delivered slowly, even lazily. Coward's emerge with

381-517: A " Cartoon of the Week", and a variety of articles concerning popular culture. An annual issue concerning the environment is distributed near the end of the U.S. school term. The publication rarely exceeds ten pages front and back. Time LightBox is a photography blog created and curated by the magazine's photo department that was launched in 2011. In 2011, Life picked LightBox for its Photo Blog Awards. Garrick Theatre The Garrick Theatre

508-527: A 1968 Off-Broadway production of Private Lives at the Theatre de Lys starring Elaine Stritch , Lee Bowman and Betsy von Furstenberg , and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly . Despite this impressive cast, Coward's popularity had risen so high that the theatre poster for the production used an Al Hirschfeld caricature of Coward ( pictured above ) instead of an image of the production or its stars. The illustration captures how Coward's image had changed by

635-554: A Changing Enterprise 1957–1983 . The Larsen family's Time Inc. stock was worth around $ 80 million during the 1960s. Roy Larsen was both a Time Inc. director and the chairman of its executive committee, later serving as Time Inc.'s board's vice chairman until the middle of 1979. On September 10, 1979, The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Larsen was the only employee in the company's history given an exemption from its policy of mandatory retirement at age 65." In 1987, Jason McManus succeeded Henry Grunwald as editor-in-chief, and oversaw

762-470: A Marvellous Party ". Coward's plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. He did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality, but it was discussed candidly after his death by biographers including Graham Payn , his long-time partner, and in Coward's diaries and letters, published posthumously. The former Albery Theatre (originally

889-484: A black X (to date, the magazine's only such use of a black X) covering the flag of Japan , representing the recent surrender of Japan and which signaled the end of World War II . Fifty-eight years later, on April 21, 2003, Time released another issue with a red X over Saddam Hussein 's face, two weeks after the start of the Invasion of Iraq . A third red X issue was that of June 19, 2006, after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

1016-849: A bust of him in the library in Teddington, near where he was born. In 2008 an exhibition devoted to Coward was mounted at the National Theatre in London. The exhibition was later hosted by the Museum of Performance & Design in San Francisco and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills , California. In June 2021 an exhibition celebrating Coward opened at the Guildhall Art Gallery in

1143-478: A carefully crafted image. As a suburban boy who had been taken up by the upper classes he rapidly acquired the taste for high life: "I am determined to travel through life first class." He first wore a dressing gown onstage in The Vortex and used the fashion in several of his other famous plays, including Private Lives and Present Laughter . George Walden identifies him as a modern dandy . In connection with

1270-456: A cigarette holder: "I looked like an advanced Chinese decadent in the last phases of dope." Soon after that, Coward wrote: He soon became more cautious about overdoing the flamboyance, advising Cecil Beaton to tone down his outfits: "It is important not to let the public have a loophole to lampoon you." However, Coward was happy to generate publicity from his lifestyle. In 1969 he told Time magazine, "I acted up like crazy. I did everything that

1397-557: A complex hydraulic stage. Its 1933 film adaptation won the Academy Award for best picture. Coward's intimate-scale hits of the period included Private Lives (1930) and Design for Living (1932). In Private Lives , Coward starred alongside his most famous stage partner, Gertrude Lawrence, together with the young Laurence Olivier . It was a highlight of both Coward's and Lawrence's career, selling out in both London and New York. Coward disliked long runs, and after this he made

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1524-486: A cycle of ten short plays, presented in various permutations across three evenings. One of these plays, Still Life , was expanded into the 1945 David Lean film Brief Encounter . Tonight at 8.30 was followed by a musical, Operette (1938), from which the most famous number is "The Stately Homes of England", and a revue entitled Set to Music (1938, a Broadway version of his 1932 London revue, Words and Music ). Coward's last pre-war plays were This Happy Breed ,

1651-610: A dance academy in London, Coward's first professional engagement was in January 1911 as Prince Mussel in the children's play The Goldfish . In Present Indicative , his first volume of memoirs, Coward wrote: One day   ... a little advertisement appeared in the Daily Mirror .... It stated that a talented boy of attractive appearance was required by a Miss Lila Field to appear in her production of an all-children fairy play: The Goldfish. This seemed to dispose of all argument. I

1778-602: A distinctively "acerbic, irreverent style", largely created by Haddon and sometimes called "Timestyle". Timestyle made regular use of inverted sentences , as famously parodied in 1936 by Wolcott Gibbs in The New Yorker : "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind ... Where it all will end, knows God!" Time also coined or popularized many neologisms like "socialite", "guesstimate", "televangelist", "pundit", and "tycoon", as well as some less successful ones like "cinemactress" and "radiorator". Time introduced

1905-519: A dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues ), screenplays, poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance , and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works, as well as those of others. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Coward volunteered for war work, running

2032-402: A drama about a working-class family, and Present Laughter , a comic self-caricature with an egomaniac actor as the central character. These were first performed in 1942, although they were both written in 1939. Between 1929 and 1936 Coward recorded many of his best-known songs for His Master's Voice (HMV), now reissued on CD, including the romantic " I'll See You Again " from Bitter Sweet ,

2159-461: A farce, Look After Lulu! (1959), and a tragi-comic study of old age, Waiting in the Wings (1960), both of which were successful despite "critical disdain". Coward argued that the primary purpose of a play was to entertain, and he made no attempt at modernism, which he felt was boring to the audience although fascinating to the critics. His comic novel, Pomp and Circumstance (1960), about life in

2286-559: A few mildly dirty stories, and I loved her from then onwards." In 1914, when Coward was fourteen, he became the protégé and probably the lover of Philip Streatfeild , a society painter. Streatfeild introduced him to Mrs Astley Cooper and her high society friends. Streatfeild died from tuberculosis in 1915, but Mrs Astley Cooper continued to encourage her late friend's protégé, who remained a frequent guest at her estate, Hambleton Hall in Rutland. Coward continued to perform during most of

2413-558: A frank biography once Coward was safely dead. Coward's most important relationship, which began in the mid-1940s and lasted until his death, was with the South African stage and film actor Graham Payn. Coward featured Payn in several of his London productions. Payn later co-edited with Sheridan Morley a collection of Coward's diaries, published in 1982. Coward's other relationships included the playwright Keith Winter, actors Louis Hayward and Alan Webb , his manager Jack Wilson and

2540-505: A great demand for new Coward plays. In 1925 he premiered Fallen Angels , a three-act comedy that amused and shocked audiences with the spectacle of two middle-aged women slowly getting drunk while awaiting the arrival of their mutual lover. Hay Fever , the first of Coward's plays to gain an enduring place in the mainstream theatrical repertoire, also appeared in 1925. It is a comedy about four egocentric members of an artistic family who casually invite acquaintances to their country house for

2667-573: A hit 1963 revival of Private Lives in London and then New York. Invited to direct Hay Fever with Edith Evans at the National Theatre , he wrote in 1964, "I am thrilled and flattered and frankly a little flabbergasted that the National Theatre should have had the curious perceptiveness to choose a very early play of mine and to give it a cast that could play the Albanian telephone directory." Other examples of "Dad's Renaissance" included

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2794-583: A night club, were financial failures. Further blows in this period were the deaths of Coward's friends Charles Cochran and Gertrude Lawrence, in 1951 and 1952 respectively. Despite his disappointments, Coward maintained a high public profile; his performance as King Magnus in Shaw's The Apple Cart for the Coronation season of 1953, co-starring Margaret Leighton , received much coverage in the press, and his cabaret act, honed during his wartime tours entertaining

2921-621: A playwright was The Rat Trap (1918) which was eventually produced at the Everyman Theatre , Hampstead , in October 1926. During these years, he met Lorn McNaughtan, who became his private secretary and served in that capacity for more than forty years, until her death. In 1920, at the age of 20, Coward starred in his own play, the light comedy I'll Leave It to You . After a three-week run in Manchester it opened in London at

3048-417: A playwright with The Vortex . The story is about a nymphomaniac socialite and her cocaine-addicted son (played by Coward). Some saw the drugs as a mask for homosexuality; Kenneth Tynan later described it as "a jeremiad against narcotics with dialogue that sounds today not so much stilted as high-heeled". The Vortex was considered shocking in its day for its depiction of sexual vanity and drug abuse among

3175-726: A rule of starring in a play for no more than three months at any venue. Design for Living , written for Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne , was so risqué, with its theme of bisexuality and a ménage à trois , that Coward premiered it in New York, knowing that it would not survive the censor in London. In 1933 Coward wrote, directed and co-starred with the French singer Yvonne Printemps in both London and New York productions of an operetta, Conversation Piece (1933). He next wrote, directed and co-starred with Lawrence in Tonight at 8.30 (1936),

3302-496: A significant figure in the history of 20th-century media. According to Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1972–2004 by Robert Elson, " Roy Edward Larsen  ... was to play a role second only to Luce's in the development of Time Inc". In his book The March of Time , 1935–1951 , Raymond Fielding also noted that Larsen was "originally circulation manager and then general manager of Time , later publisher of Life , for many years president of Time Inc., and in

3429-457: A substantial amount of space within the magazine to the 100 articles about each person on the list. In some cases, over 100 people have been included, as when two people have made the list together, sharing one spot. The magazine also compiled " All-Time 100 best novels " and " All-Time 100 Movies " lists in 2005, "The 100 Best TV Shows of All-Time" in 2007, and "All-Time 100 Fashion Icons" in 2012. In February 2016, Time mistakenly included

3556-482: A teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever , Private Lives , Design for Living , Present Laughter , and Blithe Spirit , have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over

3683-568: A tropical British colony, met with more critical success. Coward's final stage success came with Suite in Three Keys (1966), a trilogy set in a hotel penthouse suite. He wrote it as his swan song as a stage actor: "I would like to act once more before I fold my bedraggled wings." The trilogy gained glowing reviews and did good box office business in the UK. In one of the three plays, A Song at Twilight , Coward abandoned his customary reticence on

3810-719: Is a West End theatre , located in Charing Cross Road , in the City of Westminster , named after the stage actor David Garrick . It opened in 1889 with The Profligate , a play by Arthur Wing Pinero , and another Pinero play, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith , was an early success at the theatre. In its early years, the Garrick appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama . The theatre later became associated with comedies, including No Sex Please, We're British , which played for four years from 1982 to 1986. There

3937-479: Is a political comedy set in a British colony; Quadrille (1952) is a drama about Victorian love and elopement; and Nude with Violin (1956, starring John Gielgud in London and Coward in New York) is a satire on modern art and critical pretension. A revue, Sigh No More (1945), was a moderate success, but two musicals, Pacific 1860 (1946), a lavish South Seas romance, and Ace of Clubs (1950), set in

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4064-406: Is also known for the red border on its cover, introduced in 1927. The iconic red border was homaged or satirized by Seattle's The Stranger newspaper in 2010. The border has only been changed eight times since 1927: Former president Richard Nixon has been among the most frequently featured on the cover of Time , having appeared 55 times from August 25, 1952, to May 2, 1994. In October 2020,

4191-642: Is an American news magazine based in New York City . It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on March 3, 1923, and for many years it was run by its influential co-founder, Henry Luce . A European edition ( Time Europe , formerly known as Time Atlantic ) is published in London and also covers

4318-423: Is delivered to subscribers on Saturday. The magazine was published on Fridays when it began in 1923. In early 2007, the year's first issue was delayed roughly a week due to "editorial changes", including the layoff of 49 employees. In 2009, Time announced it was introducing Mine , a personalized print magazine mixing content from various Time Warner publications based on the reader's preferences. The new magazine

4445-446: Is the chairman and co-CEO of Salesforce.com , Time was to remain separate from that company, and Benioff would not be involved in the magazine's daily operations. In late April 2023, Time announced the elimination of the website's paywall effective June 1, 2023. From 1942 until 1979, Time had a Canadian edition that included an insert of five pages of locally produced content and occasional Canadian covers. Following changes in

4572-444: The 1943 Academy Awards ceremony. Coward played a naval captain, basing the character on his friend Lord Louis Mountbatten . Lean went on to direct and adapt film versions of three Coward plays. Coward's most enduring work from the war years was the hugely successful black comedy Blithe Spirit (1941), about a novelist who researches the occult and hires a medium. A séance brings back the ghost of his first wife, causing havoc for

4699-623: The Broadway theatre stimulating. He absorbed its smartness and pace into his own work, which brought him his first real success as a playwright with The Young Idea . The play opened in London in 1923, after a provincial tour, with Coward in one of the leading roles. The reviews were good: "Mr Noël Coward calls his brilliant little farce a 'comedy of youth', and so it is. And youth pervaded the Savoy last night, applauding everything so boisterously that you felt, not without exhilaration, that you were in

4826-513: The City of London . Coward was homosexual but, following the convention of his times, this was never publicly mentioned. The critic Kenneth Tynan's description in 1953 was close to an acknowledgment of Coward's sexuality: "Forty years ago he was Slightly in Peter Pan , and you might say that he has been wholly in Peter Pan ever since. No private considerations have been allowed to deflect the drive of his career; like Gielgud and Rattigan , like

4953-600: The GLC in 1968 saw the theatre under threat, together with the nearby Vaudeville , Adelphi , Lyceum , and Duchess Theatres. An active campaign by Equity , the Musicians' Union , and theatre owners under the auspices of the Save London Theatres Campaign led to the abandonment of the scheme. The gold-leaf auditorium was restored in 1986 by the stage designer Carl Toms , and in 1997 the front façade

5080-475: The Great Depression , writing a succession of popular hits. They ranged from large-scale spectaculars to intimate comedies. Examples of the former were the operetta Bitter Sweet (1929), about a woman who elopes with her music teacher, and the historical extravaganza Cavalcade (1931) at Drury Lane , about thirty years in the lives of two families, which required a huge cast, gargantuan sets and

5207-509: The Israel Defense Forces . The November 2, 2020, issue of the U.S. edition of the magazine, published the day before the 2020 United States presidential election , was the first time that the cover logo "TIME" was not used. The cover of that issue used the word "VOTE" as a replacement logo, along with artwork by Shepard Fairey of a voter wearing a pandemic face mask. The issue included information on how to vote safely during

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5334-576: The OMs , demonstrably the greatest living English playwright." Time wrote that "in the 60s... his best work, with its inspired inconsequentiality, seemed to exert not only a period charm but charm, period." By the end of the 1960s, Coward developed arteriosclerosis and, during the run of Suite in Three Keys , struggled with bouts of memory loss. This also affected his work in The Italian Job , and he retired from acting immediately afterwards. Coward

5461-561: The Savoy Hotel . During one air raid on the area around the Savoy he joined Carroll Gibbons and Judy Campbell in impromptu cabaret to distract the captive guests from their fears. Another of Coward's wartime projects, as writer, star, composer and co-director (alongside David Lean), was the naval film drama In Which We Serve . The film was popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was awarded an honorary certificate of merit at

5588-586: The diæresis (" I didn't put the dots over the 'e' in Noël. The language did. Otherwise it's not Noël but Nool!"). The press and many book publishers failed to follow suit, and his name was printed as 'Noel' in The Times , The Observer and other contemporary newspapers and books. "Why", asked Coward, "am I always expected to wear a dressing-gown, smoke cigarettes in a long holder and say 'Darling, how wonderful'?" The answer lay in Coward's assiduous cultivation of

5715-456: The "Silence Breakers", people who came forward with personal stories of sexual harassment, as Person of the Year. In recent years, Time has assembled an annual list of the 100 most influential people of the year. Originally, they had made a list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. These issues usually have the front cover filled with pictures of people from the list and devote

5842-429: The 1952 Olympics as the U.S.'s dazzling three-meter diving champion, national collegiate one-and three-meter diving champ (1951–52); in the crash of a North American FJ-3 Fury jet fighter while on a training flight; near Rantoul, Kans. A reader wrote a parody of the older form to announce the change: Died . Time's delightful but confusing habit of listing names, ages, claims to fame, and other interesting tidbits about

5969-488: The 1960s: he was no longer seen as the smooth 1930s sophisticate, but as the doyen of the theatre. As The New Statesman wrote in 1964, "Who would have thought the landmarks of the Sixties would include the emergence of Noël Coward as the grand old man of British drama? There he was one morning, flipping verbal tiddlywinks with reporters about "Dad's Renaissance"; the next he was   ... beside Forster , T. S. Eliot and

6096-681: The British propaganda office in Paris. He also worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award in 1943 for his naval film drama In Which We Serve and was knighted in 1970. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as a cabaret performer, performing his own songs, such as " Mad Dogs and Englishmen ", " London Pride ", and " I Went to

6223-861: The First World War, appearing at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1916 in The Happy Family and on tour with Amy Brandon Thomas 's company in Charley's Aunt . In 1917, he appeared in The Saving Grace , a comedy produced by Hawtrey. Coward recalled in his memoirs, "My part was reasonably large and I was really quite good in it, owing to the kindness and care of Hawtrey's direction. He took endless trouble with me   ... and taught me during those two short weeks many technical points of comedy acting which I use to this day." In 1918, Coward

6350-458: The House of Representatives , on its cover; a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the magazine's issue from February 28, 1938, in commemoration of its 15th anniversary. The cover price was 15¢ (equivalent to $ 2.68 in 2023). Following Hadden's death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time and

6477-866: The Middle East, Africa, and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition ( Time Asia ) is based in Hong Kong. The South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand , and the Pacific Islands , is based in Sydney . Since 2018, Time has been owned by Salesforce founder Marc Benioff , who acquired it from Meredith Corporation . Benioff currently publishes the magazine through the company Time USA, LLC. Time has been based in New York City since its first issue published on March 3, 1923, by Briton Hadden (1898–1929) and Henry Luce (1898–1967). It

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6604-406: The National Theatre's 2008 exhibition, The Independent commented, "His famous silk, polka-dot dressing gown and elegant cigarette holder both seem to belong to another era. But 2008 is proving to be the year that Britain falls in love with Noël Coward all over again." As soon as he achieved success he began polishing the Coward image: an early press photograph showed him sitting up in bed holding

6731-684: The New Theatre (renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in 2006), his first full-length play in the West End. Neville Cardus 's praise in The Manchester Guardian was grudging. Notices for the London production were mixed, but encouraging. The Observer commented, "Mr Coward... has a sense of comedy, and if he can overcome a tendency to smartness, he will probably produce a good play one of these days." The Times , on

6858-583: The New Theatre) in London was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in his honour in 2006. Coward was born in 1899 in Teddington , Middlesex , a south-western suburb of London. His parents were Arthur Sabin Coward (1856–1937), a piano salesman, and Violet Agnes Coward (1863–1954), daughter of Henry Gordon Veitch, a captain and surveyor in the Royal Navy . Noël Coward was the second of their three sons,

6985-701: The Queen Mother replied, "I came because he was my friend." The Noël Coward Theatre in St Martin's Lane , originally opened in 1903 as the New Theatre and later called the Albery, was renamed in his honour after extensive refurbishment, re-opening on 1 June 2006. A statue of Coward by Angela Conner was unveiled by the Queen Mother in the foyer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1998. There are also sculptures of Coward displayed in New York and Jamaica, and

7112-610: The Royal National Theatre's Lyttelton and Olivier theatres as well as the Aldwych Theatre and a season on Broadway . In 1986, the Garrick was acquired by the Stoll Moss Group , and in 2000 it became a Really Useful Theatre when Andrew Lloyd Webber 's Really Useful Group and Bridgepoint Capital purchased Stoll Moss Theatres Ltd. In October 2005, Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer purchased

7239-808: The West End: The Vortex , Fallen Angels , Hay Fever and On with the Dance . Coward was turning out numerous plays and acting in his own works and others'. Soon his frantic pace caught up with him while starring in The Constant Nymph . He collapsed and was ordered to rest for a month; he ignored the doctors and sailed for the US to start rehearsals for his play This Was a Man . In New York he collapsed again, and had to take an extended rest, recuperating in Hawaii. Other Coward works produced in

7366-540: The World in 80 Days (1956), Our Man in Havana (1959), Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), Boom! (1968) and The Italian Job (1969). Stage and film opportunities he turned down in the 1950s included an invitation to compose a musical version of Pygmalion (two years before My Fair Lady was written), and offers of the roles of the king in the original stage production of The King and I , and Colonel Nicholson in

7493-493: The actress and author Esmé Wynne-Tyson, his first collaborator and constant correspondent; Gladys Calthrop , who designed sets and costumes for many of his works; his secretary and close confidante Lorn Loraine; the actresses Gertrude Lawrence, Joyce Carey and Judy Campbell; and "his loyal and lifelong amitié amoureuse ", Marlene Dietrich . In his profession, Coward was widely admired and loved for his generosity and kindness to those who fell on hard times. Stories are told of

7620-825: The children's play Where the Rainbow Ends . Coward played in the piece in 1911 and 1912 at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End . In 1912 Coward also appeared at the Savoy Theatre in An Autumn Idyll (as a dancer in the ballet) and at the London Coliseum in A Little Fowl Play , by Harold Owen, in which Hawtrey starred. Italia Conti engaged Coward to appear at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre in 1913, and in

7747-423: The comic " Mad Dogs and Englishmen " from Words and Music , and "Mrs Worthington". With the outbreak of the Second World War Coward abandoned the theatre and sought official war work. After running the British propaganda office in Paris, where he concluded that "if the policy of His Majesty's Government is to bore the Germans to death I don't think we have time", he worked on behalf of British intelligence. His task

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7874-495: The composer Ned Rorem , who published details of their relationship in his diaries. Coward had a 19-year friendship with Prince George, Duke of Kent , but biographers differ on whether it was platonic. Payn believed that it was, although Coward reportedly admitted to the historian Michael Thornton that there had been "a little dalliance". Coward said, on the duke's death, "I suddenly find that I loved him more than I knew." Coward maintained close friendships with many women, including

8001-457: The course of the year; it is, therefore, not necessarily an honor or a reward. In the past, such figures as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin have been Man of the Year. In 2006, Person of the Year was " You ", and was met with split reviews. Some thought the concept was creative; others wanted an actual person of the year. Editors Pepper and Timmer reflected that, if it had been a mistake, "we're only going to make it once". In 2017, Time named

8128-503: The curtain calls and spitting at Coward as he left the theatre. Coward later said of this flop, "My first instinct was to leave England immediately, but this seemed too craven a move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in our minds to practically the entire population of the British Isles." By 1929 Coward was one of the world's highest-earning writers, with an annual income of £50,000, more than £3 million in terms of 2020 values. Coward thrived during

8255-618: The difficult site after an underground river was discovered in the excavation. Originally the theatre had 800 seats on four levels, but the gallery (top) level has since been closed and the seating capacity reduced to 656. The theatre's first manager was Gilbert's friend John Hare . The first play at the theatre, The Profligate , by Arthur Wing Pinero and starring Hare, opened on 24 April 1889. Sydney Grundy 's long-running French-style comedy A Pair of Spectacles opened here in February 1890. Mrs Patrick Campbell starred five years later in Pinero's The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith . Afterwards,

8382-465: The dullest Elizabethan writers ever known ... I had a very, very long part, but I was very, very bad at it". Nevertheless, The Manchester Guardian thought that Coward got the best out of the role, and The Times called the play "the jolliest thing in London". Coward completed a one-act satire, The Better Half , about a man's relationship with two women. It had a short run at The Little Theatre, London, in 1922. The critic St John Ervine wrote of

8509-412: The eldest of whom had died in 1898 at the age of six. Coward's father lacked ambition and industry, and family finances were often poor. Coward was bitten by the performing bug early and appeared in amateur concerts by the age of seven. He attended the Chapel Royal Choir School as a young child. He had little formal schooling but was a voracious reader. Encouraged by his ambitious mother, who sent him to

8636-407: The entertainment industry, and pop culture, criticizing it as too light for serious news. Time set out to tell the news through people, and until the late 1960s, the magazine's cover depicted a single person. More recently, Time has incorporated "People of the Year" issues, which have grown in popularity over the years. The first issue of Time featured Joseph G. Cannon , the retired Speaker of

8763-430: The famous newly deceased in its Milestones notices; then the circumstances of, and places where, the deaths occurred; of apparent good sentence structure; in New York. Until the mid-1970s, Time had a weekly "Listings" section with capsule summaries or reviews of current significant films, plays, musicals, television programs, and literary bestsellers similar to The New Yorker 's "Current Events" section. Time

8890-654: The film The Bridge on the River Kwai . Invited to play the title role in the 1962 film Dr. No , he replied, "No, no, no, a thousand times, no." In the same year, he turned down the role of Humbert Humbert in Lolita , saying, "At my time of life the film story would be logical if the 12-year-old heroine was a sweet little old lady." In the mid-1960s and early 1970s successful productions of his 1920s and 1930s plays, and new revues celebrating his music, including Oh, Coward! on Broadway and Cowardy Custard in London, revived Coward's popularity and critical reputation. He dubbed this comeback "Dad's Renaissance". It began with

9017-478: The first female editor-in-chief of its magazine division. In September 2013, Nancy Gibbs was named as the first female managing editor of Time magazine. In November 2017, Meredith Corporation announced its acquisition of Time, Inc., backed by Koch Equity Development . In 2017, editor and journalist Catherine Mayer , who also founded the Women's Equality Party in the UK, sued Time through attorney Ann Olivarius for sex and age discrimination. The suit

9144-556: The home front than by intelligence work: "Go and sing to them when the guns are firing – that's your job!" Coward, though disappointed, followed this advice. He toured, acted and sang indefatigably in Europe, Africa, Asia and America. He wrote and recorded war-themed popular songs, including " London Pride " and " Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans ". His London home was wrecked by German bombs in 1941, and he took up temporary residence at

9271-575: The infant radio business by broadcasting a 15-minute sustaining quiz show entitled Pop Question which survived until 1925. Then in 1928, Larsen "undertook the weekly broadcast of a 10-minute programme series of brief news summaries, drawn from current issues of Time magazine ... which was originally broadcast over 33 stations throughout the United States". Larsen next arranged for the 30-minute radio program The March of Time to be broadcast over CBS beginning on March 6, 1931. Each week,

9398-640: The king irresponsible, telling Churchill, "England doesn't wish for a Queen Cutie." Coward disliked propaganda in plays: Nevertheless, his own views sometimes surfaced in his plays: both Cavalcade and This Happy Breed are, in the words of the playwright David Edgar , "overtly Conservative political plays written in the Brechtian epic manner." In religion, Coward was agnostic. He wrote of his views, "Do I believe in God? I can't say No and I can't say Yes, To me it's anybody's guess." Coward spelled his first name with

9525-495: The late Ivor Novello, he is a congenital bachelor." Coward firmly believed his private business was not for public discussion, considering " any sexual activities when over-advertised" to be tasteless. Even in the 1960s, Coward refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly, wryly observing, "There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don't know." Despite this reticence, he encouraged his secretary Cole Lesley to write

9652-657: The long history of the corporation the most influential and important figure after Luce". Around the time, they were raising $ 100,000 from wealthy Yale University alumni, including Henry P. Davison, partner of J.P. Morgan & Co. , publicity man Martin Egan and J.P. Morgan & Co. banker Dwight Morrow; Henry Luce and Briton Hadden hired Larsen in 1922. Larsen was a Harvard University graduate, and Luce and Hadden were Yale graduates. After Hadden died in 1929, Larsen purchased 550 shares of Time Inc., using money he obtained from selling RKO stock he had inherited from his father, who

9779-502: The magazine replaced its logo with the word "Vote", explaining that "Few events will shape the world to come more than the result of the upcoming US presidential election". In 2007, Time redesigned the magazine to update and modernize the format. Among other changes, the magazine reduced the red cover border to promote featured stories, enlarged column titles, reduced the number of featured stories, increased white space around articles, and accompanied opinion pieces with photographs of

9906-557: The male author Evelyn Waugh on its "100 Most Read Female Writers in College Classes" list (he was 97th on the list). The error created much media attention and concerns about the level of basic education among the magazine's staff. Time later issued a retraction. In a BBC interview with Justin Webb , Professor Valentine Cunningham of Corpus Christi College, Oxford , described the mistake as "a piece of profound ignorance on

10033-537: The mid-to-late 1920s included the plays Easy Virtue (1926), a drama about a divorcée's clash with her snobbish in-laws; The Queen Was in the Parlour , a Ruritanian romance ; This Was a Man (1926), a comedy about adulterous aristocrats; The Marquise (1927), an eighteenth-century costume drama; Home Chat (1927), a comedy about a married woman's fidelity; and the revues On with the Dance (1925) and This Year of Grace (1928). None of these shows has entered

10160-606: The midst of a 'rag'." One critic, who noted the influence of Bernard Shaw on Coward's writing, thought more highly of the play than of Coward's newly found fans: "I was unfortunately wedged in the centre of a group of his more exuberant friends who greeted each of his sallies with 'That's a Noëlism!'" The play ran in London from 1 February to 24 March 1923, after which Coward turned to revue , co-writing and performing in André Charlot 's London Calling! In 1924, Coward achieved his first great critical and financial success as

10287-641: The names "World War I" and "World War II" in 1939, as opposed to older forms like "First World War" and "World War No. 2". The false title construction was popularized by Time and indeed is sometimes called a " Time -style adjective". Since its first issue, Time has had a "Milestones" section about significant events in the lives of famous people, including births, marriages, divorces, and deaths. Until 1967, entries in Milestones were short and formulaic. A typical example from 1956: Died . Lieut, (j.g.) David Greig ("Skippy") Browning Jr. , 24, star of

10414-707: The north coast of the island. A memorial service was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on 29 May 1973, for which the Poet Laureate , John Betjeman , wrote and delivered a poem in Coward's honour, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier read verse, and Yehudi Menuhin played Bach . On 28 March 1984 a memorial stone was unveiled by the Queen Mother in Poets' Corner , Westminster Abbey . Thanked by Coward's partner, Graham Payn , for attending,

10541-600: The novelist and his second wife. With 1,997 consecutive performances, it broke box-office records for the run of a West End comedy, and was also produced on Broadway, where its original run was 650 performances. The play was adapted into a 1945 film , directed by Lean. Coward toured during 1942 in Blithe Spirit , in rotation with his comedy Present Laughter and his working-class drama This Happy Breed . In his Middle East Diary Coward made several statements that offended many Americans. In particular, he commented that he

10668-495: The numbers from his Las Vegas act. It was followed by productions of Blithe Spirit in which he starred with Claudette Colbert , Lauren Bacall and Mildred Natwick and This Happy Breed with Edna Best and Roger Moore . Despite excellent reviews, the audience viewing figures were moderate. During the 1950s and 1960s Coward continued to write musicals and plays. After the Ball , his 1953 adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan ,

10795-432: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States . The magazine's editor-in-chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal explained this decision for a one-time cover logo change as a "rare moment, one that will separate history into before and after for generations". Time for Kids is a division magazine of Time that is specially published for children and is mainly distributed in classrooms. TFK contains some national news,

10922-704: The other hand, was enthusiastic: "It is a remarkable piece of work from so young a head – spontaneous, light, and always 'brainy'." The play ran for a month (and was Coward's first play seen in America), after which Coward returned to acting in works by other writers, starring as Ralph in The Knight of the Burning Pestle in Birmingham and then London. He did not enjoy the role, finding Francis Beaumont and his sometime collaborator John Fletcher "two of

11049-449: The part of Time magazine". During its history, on seven occasions, Time has released a special issue with a cover showing an X scrawled over the face of a man, a year, or a national symbol. The first Time magazine with an X cover was released on May 7, 1945, showing a red X over Adolf Hitler 's face which was published the week following his death . The second X cover was released more than three months later on August 20, 1945, with

11176-565: The piece, "When Mr Coward has learned that tea-table chitter-chatter had better remain the prerogative of women he will write more interesting plays than he now seems likely to write." The play was thought to be lost until a typescript was found in 2007 in the archive of the Lord Chamberlain's Office , the official censor of stage plays in the UK until 1968. In 1921, Coward made his first trip to America, hoping to interest producers there in his plays. Although he had little luck, he found

11303-610: The press. He first settled in Bermuda but later bought houses in Jamaica and Switzerland ( Chalet Covar in the village of Les Avants , near Montreux ), which remained his homes for the rest of his life. His expatriate neighbours and friends included Joan Sutherland , David Niven , Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor , and Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards in Switzerland and Ian Fleming and his wife Ann in Jamaica. Coward

11430-445: The program presented a dramatization of the week's news for its listeners; thus Time magazine itself was brought "to the attention of millions previously unaware of its existence", according to Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941 , leading to increased circulation during the 1930s. Between 1931 and 1937, Larsen's The March of Time radio program was broadcast over CBS radio, and between 1937 and 1945, it

11557-496: The public view of Coward's flamboyant lifestyle, Churchill used as his reason for withholding the honour Coward's £200 fine for contravening currency regulations in 1941. Had the Germans invaded Britain, Coward was scheduled to be arrested and killed, as he was in The Black Book along with other figures such as Virginia Woolf , Paul Robeson , Bertrand Russell , C. P. Snow and H. G. Wells . When this came to light after

11684-400: The regular repertoire, but the last introduced one of Coward's best-known songs, "A Room with a View". His biggest failure in this period was the play Sirocco (1927), which concerns free love among the wealthy. It starred Ivor Novello , of whom Coward said, "the two most beautiful things in the world are Ivor's profile and my mind". Theatregoers hated the play, showing violent disapproval at

11811-706: The same year he was cast as the Lost Boy Slightly in Peter Pan . He reappeared in Peter Pan the following year, and in 1915 he was again in Where the Rainbow Ends . He worked with other child actors in this period, including Hermione Gingold (whose mother threatened to turn "that naughty boy" out); Fabia Drake ; Esmé Wynne , with whom he collaborated on his earliest plays; Alfred Willmore, later known as Micheál Mac Liammóir ; and Gertrude Lawrence who, Coward wrote in his memoirs, "gave me an orange and told me

11938-525: The second half of 2010, Time magazine newsstand sales declined by about 12% to just over 79,000 copies per week. As of 2012, it had a circulation of 3.3 million, making it the 11th-most circulated magazine in the United States, and the second-most circulated weekly behind People . As of July 2017, its circulation was 3,028,013. In October 2017, Time cut its circulation to two million. Time currently has 1.3 million print subscribers and 250,000 digital subscribers. Time initially possessed

12065-409: The staccato, blind impulsiveness of a machine-gun. In 1955 Coward's cabaret act at Las Vegas, recorded live for the gramophone and released as Noël Coward at Las Vegas , was so successful that CBS engaged him to write and direct a series of three 90-minute television specials for the 1955–56 season. The first of these, Together With Music , paired Coward with Mary Martin , featuring him in many of

12192-531: The subject and played an explicitly homosexual character. The daring piece earned Coward new critical praise. He intended to star in the trilogy on Broadway but was too ill to travel. Only two of the Suite in Three Keys plays were performed in New York, with the title changed to Noël Coward in Two Keys , starring Hume Cronyn . Coward won new popularity in several notable films later in his career, such as Around

12319-510: The tax status of Canadian editions of American magazines, Time closed Canadian bureaus, except for Ottawa , and published identical content to the US edition but with Canadian advertising. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian edition. During the second half of 2009, the magazine had a 34.9% decline in newsstand sales. During the first half of 2010, another decline of at least one-third in Time magazine sales occurred. In

12446-559: The theatre suffered a short period of decline until it was leased by Arthur Bourchier for six years, whose wife, Violet Vanbrugh , starred in a series of successful productions ranging from farce to Shakespeare . In 1900, the theatre hosted J. M. Barrie 's The Wedding Guest . Rutland Barrington presented several stage works at the Garrick, including his popular "fairy play" called Water Babies in 1902, based on Charles Kingsley 's book , with music by Alfred Cellier , among others. The only piece actually premiered by W. S. Gilbert here

12573-416: The transition before Norman Pearlstine succeeded him in 1995. In 1989, when Time, Inc. and Warner Communications merged, Time became part of Time Warner , along with Warner Bros. In 2000, Time became part of AOL Time Warner , which reverted to the name Time Warner in 2003. In 2007, Time moved from a Monday subscription/newsstand delivery to a schedule where the magazine goes on sale Fridays and

12700-634: The troops, was a supreme success, first in London at the Café de Paris , and later in Las Vegas . The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan wrote: To see him whole, public and private personalities conjoined, you must see him in cabaret ... he padded down the celebrated stairs   ... halted before the microphone on black-suede-clad feet, and, upraising both hands in a gesture of benediction, set about demonstrating how these things should be done. Baring his teeth as if unveiling some grotesque monument, and cooing like

12827-507: The unobtrusive way in which he relieved the needs or paid the debts of old theatrical acquaintances who had no claim on him. From 1934 until 1956, Coward was the president of the Actors Orphanage , which was supported by the theatrical industry. In that capacity, he befriended the young Peter Collinson , who was in the care of the orphanage. He became Collinson's godfather and helped him to get started in show business. When Collinson

12954-596: The upper classes. Its notoriety and fiery performances attracted large audiences, justifying a move from a small suburban theatre to a larger one in the West End. Coward, still having trouble finding producers, raised the money to produce the play himself. During the run of The Vortex , Coward met Jack Wilson , an American stockbroker (later a director and producer), who became his business manager and lover. At first Wilson managed Coward's business affairs well, but later abused his position to embezzle from his employer. The success of The Vortex in both London and America caused

13081-472: The war, Coward wrote an alternative reality play, Peace in Our Time , depicting an England occupied by Nazi Germany . Coward's new plays after the war were moderately successful but failed to match the popularity of his pre-war hits. Relative Values (1951) addresses the culture clash between an aristocratic English family and a Hollywood actress with matrimonial ambitions; South Sea Bubble (1951)

13208-450: The war, Coward wrote: "If anyone had told me at that time I was high up on the Nazi blacklist, I should have laughed ... I remember Rebecca West , who was one of the many who shared the honour with me, sent me a telegram which read: 'My dear – the people we should have been seen dead with'." Churchill's view was that Coward would do more for the war effort by entertaining the troops and

13335-505: The weekend and bemuse and enrage each other's guests. Some writers have seen elements of Coward's old mentor, Mrs Astley Cooper, and her set in the characters of the family. By the 1970s the play was recognised as a classic, described in The Times as a "dazzling achievement; like The Importance of Being Earnest , it is pure comedy with no mission but to delight, and it depends purely on the interplay of characters, not on elaborate comic machinery." By June 1925 Coward had four shows running in

13462-435: The world is relatively small. On the other hand, my sense of my own importance to myself is tremendous." When a Time interviewer apologised, "I hope you haven't been bored having to go through all these interviews for your [70th] birthday, having to answer the same old questions about yourself", Coward rejoined, "Not at all. I'm fascinated by the subject." Time (magazine) Time (stylized in all caps as TIME )

13589-442: The writers. The changes were met with both criticism and praise. Time ' s most famous feature throughout its history has been the annual "Person of the Year" (formerly "Man of the Year") cover story, in which Time recognizes the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest impact on news headlines over the past 12 months. The distinction is supposed to go to the person who, "for good or ill", has most affected

13716-772: Was Harlequin and the Fairy's Dilemma (retitled The Fairy's Dilemma after a few days), a "Domestic Pantomime" (1904). In 1921, Basil Rathbone played Dr. Lawson in The Edge o' Beyond at the Garrick, and the following year Sir Seymour Hicks appeared in his own play, The Man in Dress Clothes . In 1925, Henry Daniell played there as Jack Race in Cobra and appeared there again as Paul Cortot in Marriage by Purchase in March 1932. A proposed redevelopment of Covent Garden by

13843-598: Was knighted in 1970, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature . He received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 1970. In 1972, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Sussex . At the age of 73, Coward died at his home, Firefly Estate , in Jamaica on 26 March 1973 of heart failure and was buried three days later on the brow of Firefly Hill, overlooking

13970-470: Was "less impressed by some of the mournful little Brooklyn boys lying there in tears amid the alien corn with nothing worse than a bullet wound in the leg or a fractured arm". After protests from both The New York Times and The Washington Post , the Foreign Office urged Coward not to visit the United States in January 1945. He did not return to America again during the war. In the aftermath of

14097-487: Was a successful director, he invited Coward to play a role in The Italian Job . Graham Payn also played a small role in the film. In 1926, Coward acquired Goldenhurst Farm , in Aldington, Kent , making it his home for most of the next thirty years, except when the military used it during the Second World War. It is a Grade II listed building . In the 1950s, Coward left the UK for tax reasons, receiving harsh criticism in

14224-412: Was a talented boy, God knows, and, when washed and smarmed down a bit, passably attractive. There appeared to be no earthly reason why Miss Lila Field shouldn't jump at me, and we both believed that she would be a fool indeed to miss such a magnificent opportunity. The leading actor-manager Charles Hawtrey , whom the young Coward idolised and from whom he learned a great deal about the theatre, cast him in

14351-522: Was a witness at the Flemings' wedding, but his diaries record his exasperation with their constant bickering. Coward's political views were conservative, but not unswervingly so: he despised the government of Neville Chamberlain for its policy of appeasing Nazi Germany, and he differed sharply with Winston Churchill over the abdication crisis of 1936. Whereas Churchill supported Edward VIII 's wish to marry "his cutie", Wallis Simpson , Coward thought

14478-672: Was also named a Time Inc. director and vice president. J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune . Other shareholders were Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. , and the New York Trust Company ( Standard Oil ). After Time began publishing weekly in March 1923, Roy Larsen increased its circulation by using U.S. radio and movie theaters worldwide. It often promoted both Time magazine and U.S. political and corporate interests. According to The March of Time , as early as 1924, Larsen had brought Time into

14605-462: Was broadcast over NBC radio – except between 1939 and 1941, when it was not aired. People magazine was based on Time 's "People" page. Time Inc. stock owned by Luce at the time of his death was worth about $ 109 million ($ 996 million in 2023), and it had been yielding him a yearly dividend of more than $ 2.4 million ($ 21.9 million in 2023), according to Curtis Prendergast's The World of Time Inc.: The Intimate History of

14732-508: Was conscripted into the Artists Rifles but was assessed as unfit for active service because of a tubercular tendency, and he was discharged on health grounds after nine months. That year he appeared in the D. W. Griffith film Hearts of the World in an uncredited role. He began writing plays, collaborating on the first two ( Ida Collaborates (1917) and Women and Whisky (1918)) with his friend Esmé Wynne. His first solo effort as

14859-417: Was expected of me. Part of the job." Time concluded, "Coward's greatest single gift has not been writing or composing, not acting or directing, but projecting a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise." Coward's distinctive clipped diction arose from his childhood: his mother was deaf and Coward developed his staccato style of speaking to make it easier for her to hear what he

14986-484: Was killed, and a fourth red X cover issue was published on May 20, 2011, after the death of Osama bin Laden . A fifth red X cover issue, that of Dec. 14, 2020, had a red X scrawled over the pandemic-hit year 2020 and the declaration "the worst year ever". As of 2024 , the most recent and seventh X cover issue of Time , that of Nov. 11, 2024, features a red X over the face of Yahya Sinwar following his killing by

15113-663: Was met with a poor reception, with criticism that its focus needed to be more broad to be truly personal. The magazine has an online archive with the unformatted text for every article published. The articles were indexed and converted from scanned images using optical character recognition technology. The minor errors in the text are remnants of the conversion to the digital format. In January 2013, Time Inc. announced that it would cut nearly 500 jobs – roughly 6% of its 8,000 staff worldwide. Although Time magazine has maintained high sales, its ad pages have declined significantly. Also in January 2013, Time Inc. named Martha Nelson as

15240-582: Was previously another theatre that was sometimes called the Garrick in London, in Leman Street, opened in 1831 and demolished in 1881. The new Garrick Theatre was financed in 1889 by the playwright W. S. Gilbert , the author of over 75 plays, including the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas . It was designed by Walter Emden , with C. J. Phipps brought in as a consultant to help with the planning on

15367-582: Was renovated. The theatre has mostly been associated with comedies or comedy-dramas. More recent productions are listed below and include No Sex Please, We're British (1982), which played for four years at the theatre before transferring to the Duchess Theatre in 1986. In 1995, the Royal National Theatre 's multi-award-winning production of J. B. Priestley 's An Inspector Calls opened here, having played successful seasons at

15494-409: Was resolved in 2018. In March 2018, only six weeks after the closure of the sale, Meredith announced that it would explore the sale of Time and sister magazines Fortune , Money and Sports Illustrated , since they did not align with the company's lifestyle brands. In October 2018, Meredith Corporation sold Time to Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne for $ 190 million. Although Benioff

15621-422: Was saying; it also helped him eradicate a slight lisp. His nickname, "The Master", "started as a joke and became true", according to Coward. It was used of him from the 1920s onwards. Coward himself made light of it: when asked by a journalist why he was known as "The Master", he replied, "Oh, you know – Jack of all trades, master of none." He could, however, joke about his own immodesty: "My sense of my importance to

15748-595: Was the first weekly news magazine in the United States. The two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor, respectively, of the Yale Daily News . They first called the proposed magazine Facts to emphasize brevity so a busy man could read it in an hour. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan "Take Time – It's Brief". Hadden was considered carefree and liked to tease Luce. He saw Time as important but also fun, which accounted for its heavy coverage of celebrities and politicians,

15875-536: Was the head of the Benjamin Franklin Keith theater chain in New England . However, after Briton Hadden's death, the largest Time, Inc. stockholder was Henry Luce, who ruled the media conglomerate in an autocratic fashion; "at his right hand was Larsen", Time Inc.'s second-largest stockholder, according to Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941 . In 1929, Roy Larsen

16002-505: Was the last musical he premiered in the West End; his last two musicals were first produced on Broadway. Sail Away (1961), set on a luxury cruise liner, was Coward's most successful post-war musical, with productions in America, Britain and Australia. The Girl Who Came to Supper , a musical adaptation of The Sleeping Prince (1963), ran for only three months. He directed the successful 1964 Broadway musical adaptation of Blithe Spirit , called High Spirits . Coward's late plays include

16129-417: Was to use his celebrity to influence American public and political opinion in favour of helping Britain. He was frustrated by British press criticism of his foreign travel while his countrymen suffered at home, but he was unable to reveal that he was acting on behalf of the Secret Service. In 1942 George VI wished to award Coward a knighthood for his efforts, but was dissuaded by Winston Churchill . Mindful of

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