Graham Payn first met Noel Coward at age 13, when he auditioned for the playwright by tap dancing while singing "Nearer My God to Thee." He became Coward's longtime companion. So perhaps Payn knew better than anyone the personal side of Noel Coward, whose public personae had the trappings of an enchanted life but whose private life has been more difficult to capture. "His manner created distance between himself and those who would approach him." Payn says. This biography helps give a portrait of the playwright and tells of his vast accomplishments. The book should help keep Coward's work alive.

From Publishers Weekly
Payn, who performed as an actor and singer in several Coward plays, lived with the playwright as part of his extended family for 30 years and now administers his estate. Written with Barry Day, an advertising executive, this effusively affectionate memoir of Coward (1899-1973), best known for his sophisticated comedies (Blithe Spirit, Private Lives), is a giddily gossipy account of the luminary's long theatrical career and glittering social life. Renowned actors-Beatrice Lillie, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurence Olivier and Lunt and Fontaine-performed in Coward plays and were also friendly with Payn. Drawing on Coward's diaries and his own recollections, Payn reveals some unflattering details and settles a few scores (e.g., Rex Harrison was tiresome offstage, and Beatrice Lillie forgot her lines). The memoir includes a transcript of a 1961 conversation between Coward and Judy Garland, as well as previously unpublished essays by Coward on the theater. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
While he was alive, Noel Coward the urbane public wit often overshadowed Coward the accomplished writer who was responsible for such twentieth-century masterpieces as Private Lives, Hay Fever, and Blithe Spirit. Happily, art, like murder, will out. In the 21 years since his death, Coward's reputation as a playwright has grown. Payn's loving, immensely likable memoir of his longtime friend will not change public perceptions of Coward. It contains no dirt about the man or his unofficial family. The readable, sometimes digressive remembrance does, however, provide an interesting, often tartly witty portrait of Coward during the most difficult years of his life, the period just after World War II when his work and "Cowardy" style was suddenly unfashionable. Students of theater will find especially fascinating the master's previously unpublished essays with which Payn concludes the book; they include Coward's famous series of blistering (London) Sunday Times articles attacking the fashionable "experimental work" of the post-World War II British playwrights. Jack Helbig

From Book News, Inc.
Graham Payn, a close friend of Coward's for some 30 years, writes a loving, engagingly gossipy portrait of Coward's life, career, and numerous fascinating friends. Liberally interspersed with excerpts from Coward's work and personal diaries, including previously unpublished theater writings, it also contains many fine b&w photographs. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Book Description
This is the definitive memoir of the private Noel Coward by the only man with the compassionate insight and first-hand experience to write it. Graham Payn, star of many of Coward's shows, shared the Master's professional and private life for thirty years. When Coward kept the rest of the world at bay, Payn remained at his side as confidant and friend. No one else was as privy to Coward's doubts and dreams.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Other men made fabulous careers out of the opportunities Noel Coward declined. But Coward's inner compass charted him on his own course to greatness. And when he couldn't find the destination on his maps, he invented Samolo, his own South Sea island complete with its own indigenous rituals and customs. And of course, we revisit Coward's worlds constantly in revivals of his classic plays, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Tonight at 8:30, Design for Living and Blithe Spirit. This is the definitive memoir of the private Noel Coward by the only man with the compassionate insight and first-hand experience to write it. Graham Payn, star of many of Coward's shows, shared the Master's professional and private life for thirty years. When Coward kept the rest of the world at bay, Payn remained at his side as confidant and friend. No one else was as privy to Coward's doubts and dreams.

FROM THE CRITICS

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