Person    | Male  Born 16/12/1899  Died 26/3/1973

Sir Noel Coward

Actor, playwright, composer, film director, author, singer. Born Helmsdale, 5 Waldegrave Road, Teddington. Died at home in Jamaica, where he was buried.

Obsessed with the theatre, he was a child actor, encouraged by his artistic mother. Conscripted into the Artists Rifles in WW1 and discharged after 5 months due to a nervous disability. 1924 saw his first hit with 'The Vortex' and within a year he had 4 shows running simultaneously in the West End, and he was still living at his family's boarding house in Ebury Street (no plaque). He travelled frequently, never apparently happy anywhere for long.

Plays include: 'Private Lives' and 'Blithe Spirit'. The film 'Brief Encounter' was based on his play. Songs include: 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen'. On the film 'In Which We Serve' Coward was writer, actor, composer and co-director. Acted in the original 1969 'Italian Job' film.

Early in WW2 he used his influence to encourage US involvement in the war, but his efforts to work for British intelligence were rejected. In the 1941 Blitz he wrote and sang the lovely 'London Pride' ('is a flower that's free').

Coward's homosexuality was an open secret, which, given its illegality at the time, was all it could be.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Sir Noel Coward

Commemorated ati

Duchess Theatre

Duchess Theatre The Duchess Theatre began a distinguished career as a home f...

Read More

Sir Noel Coward - Gerald Road

Sir Noel Coward, author, composer and actor, lived here, 1930-1956.

Read More

Sir Noel Coward - Sutton

Sir Noel Coward 1899 - 1973 dramatist, actor and composer. Noel Coward lived ...

Read More

Sir Noel Coward - TW1

Sir Noel Coward, 1899 - 1973, actor, playwright and songwriter, born here. En...

Read More

Other Subjects

Anna Neagle

Anna Neagle

Actor. Born Florence Marjorie Robertson in Forest Gate, Essex. After appearing in the chorus of several revues, she changed her name and had her first significant film part in 'Goodnight Vienna' in...

Person, Cinema, Theatre

1 memorial
Ken Loach

Ken Loach

Born Warwickshire.  Socialist film director.  Work includes: Z-Cars (TV), Kes, The Wind that Shakes the Barley.

Person, Cinema, Seriously Famous, TV & Radio

1 memorial
Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge

Photographer and motion picture pioneer. Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames. He changed his name, probably inspired by the recent discovery in Kingston of a Saxon coronation stone...

Person, Cinema, Photography, USA

3 memorials
Stephen Frears

Stephen Frears

Film and television director. Born Stephen Arthur Frears in Leicester. His many works include My Beautiful Laundrette, 'Prick up Your Ears' and 'The Queen'.  He had worked with The Scaffold early i...

Person, Cinema, TV & Radio

1 memorial
Gregory Augustus Daymond

Gregory Augustus Daymond

Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Augustus Daymond was born on 25 November 1920 in Great Falls, Cascade County, Montana, USA. From the American Air Museum in Britain website we learn that he grew up in Ne...

Person, Armed Forces, Cinema, USA

War served, WW2
1 memorial