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.
