Biography Essay

Noel Coward was, after George Bernard Shaw, modern England's most prolific writer for the London stage. Throughout a career that spanned more than half a century, Coward was associated with the luminaries of the theater. He developed a witty, sharp, and scintillating comedic style that embraced not only the performance techniques, but the volatile offstage personalities of such formidable figures as Gertrude Lawrence, Beatrice Lillie, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, John Mills, Ann Castle, Angela Baddeley, John Gielgud, Gladys Cooper, Claudette Colbert, Dandy Nichols, Alan Badel, Mary Martin, Cyril Ritchard, Fay Compton, Margaret Rutherford, Kay Hammond, Peggy Wood, Alan Webb, Irene Worth, Sybil Thorndike, Kay Kendall, Edith Evans, Lilli Palmer, Tallulah Bankhead, Raymond Massey, Margaret Leighton, Tammy Grimes, and Michael Redgrave. In addition to his stage plays, his work as lyricist and composer was taken up by leading talents in London and New...