Tony Walton
On Sunday 12th December Ken Starrett intriduced Tony Walton as this years guest to lay flowers on the statue of Sir Noël Coward in the Theatre Hall of Fame at The Gershwin Theatre. Before laying the flowers Tony made the following remarks:



MEMORIES OF NOËL COWARD
The New York Revival of NOEL COWARD’s beautiful chamber musical CONVERSATION PIECE was my Design debut here in 1957.  And – needless to say – it was just extraordinary to be making my start with this legendary gentleman, himself, supervising the production.

During rehearsals many distinguished single-named super-star chums such as MARLENE and JUDY came a-visiting Noël.  Our leading lady’s brother and his brand new bride also came by a few times as well.  Our leading lady – Joan Copeland – happened to be the younger sister of Arthur Miller – and she was proud to have him pop in to meet Noël  – especially when he brought along his freshly acquired wife – the very shy Marilyn Monroe.

“AH” I thought, in my perpetually over-stimulated state, “This is clearly what ‘working in the American Theatre’ is going to be like!” Well…and yet…  Also making his New York theatrical debut on this production was a young Musical Director, who doubled as the rehearsal pianist and was occasionally heard to mention that – one of these days he was damn well going to try and write his own musical. I wonder if he ever did. His name – as I remember – was John Kander.

Our leading man – René Paul – playing the Duc de Chaucigny-Varennes  (Noël ’s role in the original production here) had once been something of a John Gielgud look-alike – and during Gielgud’s ‘glamour years’ he had been hired as stand-by for such famous roles as “Richard of Bordeaux.” So similar did they look that on one occasion, as he left the stage door, after a performance of ‘Richard’ – he had autograph books thrust at him by several of Gielgud’s Bobby-Sox-ish fans. He signed the first with a flourish – in his own name – then moved onto the next. Whereupon, the recipient of the first autograph whined;
“Oh RATS! Gladys, have you got an eraser?”  Actually, she said,  “have you got a rubber?” Which back then and there, of course, would have been slightly less disconcerting than it might be now.

Late at night, during load-in and tech for Conversation Piece, Coward would turn – up erratically – to see how we were getting on.  Not infrequently my fiancée – currently wowing the town as Eliza in My Fair Lady – would have already arrived there – following her performance – and would be on hands and knees sewing up the hem of the Show Curtain – or some similarly down-to-earth chore.  In these instances Coward would invariably enjoy calling out

“Keep up the good work…whoever you are!” 

Prior to erupting in New York on this occasion, Coward had directed John Gielgud in Nude With Violin in London and was shortly due to star in the New York production of his play –with Gielgud now directing him in the lead role.  Gielgud was still performing the role in  the West End, so Coward decided to hold the auditions for his New York productions of  Conversation Piece and Nude With Violin simultaneously - himself.

These took place at the beautiful little Barbizon Plaza Theatre which has now – alas – been absorbed into the Trump-Whatever and no longer exists.  The Stage Managers for these joint auditions had been handling the prospective performers for each show in an overlapping and surprisingly orderly manner, when suddenly a striking young man strode past them as they hovered – looking confused and anxious -at the edge of the stage. The young man announced with élan,
“ I understand there is a gigolo in your play, Mr. Coward?!”
“Oh…well…I can’t…er,” murmured Coward , “which…ah…?”- as the young gentleman rattled on with, “so, I thought that– in view of the title of your new play – I should show you my physique.”

Whereupon he rapidly started to disrobe.

The two production teams – a few seats away from Coward – on either side of him – immediately dissolved into only half-suppressed ‘sneeze-like’ giggles.
“I’m afraid I’m not wearing anything underneath,” the young man added, as he dropped his pants and stood there entirely naked – except for his socks.

The suppressed ‘sneezes’ from those of us flanking Coward, became evermore uncontrollable as the impressively nude young man – without even a violin to cover his essentials --stood statuesquely there…for what seemed like an eternity…perhaps 20 minutes…probably 20 seconds…maybe even less, when suddenly, Coward - who had been staring straight at the lad – said politely:
“Turn a little to the left, please.”  And that young man is here today!… Better known to you as …No, alas! Just kidding.

In the current NOËL COWARD SOCIETY NEWSLETTER there is a quotation that I would like to slightly take issue with, and another with which I heartily concur.  The first is from Paul Webb – author of Ivor Novello – A Portrait of a Star, saying that Ivor and Noël  had been great rivals – “Noël  was bitchy about Ivor,” he says – and goes on to imply that Coward wrote After The Ball as a sort of “I CAN TOP ANYTHING OF HIS” response to the outpourings of adulation that followed Ivor’s death.

NO! and again NO! : - 
Ivor and Noël were always fond friends and – as you will apparently discover when Barry Day eventually publishes Coward’s collective letters – any seeming rivalry was merely a game for the benefit of outsiders. They were actually supportive and admiring of each other’s work.  Far from challenging the memory of Ivor’s operettas,  Coward had plunged into After The Ball in a post-war attempt to provide a romantic companion-piece to his own operetta Bitter Sweet – which he had triumphantly launched in 1929 – pre-dating, of course, any operetta of Ivor’s. The first of which emerged in 1934. As did I.

Incidentally, I didn’t learn until well into my 20’s that there existed, in our family, a famous theatrical forebear. The Brits – including my own family – had been hanging onto their suspicion of – and/or disapproval of – theatrical folks almost until the middle of the 20th century. (‘Theatricals’ were acknowledged to be amusing from time to time – but not as a constant diet – and certainly not to be encouraged to become members of one’s immediate family)

When it became clear to my Dad that I had irretrievably joined the theatrical profession – and might even go so far as to marry one of its leading trollops – he shyly announced to my brother, my sisters and myself that the great producer C.B Cochran (England’s answer to America’s Ziegfeld) was – in fact – his Great-Uncle.  And that he – Cochran – had, of course, produced virtually all of Coward’s triumphant early works. He went on to mention that – at Cochran’s invitation, he had been able to attend the final Dress Rehearsal of Bitter Sweet and had attended – along with his very pretty, very young ‘intended’ (my mother-to-be, as it turned out).

Not only had he proposed to this teen-age beauty – and been accepted – at this pre-opening performance of Bitter Sweet but, thereafter – during any event at which music was played – he would invariably request Coward’s great – and haunting – love song from that show: “I’ll See You Again.” And in his later years – even at one or two of Steve Ross’ immaculate evenings at the Algonquin – he and my still-striking mother would follow their request by firmly holding hands and fixedly gazing at each other while my dad plunged his free fist between his teeth and bit down hard in a vain effort to staunch the inevitable tears.
But, back to Noël  and Ivor: - the supposed rivalry between them is part and parcel of the strange impression currently being conveyed that Coward was a savagely brilliant wit, with the emphasis being placed increasingly on the ‘savage.’
Of course there were a few such moments, “Keir Dullea – Gone Tomorrow”, and so forth… and a gloriously ribald reference to Mary Ellis, the fading star of After The Ball.  (Which – if seriously pressed – or perhaps for a small stipend, I may share with a handful of you later!)  But these were anomalies and almost never uttered destructively in the presence of their target. In fact, in my own experience, while endlessly witty, Noël   was – like his deceased collaborator on After The Ball, Oscar Wilde – a profoundly kind and generous person.

My enjoyment of this recent newsletter increased substantially when I later discovered the quote from Richard Briers’ wife – Anne – mentioning that – while he “oozed charisma and star-quality” – she recalled a “wonderful, kindly side to Noël”, and had “quite fallen in love with him.”

So, here – to conclude – are two brief memories of my own – from my time working with Coward on Conversation Piece – to support Anne’s and my belief that, while always hilarious, rather than being ‘waspish’ Noël  was generally genuinely warm and caring.
And after these anecdotes I’ll ‘get off’ and let the serious business of luncheon and the ‘authentic’ entertainment get underway.

MEMORY ‘ONE’ – has to do with the fact that – having just passed the rigorous Stage Designers Union Exam as a triple-threat – Set, Costume and Lighting Designer – I had brazenly offered to light my own Conversation Piece designs, despite the fact that – other than having unexpectedly passed the Union Exam in this demanding discipline – I truly had no Lighting Design credentials at all…Heaven only knows what I was thinking!
Well, by Dress Rehearsal, I was still vainly trying to bring effective illumination to the proceedings when – from the back of the orchestra stalls – shortly before the dinner break, Coward – instead of balling me out as he should have done – rather delicately proffered a light-hearted question;   “Do we – young Tony” – (well, I was 22, at the time) “Do we – young Tony – truly believe that the weather in Brighton – in the summer of 1812 – was this murderously murky?”
I mumbled something inept – and dashed to phone the great Abe Feder (Orson Welles’ Lighting genius at the Mercury Theatre and multi-award-winning Lighting Designer for My Fair Lady, Kennedy Airport [when it was Idlewild] probably Paris and possibly even the Grand Canyon!)

Abe – gentleman of the theatre that he essentially was - had previously asked to see my work and had recommended me for admission to the Union, and now followed this earlier favour – and my desperate phone call – by hurtling to our theatre and bursting through the auditorium doors while yelling at the top of his lungs for a 10 foot ladder – all within moments of my embarrassed cry for “help!” (When I called him a ‘Gentleman’ just now, I should perhaps have added that he was a ‘Gentleman’, of the Damon Runyon variety.)
His cigar stub never leaving his mouth, Abe bellowed without pause for about 40 minutes, as all the lighting instruments were whisked by the awed electricians into ever-fresher, and more productive positions.

Noël Coward returned to the Dress Rehearsal, after dinner, and watched the proceedings with a gimlet eye. Before long, he observed (luckily within my hearing… so that I lived to tell the tale): – “Aha! The lowering clouds seem – happily – to have passed us by!” Then, more buoyantly, he added – while briskly clapping his hands:  – “So…On we go!”
…A tactful and generous way of dealing with my complete ineptitude as Lighting Designer.

But for outright and undiluted generosity, nothing could beat his behavior in my MEMORY  Number ‘TWO’ : - 
Conversation Piece had many entirely delicious ladies in the company: our ‘star’ – Joan Copeland (as I have said), the scrumptious Sasha Von Scherler, and the supremely elegant Louise Troy.  In addition – and by contrast – there was one Cherry Hardy – a lady of a certain age – who, according to Moss Hart (and Moss was devilishly insistent on this) had acted – at the very least – with one or more of the Booths.  In real life (though not in her role as the Duchess of Beneden in our production) she wore a radiantly ginger wig – to give her an aura of…well, not exactly youth…but perhaps vitality…or something of that sort.  While somewhat gaudy, this wig did not – alas – distract from the harsh fact that she seemed to have virtually no functioning memory at all.  In fact, her command of her dialogue at the final Dress Rehearsal was so non-existent that Coward could be observed – in agony in his orchestra seat – twisting his longish limbs into a progression of ever-more pretzel-like contortions.

Those of us in the front of the house with him during this were truly afraid of how he might confront our poor dithering Duchess during the ‘note session’ that he habitually called for at the end of each evening.  His technique for these ‘sessions’ was to assemble the company on stage in a long line – from wing to wing. He would then “walk the line” like an Admiral inspecting his Crew – and offer marvels of concise direction – and small staging suggestions – to each of his actors as he moved – very slowly – along.  To our ‘Melanie’ (Joan Copeland) he offered two or three brilliantly “nuts and boltsy” comments that she immediately – and most gratefully – absorbed.  Next in line was our quivering Duchess of Beneden – the brain-locked Cherry – white with terror and barely able to stand.  Coward took a leisurely step back and stared for a moment or two, straight at her – until her quiver became a veritable earthquake;  “As for you – my Cherry of Cherries – ” he cheerfully sang out “ It gives me such extreme pleasure to see you back ‘on the boards’ again…that I don’t believe I have anything else to offer!”  And on he majestically sailed to the next actor.

Once out of his sightline, Cherry Hardy collapsed into the arms of Joan Copeland – gasping “Did you hear?...Did you hear what he said??!” And –  though it would be fun to add that she never again remembered one single word of her dialogue – in fact(you will probably not be surprised to hear)  she underwent this astonishing resurgence of confidence almost immediately – and barely ever screwed-up from then on!  Of course, one could presume that this was merely an act of extreme actor-to-actor ‘savvy-ness’ on Noël ’s part – but if you had witnessed the degree of his distress immediately prior to ‘walking the line,’ you could only marvel at the astonishing ‘well of kindness’ and generosity he had at his command.

I consider myself honoured beyond measure to have made my New York design debut under his aegis.

So Thank you Noël !

And Thank you all.