”A uniquely charming and enticing journey through a remarkable life.
Coward”s own record is made all the more delightful by the wise and
helpful interpolations of Barry Day, the soundest authority on the
Master that there is.” Stephen Fry
”Precise, witty, remarkably observed and gloriously English” Dame Judi Dench
”Barry Day”s analysis is both perceptive and irresistible” Lord Richard Attenborough
With virtually all the letters in this volume previously unpublished –
this is a revealing new insight into the private life of a legendary
figure. Coward”s multi-faceted talent as an actor, writer, composer,
producer and even as a war-time spy(!), brought him into close contact
with the great, the good and the merely ambitious in film, literature
and politics.With letters to and from the likes of: George Bernard
Shaw, Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill, Greta Garbo (she wrote asking
him to marry her), Marlene Dietriech, Ian Fleming, Graham Greene,
Evelyn Waugh, Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, FD Roosevelt, the Queen
Mother and many more, the picture that emerges is a series of vivid
sketches of Noel Coward”s private relationships, and a re-examination
of the man himself.
Deliciously insightful, witty, perfectly bitchy,
wise, loving and often surprisingly moving, this extraordinary
collection gives us Coward at his crackling best. A sublime portrait of
a unique artist who made an indelible mark on the 20th century, from
the Blitz to the Ritz and beyond.