Noel Coward
Nokl Coward was a master playwright, a composer/lyricist, a filmmaker, a novelist and diarist, and a talented actor and performer. In researching this book, Philip Hoare interviewed dozens of Coward`s surviving contemporaries--friends, as well as enemies. He received cooperation form the Coward Estate and was given unprecedented access to the private papers and correspondence of Coward. This is the first book to deal openly with Coward`s homosexuality and the degree to which it influenced his work, although to his death Coward remained wary of discussing it publicly. The result is a record of the public profile and private life of one of the 20th century`s most celebrated--and still controversial--figures. Above all, it is a great story, as Coward progresses from a childhood of middle-class respectability to the world`s stage and unparalleled social success.

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