Noël Coward for beginners

Fragments to follow.

“Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.” It’s fine. I hope it’s the last one.

As work vehicles for Hugh Bonneville go, it's almost as suitably cozy as the Paddington movies, and there are now three of both. If we're to vote on which one gets a fourth, I'll go with Paddington. At this point in history a talking, marmalade-and-manners-obsessed bear seems more plausible than the existence of extremely kind billionaires.

Anyway, Noël Coward is a character in the new installment, played by the actor Arty Froushan. In the film Coward comes to the Great House, pals with the gay actor character played by Dominic West, who in turn is the secret lover of former butler Thomas Barrow. Barrow was my favorite Downton character. He was a Treacherous Gay, a man who turned his closeted rage into proactive homo-villainy. As the TV series went on and the characters trended toward righteousness and eliciting empathy, Barrow became boring. He had to find love and so he found love and every aristocrat he tried to ruin before he found love supported him on his journey. Here, we see Barrow and Actor expressing tender affection with period-appropriate discretion. Lady Mary can fuck a dude to death (season one) but the gays get hugs. Coward, however, gets to be a proper arch queen, and to its credit the film knows that the real-life Coward was already earning that distinction for himself.

Texting several queer friends, all age 25 to 45:

Me: What do you know about Noël Coward?

Friend 1: Nothing.

Me: But you’ve heard of him?

Friend 1: The name sounds familiar. Is that the musician you’re seeing Thursday night? (I saw live music on that particular Thursday night. Not Noël Coward.)

Me: He’s long dead.

Friend 1: Oh. Well, I’m sure I’ve heard you say the name, but, like, I only listen to about a quarter of what you say.

Same question posed to a handful of other friends. A mixed collection of responses:

Friend 2: “The Importance of Being Earnest"?

Friend 3: Name sounds familiar…

Friend 4: Writer?

Friend 5: Legendary fag. That’s all I know.

Friend 2, again: Oh wait! “Blithe Spirit!”

It’s been a Noël Coward couple of weeks in our home. We come back from a recent Sunday afternoon screening of "Boom!" at the Academy Museum and are, as usual (this is a repeat visit to the unhinged Joseph Losey art film), talking about Noël Coward when not obsessing over the current whereabouts of Elizabeth Taylor’s gigantic headdress (the 23:30 mark when you click here).

Coward plays “The Witch of Capri,” a role that was apparently turned down by Katherine Hepburn, and in this capacity he 1) receives a piggyback ride on the shoulders of a sailor who carries him up to Taylor’s weird all-white villa that's equal parts mansion, hospice, and cave, then 2) randomly flirts with Richard Burton and 3) rhapsodizes about the intimate fragrances of women.

We watch "Mad About The Boy: The Noël Coward Story," Barnaby Thompson’s 2023 documentary. I learn how little I know about this man aside from a life of casually gleaned bits and pieces from the outsized queer atmosphere surrounding his existence. I knew "prolific English playwright, actor, composer, singer." I knew about “Private Lives.” I’d seen the film “Blithe Spirit” and, obviously, “Boom!” I’d picked up an old used copy of “Noël Coward at Las Vegas” when I worked at a record store in the 1990s. I knew “Pool Little Rich Girl” (a song his character sings for Lady Mary in “The Grand Finale”). For someone my age I knew enough and not enough.

I also knew my husband Alonso Duralde's book, "Hollywood Pride." and I should because I was his first copy editor, which covers the most satisfying part of the documentary: Coward worked for British intelligence during World War II. His cover was homosexual dazzle camouflage. His public image – sophisticated, frivolous, rich, unconcerned, delivering witty remarks about everything and singing satirical songs like “Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to The Germans” – made sure the press repeatedly scolded him for unserious behavior, as though he were a real life Treacherous Gay, even as he was marked for death by the Nazis in The Black Book. Old queers, especially one like Coward whose relationship with the closet was a half-in-half-out affair, were just better at keeping secrets.

I watch "Our Man in Havana." Nearly 15 years after the war, he co-starred in the 1959 Carol Reed film based on the satirical Graham Greene novel. It’s a spy comedy that begins with a sweaty scene of heterosexual cruising, and quickly detours into a series of queer-coded scenarios as it tells the story of a vacuum cleaner salesman in Cuba tasked by British intelligence with delivering dangerous information. It stars (the reportedly bisexual) Alec Guinness as the salesman and Coward as the recruiting officer.

Comedic sequences involve Guinness attempting to lure gentlemen into restrooms to initiate them into the spy game. Naturally his actions are misinterpreted and depicted in ways – the script is full of the double-meaning language of “discretion” and “proposition” – that must have pushed against the limits of the censors. “Don’t touch me again,” says one mark. Recruit. Initiate. Innuendo run amok.

More: Later in the film, Coward shows up in the home office with a wilted orchid in his lapel, something left over from The Night Before. When asked about it, he demurs and quickly discards the flower. This joke is never explained but Coward’s very presence is a long-practiced wink directly into the camera. A superspy flaunting his skill.

More: The album cover of "at Las Vegas." A man in a tuxedo standing in a desert drinking a cup of tea. A pianist who is not Liberace, with the intelligence to outwit his oppressors, taking money from tourists and telling jokes they don't quite get.

More: The Witch of Capri, seemingly for no reason, laying this one on the table: "In my heart beats blood that is not my blood, but the blood of anonymous blood donors." What does that sentence mean, and why is it spoken? Is he a transfusion enthusiast, envious of the dying Taylor's glamorous medical regimen? An actual vampire? A legendary fag just telling you about his day? Go with all of the above. More dazzle.