SHYNESS OF ACTOR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 281, 27 November 1936, Page 10

SHYNESS OF ACTOR

[INTERVIEW WITH NOEL COWARD ! POSSIBLE AUSTRALIAN VISIT j I have just returned from half an hour spent in the company of the most , remarkable young man connected .with the English stage of modern limes, writes Nell Murray in the Melbourne Herald. Noel Coward is one of the most difficult personalities to interview that 1 have yet encountered. Volatile and sensit.ve to a degree, he seeks refuge against the stranger behind a wall of shyness and reserve—a wall on which all the years of mixing with cosmopolitan people has failed to make an impression. Yet with his own personal circle of friends, he is the soul of informality and gaiety. That circle is very small. Coward does not readily admit people to intimacy. This fortunate young man is easily the richest in the theatrical world today. His friends declare that he •.imply cannot estimate the amount of his fortune. If he wishes, he might never do another stroke of work and still live in luxury for the rest of his life. But his heart and soul are in the theatre, and that is why, after roaming half over the world in search of inspiration for his plans- London or New York will always see him at regular intervals, working at top speed on a new production. He has just returned from a trip to Venice, the Dalmatian coast, and | Egypt, and is busy with rehearsals for "Mademoiselle,” the English version of Jacques Duval’s famous play, which goes on in lhe West End next month with a brilliant cast. After that, he will be taking the series of nine short plays, “To-night at 8.30," to New York, with the complete cast which was such a success in London earl’:er in the year. "And then?” Mr. Coward paced back and forth [nervously between the two grand [pianos, which stand, one at each end. lon the raised dais of his studio workroom. ■ “More I ravelling, I suppose," he re|plied. "My last long trip was to South America the one before that, Japan and China and the East. But I never make up my mind in advance—just wander where lhe fancy takes me.” It is possible that Mr. Coward’s next trip may take in Australia. He was nearest to it when he was in Bali last year—lhe glamorous island south of Java, where he stayed for some weeks with an American writer friend. Australia is one of lhe few 7 countries he has not yet visited; and he speaks I vaguely of going south to Cuba and Panama, and then turning west toward the South Sea islands. I If so, then Australians will find !themselves under merciless observation for fill ure “copy” -and heaven I help them if Noel Coward does not lake a I king lo them! His rapier wii can be scathing, and he does not hesitate in satirising personalilies in all lhe social scale, high I One of his pel "botes noir” is the I hearty “huntin’, shootin’, and fish.n’” | Englishman; and he detests the traditional peppery Anglo-Indian colonel type. Reading is his one great passion and recreation. When he travels he takes with him crates of books, and seldom mixes with his fellow-passengers. Society London beauties have given up Irving to lure Noel Coward lo smart parties, for he simply refuses to be lionised. Romantic attachments do not seem to enter into his life at all, [and it is generally assumed that he 'will never marry. Besides Goldenhurt Farm, he has a charming studio-home just off Eaton square, in London, and it is here that iall his work is done. ! The twin grand pianos in his studio I are there because he works always I with an "arranger,” an expert who completes the rough-out tunes which Mr. Coward evolves as he goes along. The room itself is most unusual in shape, for half one end of it is given over to a quaint room built above, which is Mr. Coward’s bedroom. It is reached by a little winding staircase in one corner, and has windows looking down on the studio on one side, and windows to the garden on the other. It is decorated throughout in pale cream colour, with vivid splashes of colour provided by lhe souvenirs which Mr. Coward* has brought, back from his world wander lings—ltaly, Spain, Mexico, Java, Bali, and the East. Here he likes to cnlertain select little supper parties after the show. He :s seldom to be seen in the smart night life resorts of Mayfair. —— Did You Know That—? Jimmie Ellison, whom most theatregoers will know as Johnny Nelson in the Clarence E. Mulford Westerns, which Paramount has produced, has been selected by Cecil B. DeMille to play the role of Buffalo Bill in Paramount’s forthcoming “The Plainsmen.”