151-460: Edith Norma Shearer (August 11, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated women. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward , Eugene O'Neill , and William Shakespeare , and was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, winning Best Actress for The Divorcee (1930). Reviewing Shearer's work, Mick LaSalle called her
302-513: A B-movie titled The Stealers (1920). In January 1923, Shearer received an offer from Louis B. Mayer Pictures , a studio in Northeast Los Angeles that was run by a small-time producer, Louis B. Mayer . Irving Thalberg had moved to Louis B. Mayer Pictures as vice president on February 15, 1923, but had already sent a telegram to Shearer's agent, inviting her to come to the studio. After three years of hardship, she found herself signing
453-425: A baritone dove, he gave us "I'll See You Again" and the other bat's-wing melodies of his youth. Nothing he does on these occasions sounds strained or arid; his tanned, leathery face is still an enthusiast's.... If it is possible to romp fastidiously, that is what Coward does. He owes little to earlier wits, such as Wilde or Labouchere . Their best things need to be delivered slowly, even lazily. Coward's emerge with
604-455: A feminist pioneer, or "the exemplar of sophisticated modern womanhood and ... the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen". Shearer was of Scottish, English, and Irish descent. Her childhood was spent in Montreal , where she was educated at Montreal High School for Girls and Westmount High School . Her life was one of privilege, due to
755-429: A "dog", and criticized her crossed eyes and stubby legs. She continued doing the rounds with her determination undimmed: "I learned that Universal Pictures was looking for eight pretty girls to serve as extras. Athole and I showed up and found 50 girls ahead of us. An assistant casting director walked up and down looking us over. He passed up the first three and picked the fourth. The fifth and sixth were unattractive, but
906-523: A 1968 Off-Broadway production of Private Lives at the Theatre de Lys starring Elaine Stritch , Lee Bowman and Betsy von Furstenberg , and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly . Despite this impressive cast, Coward's popularity had risen so high that the theatre poster for the production used an Al Hirschfeld caricature of Coward ( pictured above ) instead of an image of the production or its stars. The illustration captures how Coward's image had changed by
1057-477: A break in filming and standing shrewdly near a powerful arc light, Shearer introduced herself to Griffith and began to confide her hopes for stardom. "The Master looked down at me, studied my upturned face in the glare of the arc, and shook his eagle head. Eyes no good, he said. A cast in one and far too blue; blue eyes always looked blank in close-up. You'll never make it, he declared, and turned solemnly away." Still undeterred, Shearer risked some of her savings on
1208-855: A bust of him in the library in Teddington, near where he was born. In 2008 an exhibition devoted to Coward was mounted at the National Theatre in London. The exhibition was later hosted by the Museum of Performance & Design in San Francisco and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills , California. In June 2021 an exhibition celebrating Coward opened at the Guildhall Art Gallery in
1359-584: A cabaret performer, performing his own songs, such as " Mad Dogs and Englishmen ", " London Pride ", and " I Went to a Marvellous Party ". Coward's plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. He did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality, but it was discussed candidly after his death by biographers including Graham Payn , his long-time partner, and in Coward's diaries and letters, published posthumously. The former Albery Theatre (originally
1510-707: A call summoning her to Thalberg's office. She entered to find Thalberg sitting at his desk before a tray of diamond engagement rings. He granted her the option to choose her own ring; she picked out the biggest. After weeks of rumors, provoked by wearing the ring, it was announced in August 1927 that they were to wed. On September 29, 1927, they were married in the Hollywood wedding of the year. Shearer had two children with Thalberg – Irving Thalberg, Jr. (1930–1987), and Katherine (1935–2006). Before they were married, Shearer converted to Judaism so she could marry Thalberg. One week after
1661-476: A carefully crafted image. As a suburban boy who had been taken up by the upper classes he rapidly acquired the taste for high life: "I am determined to travel through life first class." He first wore a dressing gown onstage in The Vortex and used the fashion in several of his other famous plays, including Private Lives and Present Laughter . George Walden identifies him as a modern dandy . In connection with
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#17330942072421812-428: A child suddenly appears shortly before its death. Other cuts removed scenes where society women smoke cigarettes and an intertitle with the euphemism "wild oats." Although it was Griffith's most expensive film to date, it was also one of his most commercially successful. Way Down East is the fourth-highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $ 4.5 million at the box office in 1920. The picture
1963-459: A cigarette holder: "I looked like an advanced Chinese decadent in the last phases of dope." Soon after that, Coward wrote: He soon became more cautious about overdoing the flamboyance, advising Cecil Beaton to tone down his outfits: "It is important not to let the public have a loophole to lampoon you." However, Coward was happy to generate publicity from his lifestyle. In 1969 he told Time magazine, "I acted up like crazy. I did everything that
2114-558: A combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise". Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever , Private Lives , Design for Living , Present Laughter , and Blithe Spirit , have remained in
2265-551: A complex hydraulic stage. Its 1933 film adaptation won the Academy Award for best picture. Coward's intimate-scale hits of the period included Private Lives (1930) and Design for Living (1932). In Private Lives , Coward starred alongside his most famous stage partner, Gertrude Lawrence, together with the young Laurence Olivier . It was a highlight of both Coward's and Lawrence's career, selling out in both London and New York. Coward disliked long runs, and after this he made
2416-439: A consultation with Dr. William Bates , a pioneer in the treatment of strabismus . He wrote out a series of muscle-strengthening exercises that after many years of daily practice would successfully conceal Shearer's cast for long periods of time on the screen. She spent hours in front of the mirror, exercising her eyes and striking poses that concealed or improved the physical flaws noted by Ziegfeld or Griffith. At night, she sat in
2567-460: A contract. It called for $ 250 a week for six months, with options for renewal and a test for a leading role in a major film called The Wanters . Shearer left New York around February 17. Accompanied by her mother, she felt "dangerously sure of herself" as her train neared Los Angeles. When she was not welcomed, even an hour after her arrival, she realized that there would be no star treatment from her new studio. Dispirited, she allowed Edith to hail
2718-489: A cycle of ten short plays, presented in various permutations across three evenings. One of these plays, Still Life , was expanded into the 1945 David Lean film Brief Encounter . Tonight at 8.30 was followed by a musical, Operette (1938), from which the most famous number is "The Stately Homes of England", and a revue entitled Set to Music (1938, a Broadway version of his 1932 London revue, Words and Music ). Coward's last pre-war plays were This Happy Breed ,
2869-601: A dance academy in London, Coward's first professional engagement was in January 1911 as Prince Mussel in the children's play The Goldfish . In Present Indicative , his first volume of memoirs, Coward wrote: One day ... a little advertisement appeared in the Daily Mirror .... It stated that a talented boy of attractive appearance was required by a Miss Lila Field to appear in her production of an all-children fairy play: The Goldfish. This seemed to dispose of all argument. I
3020-404: A director. It worked. I became tearful, but obstinate. 'I'll show you!' I said to him. 'You'll see!' Delighted, Mayer resumed the paternal act. 'That's what I wanted to hear', he said, smiling." Returning to the set, Shearer plunged into an emotional scene. "I took that scene lock, stock, and barrel, fur, fins and feathers", she remembered, earning her the respect of her director and her studio. As
3171-772: A divorce and the disapproval of MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer caused Shearer to end the affair. Following her retirement in 1942, she married Martin Arrougé (March 23, 1914 – August 8, 1999), a World War II Navy aviator, a former ski instructor to her children, 11 years her junior. Despite often attending public events in her later life, Shearer gradually withdrew from the Hollywood social scene. In 1960, her secretary stated: "Miss Shearer does not want any publicity. She doesn't talk to anyone. But I can tell you that she has refused many requests to appear in motion pictures and TV shows." Arrougé and Shearer remained married until her death. On June 12, 1983, Shearer died of bronchial pneumonia at
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#17330942072423322-403: A drama about a working-class family, and Present Laughter , a comic self-caricature with an egomaniac actor as the central character. These were first performed in 1942, although they were both written in 1939. Between 1929 and 1936 Coward recorded many of his best-known songs for His Master's Voice (HMV), now reissued on CD, including the romantic " I'll See You Again " from Bitter Sweet ,
3473-473: A famous mop, for dental paste and for soft drink, holding my mouth in a whistling pose until it all but froze that way." She became the new model for Kelly-Springfield Tires, was bestowed with the title "Miss Lotta Miles" and depicted seated inside the rim of a tire, smiling down at traffic from a large floodlit billboard. Finally, a year after her arrival in New York, she received a break in film: fourth billing in
3624-458: A farce, Look After Lulu! (1959), and a tragi-comic study of old age, Waiting in the Wings (1960), both of which were successful despite "critical disdain". Coward argued that the primary purpose of a play was to entertain, and he made no attempt at modernism, which he felt was boring to the audience although fascinating to the critics. His comic novel, Pomp and Circumstance (1960), about life in
3775-403: A few mildly dirty stories, and I loved her from then onwards." In 1914, when Coward was fourteen, he became the protégé and probably the lover of Philip Streatfeild , a society painter. Streatfeild introduced him to Mrs Astley Cooper and her high society friends. Streatfeild died from tuberculosis in 1915, but Mrs Astley Cooper continued to encourage her late friend's protégé, who remained
3926-456: A frank biography once Coward was safely dead. Coward's most important relationship, which began in the mid-1940s and lasted until his death, was with the South African stage and film actor Graham Payn. Coward featured Payn in several of his London productions. Payn later co-edited with Sheridan Morley a collection of Coward's diaries, published in 1982. Coward's other relationships included
4077-734: A frequent guest at her estate, Hambleton Hall in Rutland. Coward continued to perform during most of the First World War, appearing at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1916 in The Happy Family and on tour with Amy Brandon Thomas 's company in Charley's Aunt . In 1917, he appeared in The Saving Grace , a comedy produced by Hawtrey. Coward recalled in his memoirs, "My part was reasonably large and I
4228-506: A great demand for new Coward plays. In 1925 he premiered Fallen Angels , a three-act comedy that amused and shocked audiences with the spectacle of two middle-aged women slowly getting drunk while awaiting the arrival of their mutual lover. Hay Fever , the first of Coward's plays to gain an enduring place in the mainstream theatrical repertoire, also appeared in 1925. It is a comedy about four egocentric members of an artistic family who casually invite acquaintances to their country house for
4379-562: A hit 1963 revival of Private Lives in London and then New York. Invited to direct Hay Fever with Edith Evans at the National Theatre , he wrote in 1964, "I am thrilled and flattered and frankly a little flabbergasted that the National Theatre should have had the curious perceptiveness to choose a very early play of mine and to give it a cast that could play the Albanian telephone directory." Other examples of "Dad's Renaissance" included
4530-404: A kind of taut, nervous energy, that she is apt to overtax her strength. She will play a long, exhausting scene over and over again without appearing to lose an atom of her freshness and verve. When it is over she will tell you she feels fine—and believe it. Then she will go to her dressing room and collapse. If one worked her as hard as she seems to want to work, she would be worn out before the film
4681-453: A minor role. She accepted her next role in Pleasure Mad , knowing "it was well understood that if I didn't deliver in this picture, I was through". After only a few days of shooting, things were not looking good. Shearer was struggling. Finally, the film's director complained to Mayer that he could get nothing out of the young actress, and when summoned to Mayer's office, she fully expected
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4832-575: A night club, were financial failures. Further blows in this period were the deaths of Coward's friends Charles Cochran and Gertrude Lawrence, in 1951 and 1952 respectively. Despite his disappointments, Coward maintained a high public profile; his performance as King Magnus in Shaw's The Apple Cart for the Coronation season of 1953, co-starring Margaret Leighton , received much coverage in the press, and his cabaret act, honed during his wartime tours entertaining
4983-402: A one-act satire, The Better Half , about a man's relationship with two women. It had a short run at The Little Theatre, London, in 1922. The critic St John Ervine wrote of the piece, "When Mr Coward has learned that tea-table chitter-chatter had better remain the prerogative of women he will write more interesting plays than he now seems likely to write." The play was thought to be lost until
5134-509: A party at San Simeon in her Marie Antoinette costume; Davies said she was not about to remove the door so Shearer could enter, so Norma made her grand entrance through wider doors leading from another room. Four chairs were arranged so she could sit at the table in her voluminous skirts. George Cukor, who directed Shearer in Romeo and Juliet , offered this character sketch of the actress: “I found that Norma Shearer, when I made Romeo and Juliet ,
5285-581: A phone call from Thalberg's secretary, asking if she would like to accompany Thalberg to the premiere of Chaplin 's The Gold Rush . That night, they made their first appearance as a couple. A few weeks later, Shearer went to Montreal to visit her father. While there, she had a reunion with an old school friend, who remembered: "At the end of lunch, over coffee, Norma leant in across the table. 'I'm madly in love', she whispered. 'Who with?' I asked. 'With Irving Thalberg', she replied, smiling. I asked how Thalberg felt. 'I hope to marry him', Norma said, and then, with
5436-419: A playwright with The Vortex . The story is about a nymphomaniac socialite and her cocaine-addicted son (played by Coward). Some saw the drugs as a mask for homosexuality; Kenneth Tynan later described it as "a jeremiad against narcotics with dialogue that sounds today not so much stilted as high-heeled". The Vortex was considered shocking in its day for its depiction of sexual vanity and drug abuse among
5587-477: A playwright with The Young Idea . The play opened in London in 1923, after a provincial tour, with Coward in one of the leading roles. The reviews were good: "Mr Noël Coward calls his brilliant little farce a 'comedy of youth', and so it is. And youth pervaded the Savoy last night, applauding everything so boisterously that you felt, not without exhilaration, that you were in the midst of a 'rag'." One critic, who noted
5738-479: A reward, Thalberg cast her in six films in eight months. The apprenticeship served Shearer well. On April 26, 1924, Louis B. Mayer Pictures was merged with Metro Pictures and the Samuel Goldwyn Company to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . Shearer was cast with Lon Chaney and John Gilbert in the studio's first official production, He Who Gets Slapped . The film was a conspicuous success and contributed to
5889-664: A rule of starring in a play for no more than three months at any venue. Design for Living , written for Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne , was so risqué, with its theme of bisexuality and a ménage à trois , that Coward premiered it in New York, knowing that it would not survive the censor in London. In 1933 Coward wrote, directed and co-starred with the French singer Yvonne Printemps in both London and New York productions of an operetta, Conversation Piece (1933). He next wrote, directed and co-starred with Lawrence in Tonight at 8.30 (1936),
6040-552: A sense of comedy, and if he can overcome a tendency to smartness, he will probably produce a good play one of these days." The Times , on the other hand, was enthusiastic: "It is a remarkable piece of work from so young a head – spontaneous, light, and always 'brainy'." The play ran for a month (and was Coward's first play seen in America), after which Coward returned to acting in works by other writers, starring as Ralph in The Knight of
6191-411: A series of highly successful pre-Code films followed, including Let Us Be Gay (1930), Strangers May Kiss (1931), A Free Soul (1931) with Leslie Howard and Clark Gable , Private Lives (1931), and Strange Interlude (1932). All of these were box-office hits, placing Shearer in competition with Joan Crawford , Greta Garbo , and Jean Harlow as MGM's top actress through the remainder of
Norma Shearer - Misplaced Pages Continue
6342-577: A small, dreary house in a "modest" Montreal suburb, Shearer found her determined attitude was strengthened by the sudden plunge into poverty: "At an early age, I formed a philosophy about failure. Perhaps an endeavor, like my father's business, could fail, but that didn't mean Father had failed." Edith Shearer thought otherwise. Within weeks, she had left her husband and moved into a cheap boarding house with her two daughters. A few months later, encouraged by her brother, who believed his niece should try her luck in "the picture business", then operating largely on
6493-402: A snow storm. She agrees to go, but not before naming the respected Lennox as her despoiler and the father of her dead baby. She becomes lost in the raging storm while David leads a search party. The unconscious Anna floats on an ice floe down a river towards a waterfall, until rescued at the last moment by David, who then marries her. Actor Lillian Gish, referring to the famous “chase sequence on
6644-496: A star, Shearer's new challenge was to remain one. Many other talented actresses were at the studio, and she realized she would have to fight hard to stay ahead of the pack. Seeing that sensational newcomer Greta Garbo was one of a kind, she went to Thalberg and "demanded recognition as one of another kind". It was just one of the many visits she paid to his office, always to plead for better material, better parts. Thalberg would listen patiently, then invariably advise her to keep toeing
6795-467: A taxi. The next morning, Shearer went to the Mayer Company on Mission Road to meet with Thalberg. Shearer was momentarily thrown by their confused introduction, but soon found herself "impressed by his air of dispassionate strength, his calm self-possession and the almost black, impenetrable eyes set in a pale olive face". Shearer was less impressed, however, with her first screen test: "The custom then
6946-545: A total of 13 silent films for MGM. Each had been produced for under $ 200,000, and had, without fail, been a substantial box-office hit, often making a $ 200,000+ profit for the studio. She was rewarded for this consistent success by being cast in Ernst Lubitsch 's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg , her first prestige production, with a budget over $ 1,000,000. While she was finishing The Student Prince , Shearer received
7097-563: A tropical British colony, met with more critical success. Coward's final stage success came with Suite in Three Keys (1966), a trilogy set in a hotel penthouse suite. He wrote it as his swan song as a stage actor: "I would like to act once more before I fold my bedraggled wings." The trilogy gained glowing reviews and did good box office business in the UK. In one of the three plays, A Song at Twilight , Coward abandoned his customary reticence on
7248-519: A typescript was found in 2007 in the archive of the Lord Chamberlain's Office , the official censor of stage plays in the UK until 1968. In 1921, Coward made his first trip to America, hoping to interest producers there in his plays. Although he had little luck, he found the Broadway theatre stimulating. He absorbed its smartness and pace into his own work, which brought him his first real success as
7399-474: A wry smile, he said, "She looks too well able to take care of herself." Thalberg's appeal was not primarily sexual. What attracted Shearer was his commanding presence and steely grace, the impression he gave that wherever he sat was always the head of the table. In spite of his youth – he was only 26 – Thalberg became a father figure to the 23-year-old actress. At the end of a working day in July 1925, Shearer received
7550-585: Is Rhett !" Critics praised the suspenseful atmosphere in her next film, Escape (1940), where she played the lover of a Nazi general who helps an American free his mother from a concentration camp . With increasing interest in the war in Europe, the film performed well at the box office, but Shearer passed up roles in highly successful films Now, Voyager and Mrs. Miniver , to star in We Were Dancing and Her Cardboard Lover (1942), which both failed at
7701-570: Is Griffith's mighty striving, with his arty location shots, quirky close-ups and riskily staged set pieces, to forge a new and expressly cinematic style. “ Way Down East was the most passionate of Griffish’s many paeans of praise for the Christian home; on this score, at least, he could have satisfied Harriet Beecher Stowe .” — Literary and film critic Edward Wagenknecht . Later, in 2007, in his comparison of this production to other works by Griffith, film reviewer Paul Brenner judged it to be one of
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#17330942072427852-408: Is a 1920 American silent romantic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish . It is one of four film adaptations of the melodramatic 19th century play of the same name by Lottie Blair Parker . There were two earlier silent versions and one sound version in 1935 starring Henry Fonda . Griffith's version is particularly remembered for its climax in which Gish's character
8003-439: Is a nervous, highly self-critical woman who has schooled herself to give an impression of self-confidence. If one had accepted that impression, one would have gone far astray in working with her. She needed sympathy and reassurance. Another way in which Miss Shearer might mislead a—I am sure she continually misleads herself—is in the matter of physical resources and sheer stamina. She becomes so engrossed in her work, so keyed up with
8154-476: Is a political comedy set in a British colony; Quadrille (1952) is a drama about Victorian love and elopement; and Nude with Violin (1956, starring John Gielgud in London and Coward in New York) is a satire on modern art and critical pretension. A revue, Sigh No More (1945), was a moderate success, but two musicals, Pacific 1860 (1946), a lavish South Seas romance, and Ace of Clubs (1950), set in
8305-535: Is rescued from doom on an icy river. Anna is a poor country girl who is tricked by handsome man-about-town Lennox into a fake wedding. When she becomes pregnant, he reveals the truth of their relationship and leaves her. She has the baby, named Trust Lennox, on her own in a boarding house. When the baby dies she wanders until she gets a job with Squire Bartlett. Despite being unofficially engaged, David, Squire Bartlett's son, falls for her, but she rejects him due to her torrid past. Lennox then shows up as an old friend of
8456-400: The 1943 Academy Awards ceremony. Coward played a naval captain, basing the character on his friend Lord Louis Mountbatten . Lean went on to direct and adapt film versions of three Coward plays. Coward's most enduring work from the war years was the hugely successful black comedy Blithe Spirit (1941), about a novelist who researches the occult and hires a medium. A séance brings back
8607-497: The City of London . Coward was homosexual but, following the convention of his times, this was never publicly mentioned. The critic Kenneth Tynan's description in 1953 was close to an acknowledgment of Coward's sexuality: "Forty years ago he was Slightly in Peter Pan , and you might say that he has been wholly in Peter Pan ever since. No private considerations have been allowed to deflect
8758-689: The D. W. Griffith film Hearts of the World in an uncredited role. He began writing plays, collaborating on the first two ( Ida Collaborates (1917) and Women and Whisky (1918)) with his friend Esmé Wynne. His first solo effort as a playwright was The Rat Trap (1918) which was eventually produced at the Everyman Theatre , Hampstead , in October 1926. During these years, he met Lorn McNaughtan, who became his private secretary and served in that capacity for more than forty years, until her death. In 1920, at
8909-469: The Great Depression , writing a succession of popular hits. They ranged from large-scale spectaculars to intimate comedies. Examples of the former were the operetta Bitter Sweet (1929), about a woman who elopes with her music teacher, and the historical extravaganza Cavalcade (1931) at Drury Lane , about thirty years in the lives of two families, which required a huge cast, gargantuan sets and
9060-659: The Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California , where she had been living since 1980. She is entombed in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California , in a crypt marked Norma Arrouge, along with her first husband, Irving Thalberg. Shearer's fame declined after her retirement in 1942. She was rediscovered in the late 1950s, when her films were sold to television, and in
9211-570: The OMs , demonstrably the greatest living English playwright." Time wrote that "in the 60s... his best work, with its inspired inconsequentiality, seemed to exert not only a period charm but charm, period." By the end of the 1960s, Coward developed arteriosclerosis and, during the run of Suite in Three Keys , struggled with bouts of memory loss. This also affected his work in The Italian Job , and he retired from acting immediately afterwards. Coward
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#17330942072429362-552: The Savoy Hotel . During one air raid on the area around the Savoy he joined Carroll Gibbons and Judy Campbell in impromptu cabaret to distract the captive guests from their fears. Another of Coward's wartime projects, as writer, star, composer and co-director (alongside David Lean), was the naval film drama In Which We Serve . The film was popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was awarded an honorary certificate of merit at
9513-580: The diæresis (" I didn't put the dots over the 'e' in Noël. The language did. Otherwise it's not Noël but Nool!"). The press and many book publishers failed to follow suit, and his name was printed as 'Noel' in The Times , The Observer and other contemporary newspapers and books. "Why", asked Coward, "am I always expected to wear a dressing-gown, smoke cigarettes in a long holder and say 'Darling, how wonderful'?" The answer lay in Coward's assiduous cultivation of
9664-485: The reconstitution of the Production Code in 1934 . Shearer's work was seen anew, and the critical focus shifted from her "noble" roles to her pre-Code roles. Even for a pampered star, her output in the sound era is strikingly meager. And yet this was part of her undeniable aura – that she did not make movies lightly and frivolously, but with great care, sincerity and conviction. Shearer's work gained more attention in
9815-483: The 1960s: he was no longer seen as the smooth 1930s sophisticate, but as the doyen of the theatre. As The New Statesman wrote in 1964, "Who would have thought the landmarks of the Sixties would include the emergence of Noël Coward as the grand old man of British drama? There he was one morning, flipping verbal tiddlywinks with reporters about "Dad's Renaissance"; the next he was ... beside Forster , T. S. Eliot and
9966-457: The 1970s, when her films enjoyed theatrical revivals. By the time of her death in 1983, she was best known for her "noble" roles in Marie Antoinette and The Women . A Shearer revival began in 1988, when Turner Network Television began broadcasting the entire Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film library. In 1994, Turner Classic Movies began showcasing her films, most of which had not been seen since
10117-603: The 1990s through the publication of a series of books. The first was a biography by Gavin Lambert . Next came Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood by Mick LaSalle, film critic at the San Francisco Chronicle . Mark A. Vieira published three books on subjects closely related to Shearer: a biography of her husband, producer Irving Thalberg ; and two biographies of photographer George Hurrell . Shearer
10268-480: The Bartletts, and lusting for another local girl, Kate. Seeing Anna, he tries to get her to leave, but she refuses to go claiming she never did anything wrong, although she promises to say nothing about their history. Finally, the woman running the boardinghouse while visiting the Bartletts recognizes Anna. Squire Bartlett eventually learns of Anna's past from Martha, the town gossip. In his anger, he tosses Anna out into
10419-562: The Burning Pestle in Birmingham and then London. He did not enjoy the role, finding Francis Beaumont and his sometime collaborator John Fletcher "two of the dullest Elizabethan writers ever known ... I had a very, very long part, but I was very, very bad at it". Nevertheless, The Manchester Guardian thought that Coward got the best out of the role, and The Times called the play "the jolliest thing in London". Coward completed
10570-645: The East Coast of the United States, Edith sold her daughter's piano and the family dog. In her pocket was a letter of introduction for Norma, acquired from a local theatre owner, to Florenz Ziegfeld , who was preparing a new season of his famous Ziegfeld Follies . In January 1920, the three Shearer women arrived in New York, each of them dressed up for the occasion. "I had my hair in little curls", Shearer remembered, "and I felt very ambitious and proud." Her heart sank, however, when she saw their rented apartment: "There
10721-407: The National Theatre's 2008 exhibition, The Independent commented, "His famous silk, polka-dot dressing gown and elegant cigarette holder both seem to belong to another era. But 2008 is proving to be the year that Britain falls in love with Noël Coward all over again." As soon as he achieved success he began polishing the Coward image: an early press photograph showed him sitting up in bed holding
10872-628: The New Theatre) in London was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in his honour in 2006. Coward was born in 1899 in Teddington , Middlesex , a south-western suburb of London. His parents were Arthur Sabin Coward (1856–1937), a piano salesman, and Violet Agnes Coward (1863–1954), daughter of Henry Gordon Veitch, a captain and surveyor in the Royal Navy . Noël Coward was the second of their three sons,
11023-737: The Queen Mother replied, "I came because he was my friend." The Noël Coward Theatre in St Martin's Lane , originally opened in 1903 as the New Theatre and later called the Albery, was renamed in his honour after extensive refurbishment, re-opening on 1 June 2006. A statue of Coward by Angela Conner was unveiled by the Queen Mother in the foyer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1998. There are also sculptures of Coward displayed in New York and Jamaica, and
11174-795: The Second World War. It is a Grade II listed building . In the 1950s, Coward left the UK for tax reasons, receiving harsh criticism in the press. He first settled in Bermuda but later bought houses in Jamaica and Switzerland ( Chalet Covar in the village of Les Avants , near Montreux ), which remained his homes for the rest of his life. His expatriate neighbours and friends included Joan Sutherland , David Niven , Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor , and Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards in Switzerland and Ian Fleming and his wife Ann in Jamaica. Coward
11325-783: The West End: The Vortex , Fallen Angels , Hay Fever and On with the Dance . Coward was turning out numerous plays and acting in his own works and others'. Soon his frantic pace caught up with him while starring in The Constant Nymph . He collapsed and was ordered to rest for a month; he ignored the doctors and sailed for the US to start rehearsals for his play This Was a Man . In New York he collapsed again, and had to take an extended rest, recuperating in Hawaii. Other Coward works produced in
11476-485: The World in 80 Days (1956), Our Man in Havana (1959), Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), Boom! (1968) and The Italian Job (1969). Stage and film opportunities he turned down in the 1950s included an invitation to compose a musical version of Pygmalion (two years before My Fair Lady was written), and offers of the roles of the king in the original stage production of The King and I , and Colonel Nicholson in
11627-606: The age of 20, Coward starred in his own play, the light comedy I'll Leave It to You . After a three-week run in Manchester it opened in London at the New Theatre (renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in 2006), his first full-length play in the West End. Neville Cardus 's praise in The Manchester Guardian was grudging. Notices for the London production were mixed, but encouraging. The Observer commented, "Mr Coward... has
11778-461: The axe to fall: "But to my surprise, Mr. Mayer's manner was paternal. 'There seems to be a problem,' he said, 'tell me about it.' I told him that the director had shouted at me and frightened me. Nobody had warned me that Mayer was a better actor than any of us, and I was unprepared for what happened next. He staged an alarming outburst, screaming at me, calling me a fool and a coward, accusing me of throwing away my career because I couldn't get on with
11929-452: The box office, making a profit of $ 668,000, in part because the film contained elements that slipped by the newly instituted Production Code. In that film, she played a role made famous by Katharine Cornell . Shearer also took on another play popularized by Cornell in Romeo and Juliet (1936) (her first film of the 1930s to lose money), and Marie Antoinette (1938) (a budget of almost $ 2,500,000
12080-465: The box office. In 1942, Shearer unofficially retired from acting. After Thalberg's unexpected death on September 14, 1936, Shearer retained a lawyer to ensure that Thalberg's percentages of films on which he had worked were still paid to his estate, which was contested by MGM. When she took the story to gossip columnist Louella Parsons , the studio was forced to give in and granted all the profits from MGM movies made and released from 1924 to 1938, meaning
12231-783: The children's play Where the Rainbow Ends . Coward played in the piece in 1911 and 1912 at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End . In 1912 Coward also appeared at the Savoy Theatre in An Autumn Idyll (as a dancer in the ballet) and at the London Coliseum in A Little Fowl Play , by Harold Owen, in which Hawtrey starred. Italia Conti engaged Coward to appear at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre in 1913, and in
12382-640: The comic " Mad Dogs and Englishmen " from Words and Music , and "Mrs Worthington". With the outbreak of the Second World War Coward abandoned the theatre and sought official war work. After running the British propaganda office in Paris, where he concluded that "if the policy of His Majesty's Government is to bore the Germans to death I don't think we have time", he worked on behalf of British intelligence. His task
12533-562: The curtain calls and spitting at Coward as he left the theatre. Coward later said of this flop, "My first instinct was to leave England immediately, but this seemed too craven a move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in our minds to practically the entire population of the British Isles." By 1929 Coward was one of the world's highest-earning writers, with an annual income of £50,000, more than £3 million in terms of 2020 values. Coward thrived during
12684-424: The decade. Shearer's marriage to Thalberg gave her a degree of power in Hollywood that was resented by rivals such as Crawford, who complained that Shearer would always be offered the best roles and best conditions: "How can I compete with Norma when she's sleeping with the boss?" Shearer's pre-Code films included period dramas and theatrical adaptations. Smilin' Through (1932), which co-starred Fredric March ,
12835-543: The director's better, less "preachy" screen presentations: Many of Griffith's features suffer from sententious moralizing, a sense of God speaking to the masses, and outright racism. But Way Down East highlights the greatness of Griffith without having to sit through the Sermon on the Mount or the Ride of The Klan. In Way Down East , Griffith's psychotic nuttiness, for once, didn't get in
12986-552: The drive of his career; like Gielgud and Rattigan , like the late Ivor Novello, he is a congenital bachelor." Coward firmly believed his private business was not for public discussion, considering " any sexual activities when over-advertised" to be tasteless. Even in the 1960s, Coward refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly, wryly observing, "There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don't know." Despite this reticence, he encouraged his secretary Cole Lesley to write
13137-517: The duke's death, "I suddenly find that I loved him more than I knew." Coward maintained close friendships with many women, including the actress and author Esmé Wynne-Tyson, his first collaborator and constant correspondent; Gladys Calthrop , who designed sets and costumes for many of his works; his secretary and close confidante Lorn Loraine; the actresses Gertrude Lawrence, Joyce Carey and Judy Campbell; and "his loyal and lifelong amitié amoureuse ", Marlene Dietrich . In his profession, Coward
13288-482: The eldest of whom had died in 1898 at the age of six. Coward's father lacked ambition and industry, and family finances were often poor. Coward was bitten by the performing bug early and appeared in amateur concerts by the age of seven. He attended the Chapel Royal Choir School as a young child. He had little formal schooling but was a voracious reader. Encouraged by his ambitious mother, who sent him to
13439-455: The estate eventually received over $ 1.5 million in percentage payments. Nevertheless, Shearer's contract was renewed for six films at $ 150,000 each. During this time, she embarked on a brief romance with the younger actor James Stewart , and then with the married actor George Raft . Raft (who had separated from his wife years earlier, soon after they married) stated publicly that he wanted to marry Shearer. However, his wife's refusal to allow
13590-758: The film The Bridge on the River Kwai . Invited to play the title role in the 1962 film Dr. No , he replied, "No, no, no, a thousand times, no." In the same year, he turned down the role of Humbert Humbert in Lolita , saying, "At my time of life the film story would be logical if the 12-year-old heroine was a sweet little old lady." In the mid-1960s and early 1970s successful productions of his 1920s and 1930s plays, and new revues celebrating his music, including Oh, Coward! on Broadway and Cowardy Custard in London, revived Coward's popularity and critical reputation. He dubbed this comeback "Dad's Renaissance". It began with
13741-571: The film is not that the rickety conventions of 1890s stage melodrama dog its every frame. (Even the film's seeming pioneering of feminism is hoary: the Leviticus-style titles would have us believe that Lillian Gish's tremulous ingenue fallen prey to a heavily mascaraed roue is "the story of Woman.") What's amazing is that so much of Gish's tough, funny, intuitive performance, particularly in the film's middle section as she bears her illegitimate child, transcends time, place and technology. Equally amazing
13892-622: The flash of the assurance I remembered so well, 'I believe I will. ' " Over the next two years, both Shearer and Irving saw other people. Louise Brooks remembered: "I held a dinner party sometime in 1926. All the place cards at the dinner table were books. In front of Thalberg's place was Dreiser's Genius , and in front of Norma's place, I put The Difficulty of Getting Married . It was so funny because Irving walked right in and saw Genius , and sat right down, but Norma kept walking around. She wouldn't sit down in front of The Difficulty of Getting Married – no way!" By 1927, Shearer had made
14043-459: The galleries of Broadway theatres, studying the entrances of Ina Claire , Lynn Fontanne , and Katharine Cornell . In desperate need of money, Shearer resorted to some modeling work, which proved successful. On her modeling career, she commented: "I could smile at a cake of laundry soap as if it were dinner at the Ritz. I posed with a strand of imitation pearls. I posed in dust-cap and house dress with
14194-642: The ghost of his first wife, causing havoc for the novelist and his second wife. With 1,997 consecutive performances, it broke box-office records for the run of a West End comedy, and was also produced on Broadway, where its original run was 650 performances. The play was adapted into a 1945 film , directed by Lean. Coward toured during 1942 in Blithe Spirit , in rotation with his comedy Present Laughter and his working-class drama This Happy Breed . In his Middle East Diary Coward made several statements that offended many Americans. In particular, he commented that he
14345-477: The hallway. Speaking with her, he was struck by her "fierce, almost raging disappointment", and after viewing the test himself, agreed that she had been "poorly handled". Under Palmer's own supervision, a second test was made and judged a success by the studio brass. The lead in The Wanters seemed hers, until the film's director objected, finding her "unphotogenic". Again, Shearer was to be disappointed, relegated to
14496-450: The home front than by intelligence work: "Go and sing to them when the guns are firing – that's your job!" Coward, though disappointed, followed this advice. He toured, acted and sang indefatigably in Europe, Africa, Asia and America. He wrote and recorded war-themed popular songs, including " London Pride " and " Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans ". His London home was wrecked by German bombs in 1941, and he took up temporary residence at
14647-543: The ice floe scene is an early example of parallel action . Similar to other Griffith productions, Way Down East was subjected to censorship by some American state film censor boards. For example, the Pennsylvania film board required over 60 cuts in the film, removing the mock marriage and honeymoon between Lennox and Anna as well as any hints of her pregnancy, effectively destroying the film's integral conflict. The resulting film may have surprised viewers in that state when
14798-494: The ice-floes,” quipped: “All that winter, whenever Mr. Griffith saw an ice cake, he wasn’t satisfied till he had me on it.” D. W. Griffith bought the film rights to the story, originally a stage play by Lottie Blair Parker that was elaborated by Joseph R. Grismer . Grismer's wife, the Welsh actress Phoebe Davies , became identified with the play beginning in 1897 and starred in over 4,000 performances of it by 1909, making it one of
14949-530: The image I saw in the mirror". She acknowledged her "dumpy figure, with shoulders too broad, legs too sturdy, hands too blunt", and was acutely aware of her small eyes that appeared crossed due to a cast in her left eye. By her own admission, she was "ferociously ambitious" even when she was young. The childhood and adolescence that Shearer once described as "a pleasant dream" ended in 1918 when her father's company collapsed, and her older sister Athole suffered her first serious mental breakdown. Forced to move into
15100-557: The influence of Bernard Shaw on Coward's writing, thought more highly of the play than of Coward's newly found fans: "I was unfortunately wedged in the centre of a group of his more exuberant friends who greeted each of his sallies with 'That's a Noëlism!'" The play ran in London from 1 February to 24 March 1923, after which Coward turned to revue , co-writing and performing in André Charlot 's London Calling! In 1924, Coward achieved his first great critical and financial success as
15251-636: The king irresponsible, telling Churchill, "England doesn't wish for a Queen Cutie." Coward disliked propaganda in plays: Nevertheless, his own views sometimes surfaced in his plays: both Cavalcade and This Happy Breed are, in the words of the playwright David Edgar , "overtly Conservative political plays written in the Brechtian epic manner." In religion, Coward was agnostic. He wrote of his views, "Do I believe in God? I can't say No and I can't say Yes, To me it's anybody's guess." Coward spelled his first name with
15402-409: The line, that MGM knew best, and that the movies she complained about had made her a popular actress. Occasionally, Shearer would burst into tears, but this seemed to make "no more impression than rain on a raincoat". Privately, Thalberg was very impressed by Shearer. In a story conference, when her name was suggested to him for the part of a girl threatened with rape, Thalberg shook his head, and, with
15553-421: The marriage, The Jazz Singer was released. The first feature-length motion picture with sound, it effectively changed the cinematic landscape overnight and signaled the end of the silent motion-picture era. It also spelled the end of many silent careers, and Shearer was determined hers would not be one of them. Her brother, Douglas Shearer , was instrumental in the development of sound at MGM, and every care
15704-457: The meteoric rise of the new company, and to Shearer's visibility. By late 1925, she was carrying her own films, and was one of MGM's biggest attractions, a bona fide star. She signed a new contract; it paid $ 1,000 a week and would rise to $ 5,000 over the next five years. She bought a house for herself and Edith at 2004 Vine Street, which was located under the Hollywoodland sign . Having become
15855-532: The mid-to-late 1920s included the plays Easy Virtue (1926), a drama about a divorcée's clash with her snobbish in-laws; The Queen Was in the Parlour , a Ruritanian romance ; This Was a Man (1926), a comedy about adulterous aristocrats; The Marquise (1927), an eighteenth-century costume drama; Home Chat (1927), a comedy about a married woman's fidelity; and the revues On with the Dance (1925) and This Year of Grace (1928). None of these shows has entered
16006-459: The models for Stella and Miles, the hosts of the Hollywood party in the short story " Crazy Sunday " (1932) by F. Scott Fitzgerald . Most of Shearer's MGM films are broadcast on Turner Classic Movies, and many of them are also available on DVD from Warner Home Video . In 2008, she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame . In 2015, a number of Shearer films became available in high-definition format, authored by Warner Home Video, in most cases, from
16157-399: The most popular plays in the United States. Davies died in 1912, having toured the play for well over ten years. The play, an old-fashioned story that espoused nineteenth-century American and Victorian ideals, was considered outdated by the time of its cinematic production in 1920. The story rights were purchased for $ 175,000. Some sources, quoting newspaper ads of the time, say a sequence
16308-457: The nitrate camera negatives: A Free Soul , Romeo and Juliet , Marie Antoinette , and The Women . Shearer is portrayed in director David Fincher ’s film Mank by actress Jessie Cohen. No%C3%ABl Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style,
16459-682: The north coast of the island. A memorial service was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on 29 May 1973, for which the Poet Laureate , John Betjeman , wrote and delivered a poem in Coward's honour, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier read verse, and Yehudi Menuhin played Bach . On 28 March 1984 a memorial stone was unveiled by the Queen Mother in Poets' Corner , Westminster Abbey . Thanked by Coward's partner, Graham Payn , for attending,
16610-493: The numbers from his Las Vegas act. It was followed by productions of Blithe Spirit in which he starred with Claudette Colbert , Lauren Bacall and Mildred Natwick and This Happy Breed with Edna Best and Roger Moore . Despite excellent reviews, the audience viewing figures were moderate. During the 1950s and 1960s Coward continued to write musicals and plays. After the Ball , his 1953 adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan ,
16761-523: The outbreak of the Second World War, Coward volunteered for war work, running the British propaganda office in Paris. He also worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award in 1943 for his naval film drama In Which We Serve and was knighted in 1970. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as
16912-459: The playwright Keith Winter, actors Louis Hayward and Alan Webb , his manager Jack Wilson and the composer Ned Rorem , who published details of their relationship in his diaries. Coward had a 19-year friendship with Prince George, Duke of Kent , but biographers differ on whether it was platonic. Payn believed that it was, although Coward reportedly admitted to the historian Michael Thornton that there had been "a little dalliance". Coward said, on
17063-490: The public view of Coward's flamboyant lifestyle, Churchill used as his reason for withholding the honour Coward's £200 fine for contravening currency regulations in 1941. Had the Germans invaded Britain, Coward was scheduled to be arrested and killed, as he was in The Black Book along with other figures such as Virginia Woolf , Paul Robeson , Bertrand Russell , C. P. Snow and H. G. Wells . When this came to light after
17214-504: The public would soon tire of her "good girl" image, and took the advice of friend and co-star Ramón Novarro to visit an unknown photographer named George Hurrell . There, she took a series of sensual portraits that convinced her husband that she could play the lead in MGM's racy new film, The Divorcee (1930). Shearer won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Divorcee , and
17365-402: The regular repertoire, but the last introduced one of Coward's best-known songs, "A Room with a View". His biggest failure in this period was the play Sirocco (1927), which concerns free love among the wealthy. It starred Ivor Novello , of whom Coward said, "the two most beautiful things in the world are Ivor's profile and my mind". Theatregoers hated the play, showing violent disapproval at
17516-461: The regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues ), screenplays, poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance , and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works, as well as those of others. At
17667-692: The same year he was cast as the Lost Boy Slightly in Peter Pan . He reappeared in Peter Pan the following year, and in 1915 he was again in Where the Rainbow Ends . He worked with other child actors in this period, including Hermione Gingold (whose mother threatened to turn "that naughty boy" out); Fabia Drake ; Esmé Wynne , with whom he collaborated on his earliest plays; Alfred Willmore, later known as Micheál Mac Liammóir ; and Gertrude Lawrence who, Coward wrote in his memoirs, "gave me an orange and told me
17818-579: The seventh would do, and so on, down the line until seven had been selected—and he was still some ten feet ahead of us. I did some quick thinking. I coughed loudly, and when the man looked in the direction of the cough, I stood on my tiptoes and smiled right at him. Recognizing the awkward ruse to which I'd resorted, he laughed openly and walked over to me and said, 'You win, Sis. You're Number Eight. ' " Other extra parts followed, including one in Way Down East , directed by D. W. Griffith . Taking advantage of
17969-411: The staccato, blind impulsiveness of a machine-gun. In 1955 Coward's cabaret act at Las Vegas, recorded live for the gramophone and released as Noël Coward at Las Vegas , was so successful that CBS engaged him to write and direct a series of three 90-minute television specials for the 1955–56 season. The first of these, Together With Music , paired Coward with Mary Martin , featuring him in many of
18120-407: The stunts themselves. Gish's hair froze, and she lost feeling in her hand from the cold. It was her idea to put her hand and hair in the water, an image which would become iconic. Her right hand would be somewhat impaired for the remainder of her life. The shot where the ice floes are filmed going over the waterfall was filmed out of season, so those ice floes are actually wooden. Cinematographically,
18271-524: The subject and played an explicitly homosexual character. The daring piece earned Coward new critical praise. He intended to star in the trilogy on Broadway but was too ill to travel. Only two of the Suite in Three Keys plays were performed in New York, with the title changed to Noël Coward in Two Keys , starring Hume Cronyn . Coward won new popularity in several notable films later in his career, such as Around
18422-604: The success of her father's construction business. However, the marriage between her parents was unhappy. Andrew Shearer was prone to manic depression and "moved like a shadow or a ghost around the house"; her mother was Edith Mary (née Fisher) Shearer. Young Norma was interested in music, as well, but after seeing a vaudeville show for her ninth birthday, she announced her intention to become an actress. Edith offered support, but as Shearer entered adolescence, she became secretly fearful that her daughter's physical flaws would jeopardize her chances. Norma Shearer "had no illusions about
18573-627: The troops, was a supreme success, first in London at the Café de Paris , and later in Las Vegas . The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan wrote: To see him whole, public and private personalities conjoined, you must see him in cabaret ... he padded down the celebrated stairs ... halted before the microphone on black-suede-clad feet, and, upraising both hands in a gesture of benediction, set about demonstrating how these things should be done. Baring his teeth as if unveiling some grotesque monument, and cooing like
18724-541: The unedited versions of the previous days footage [“rushes”] she seems to cease to be an actress and to look at her own work on the screen with the shrewd and critical mind of a producer.” In 1939, she attempted an unusual role in the dark comedy Idiot's Delight , adapted from the 1936 Robert E. Sherwood play. It was the last of Shearer's three films with Clark Gable , after A Free Soul (1931) and Strange Interlude (1932). The Women (1939) followed, with an entirely female cast of more than 130 speaking roles. Shearer
18875-598: The upper classes. Its notoriety and fiery performances attracted large audiences, justifying a move from a small suburban theatre to a larger one in the West End. Coward, still having trouble finding producers, raised the money to produce the play himself. During the run of The Vortex , Coward met Jack Wilson , an American stockbroker (later a director and producer), who became his business manager and lover. At first Wilson managed Coward's business affairs well, but later abused his position to embezzle from his employer. The success of The Vortex in both London and America caused
19026-469: The war, Coward wrote an alternative reality play, Peace in Our Time , depicting an England occupied by Nazi Germany . Coward's new plays after the war were moderately successful but failed to match the popularity of his pre-war hits. Relative Values (1951) addresses the culture clash between an aristocratic English family and a Hollywood actress with matrimonial ambitions; South Sea Bubble (1951)
19177-447: The war, Coward wrote: "If anyone had told me at that time I was high up on the Nazi blacklist, I should have laughed ... I remember Rebecca West , who was one of the many who shared the honour with me, sent me a telegram which read: 'My dear – the people we should have been seen dead with'." Churchill's view was that Coward would do more for the war effort by entertaining the troops and
19328-507: The weekend and bemuse and enrage each other's guests. Some writers have seen elements of Coward's old mentor, Mrs Astley Cooper, and her set in the characters of the family. By the 1970s the play was recognised as a classic, described in The Times as a "dazzling achievement; like The Importance of Being Earnest , it is pure comedy with no mission but to delight, and it depends purely on the interplay of characters, not on elaborate comic machinery." By June 1925 Coward had four shows running in
19479-404: The world is relatively small. On the other hand, my sense of my own importance to myself is tremendous." When a Time interviewer apologised, "I hope you haven't been bored having to go through all these interviews for your [70th] birthday, having to answer the same old questions about yourself", Coward rejoined, "Not at all. I'm fascinated by the subject." Way Down East Way Down East
19630-585: Was knighted in 1970, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature . He received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 1970. In 1972, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Sussex . At the age of 73, Coward died at his home, Firefly Estate , in Jamaica on 26 March 1973 of heart failure and was buried three days later on the brow of Firefly Hill, overlooking
19781-465: Was "less impressed by some of the mournful little Brooklyn boys lying there in tears amid the alien corn with nothing worse than a bullet wound in the leg or a fractured arm". After protests from both The New York Times and The Washington Post , the Foreign Office urged Coward not to visit the United States in January 1945. He did not return to America again during the war. In the aftermath of
19932-413: Was a talented boy, God knows, and, when washed and smarmed down a bit, passably attractive. There appeared to be no earthly reason why Miss Lila Field shouldn't jump at me, and we both believed that she would be a fool indeed to miss such a magnificent opportunity. The leading actor-manager Charles Hawtrey , whom the young Coward idolised and from whom he learned a great deal about the theatre, cast him in
20083-518: Was a witness at the Flemings' wedding, but his diaries record his exasperation with their constant bickering. Coward's political views were conservative, but not unswervingly so: he despised the government of Neville Chamberlain for its policy of appeasing Nazi Germany, and he differed sharply with Winston Churchill over the abdication crisis of 1936. Whereas Churchill supported Edward VIII 's wish to marry "his cutie", Wallis Simpson , Coward thought
20234-473: Was also one of the many actresses considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind (1939) and some publications even reported that she won the role in 1938. However, she withdrew herself from consideration after negative feedback from movie fans. Years later when asked about potentially playing Scarlett, Shearer jokingly said, "Scarlett is a thankless role. The one I'd really like to play
20385-418: Was expected of me. Part of the job." Time concluded, "Coward's greatest single gift has not been writing or composing, not acting or directing, but projecting a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise." Coward's distinctive clipped diction arose from his childhood: his mother was deaf and Coward developed his staccato style of speaking to make it easier for her to hear what he
20536-465: Was filmed in an early color process, possibly Technicolor or Prizmacolor . Clarine Seymour , who had appeared in four previous Griffith films, was originally cast in the role of Squire Bartlett's niece, Kate. After Seymour's untimely death, Mary Hay was cast and Seymour's scenes were reshot. The famous ice-floe sequence was filmed in White River Junction, Vermont . An actual waterfall
20687-405: Was half finished. With her, the director has to reverse the normal process of inspiring his star to greater efforts. He has to persuade her to spare herself. The greatest joy of working with Miss Shearer comes from her complete lack of vanity. Far from bridling at minor criticisms as many actresses do, she will criticize herself with a penetrating, almost unfeminine, impersonal judgment. When she sees
20838-475: Was in the care of the orphanage. He became Collinson's godfather and helped him to get started in show business. When Collinson was a successful director, he invited Coward to play a role in The Italian Job . Graham Payn also played a small role in the film. In 1926, Coward acquired Goldenhurst Farm , in Aldington, Kent , making it his home for most of the next thirty years, except when the military used it during
20989-621: Was noted not only for the control she exercised over her work, but also for her patronage of Hurrell and Adrian , and for discovering actress Janet Leigh and actor-producer Robert Evans . For her contribution to the motion-picture industry, Shearer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , at 6636 Hollywood Boulevard. On June 30, 2008, Canada Post issued a postage stamp in its "Canadians in Hollywood" series to honour Norma Shearer, along with others for Raymond Burr , Marie Dressler , and Chief Dan George . Shearer and Thalberg are reportedly
21140-408: Was one double bed, a cot with no mattress and a stove with one gas jet. The communal bathroom was at the end of a long, dimly lit hallway. Athole and I took turns sleeping with mother in the bed, but sleep was impossible anyway—the elevated trains rattled right past our window every few minutes." The introduction to Ziegfeld proved equally disastrous. He turned Shearer down flat, reportedly calling her
21291-575: Was one of the most successful films of the period. An adaptation of Eugene O'Neill 's four-hour experimental Strange Interlude (1932), which also starred Clark Gable , was a disappointing adaptation of O'Neill, but a showcase for Shearer, thus a major hit. The enforcement of the Production Code in 1934 forced Shearer to drop her celebrated "free soul" image, and move exclusively into period dramas and "prestige" pictures. Of these, The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) proved her most successful at
21442-517: Was really quite good in it, owing to the kindness and care of Hawtrey's direction. He took endless trouble with me ... and taught me during those two short weeks many technical points of comedy acting which I use to this day." In 1918, Coward was conscripted into the Artists Rifles but was assessed as unfit for active service because of a tubercular tendency, and he was discharged on health grounds after nine months. That year he appeared in
21593-425: Was saying; it also helped him eradicate a slight lisp. His nickname, "The Master", "started as a joke and became true", according to Coward. It was used of him from the 1920s onwards. Coward himself made light of it: when asked by a journalist why he was known as "The Master", he replied, "Oh, you know – Jack of all trades, master of none." He could, however, joke about his own immodesty: "My sense of my importance to
21744-503: Was taken to prepare her for the microphone. Her first talkie, The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929), turned out to be a tremendous success. Shearer's "medium-pitched, fluent, flexible Canadian accent, not quite American, but not at all foreign", was critically applauded, and thereafter widely imitated by other actresses, nervous about succeeding in talkies. Despite the popularity of her subsequent early talking films, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney and Their Own Desire (both 1929), Shearer feared
21895-557: Was the last musical he premiered in the West End; his last two musicals were first produced on Broadway. Sail Away (1961), set on a luxury cruise liner, was Coward's most successful post-war musical, with productions in America, Britain and Australia. The Girl Who Came to Supper , a musical adaptation of The Sleeping Prince (1963), ran for only three months. He directed the successful 1964 Broadway musical adaptation of Blithe Spirit , called High Spirits . Coward's late plays include
22046-462: Was to use flat lighting, to throw a great deal of light from all directions, in order to kill all shadows that might be caused by wrinkles or blemishes. But the strong lights placed on either side of my face made my blue eyes look almost white, and by nearly eliminating my nose, made me seem cross-eyed. The result was hideous." The day after the test had been screened for Mayer and Thalberg, cameraman Ernest Palmer found Shearer frantic and trembling in
22197-419: Was to use his celebrity to influence American public and political opinion in favour of helping Britain. He was frustrated by British press criticism of his foreign travel while his countrymen suffered at home, but he was unable to reveal that he was acting on behalf of the Secret Service. In 1942 George VI wished to award Coward a knighthood for his efforts, but was dissuaded by Winston Churchill . Mindful of
22348-508: Was too great for the studio to expect a profit), though their elaborate sets and costumes helped make the films immensely popular with audiences. Shearer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress on six occasions, winning only for The Divorcee in 1930. She was nominated the same year for Their Own Desire , for A Free Soul in 1931, The Barretts of Wimpole Street in 1934, Romeo and Juliet in 1936, and Marie Antoinette in 1938. Marion Davies later recalled that Shearer came to
22499-429: Was used, though it was only a few feet high; the long shot where a large drop is shown was filmed at Niagara Falls . The ice needed to be sawed or dynamited before filming could be done. During filming, a small fire had to be kept burning beneath the camera to keep the oil from freezing. At one point, Griffith was frostbitten on one side of his face. No stunt doubles were used at the time, so Gish and Barthelmess performed
22650-485: Was widely admired and loved for his generosity and kindness to those who fell on hard times. Stories are told of the unobtrusive way in which he relieved the needs or paid the debts of old theatrical acquaintances who had no claim on him. From 1934 until 1956, Coward was the president of the Actors Orphanage , which was supported by the theatrical industry. In that capacity, he befriended the young Peter Collinson , who
22801-425: Was “second only to his Birth of a Nation (1915) as a money-maker.” It played as a roadshow, then earned $ 2 million as a normal release. The film earned $ 1 million in profit. After viewing the drama at a public screening in 1994, film critic Mark Adamo of The Washington Post was especially impressed with Gish's performance and with Griffith's highly innovative "cinematic style": What's astounding about
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