Coward's double life as secret agent man

December 11, 2007 The late, much-celebrated Noel Coward was a playwright, screenwriter, actor, singer, composer, director, cabaret star, raconteur, world traveler, society darling, social gadabout and a genius to many while a nuisance to others. Not only was Coward a man who wrote works as diverse as "Private Lives," "Cavalcade" (which was turned into an Oscar-winning best picture), "Blithe Spirit," the song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and "Brief Encounter" -- as well as one of the great, muscular war stories to come out of the war, 1942's "In Which We Serve" -- he apparently also was knee deep in political intrigue before and during that war, which required him to keep so mum about it that even his closest family members and friends didn't know. The addressees are a virtual who's who of world leaders and theatrical icons including Winston Churchill (who was always a bit leery of Coward, which Day suspects was the result of homophobia), Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (Coward's closest chums, though they did go through periods of chilly silences), Marlene Dietrich (who writes him harrowing letters during a time she was besotted with Yul Brynner), Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, Lauren Bacall, Gertrude Lawrence, John Osborne, Terence Rattigan, Mary Martin and Britain's Queen Mother, just for starters.

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