Sunday, December 16, 2007

A BIRTHDAY FOR BEETHOVEN AND SIR NOEL




Well, friends, today is the birthday of Ludwig Van Beethoven, the master composer. What an amazing life. Here was a master: a man who's genius came from a very troubled life. His strict father was unbelievable-- rousing the young master out of bed at night in order to practice. He dreamed of studying with Mozart at the age of sixteen only to have his mother become ill and that dream shattered with the death of Mozart, himself. The story of Beethoven's custody fight over his young nephew could make a fascinating musical all by itself. Today is also the birthday of Sir Noel Coward. And in American History this is also the anniversary of The Boston Tea Party. It also marked Lucille Ball's premiere on Broadway in 1960 with "Wildcat" ("Hey, Look Me Over!) And the final project of classic songwriter Jules Styne with "The Red Shoes". Interesting day. I am going to a family Christmas party today-- should be great fun. In honor of Sir Noel, here are some trivia facts about his work:
The character of Beverly Carlton in the 1939 Broadway play The Man Who Came to Dinner was based on Coward. He was portrayed by Reginald Gardiner in the 1942 film of the play.
In the sixth season of Frasier in an episode entitled "How to Bury a Millionaire, Niles Crane purchases a pen once owned by Coward.
In the third season of Frasier, Frasier gives a Christmas gift to his father, that he says "Noel Coward would love it, but it's not you."
Charles and Fiona (Dame Celia Molestrangler and Ageing juvenile Binkie Huckaback), characters in Round the Horne.
In the 1982 film Better Late Than Never, David Niven played Nick Cartland, an ageing cabaret artiste, whose showpiece is I've Been To A Marvellous Party.
Jon Wynne-Tyson's play Marvellous Party, about a middle-age reunion in Las Vegas of Coward and his collaborator Esmé Wynne-Tyson was broadcast by the BBC World Service in May 1994, starring Stanley Baxter as Coward and Dorothy Tutin as Wynne-Tyson.
In 1998 Twentieth-Century Blues: The Songs of Noel Coward was released. The album contains Coward's songs performed by Sting, Elton John, Pet Shop Boys, The Divine Comedy, Vic Reeves, Paul McCartney and others.
Coward appeared as a regular character in the fifth and sixth series of the BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart.
Coward is the leading figure in Jeremy Kingston's comedy, Making Dickie Happy, also featuring Agatha Christie and Louis Mountbatten (the 'Dickie' of the title), first staged at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in London in September 2004'
The name of the men's clothing line 'Godspeed the Well-Dressed Man' came from the closing of one of Coward's letters.
Monty Python parodied Noel Coward in the Penis Song segment of their 1983 movie, The Meaning of Life and in their album Monty Python Sings as Penis Song (Not the Noel Coward Song).
The Doctor Who novel Mad Dogs and Englishmen features a version of Coward who has allied himself with alien poodles and gained time travel technology.
The opening to the song "The Lady Is a Tramp" includes the line "Alas, I missed the Beaux Arts Ball, and what is twice as sad I was never at a party where they honored Noel Ca-ad (Coward)".
Coward's play "Private Lives" is parodied in the off-Broadway musical revue "Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know" in a short scene entitled "Private Wives."
Marcy Kahan's Noel Coward quintet for BBC Radio 4 dramatises Coward as a detective in "Design For Murder" (2000), "A Bullet at Balmain's" (2003) and "Death at the Desert Inn" (2005), and as a spy in "Blithe Spy" (2002) and "Our Man In Jamaica" (2007). The cast of the quintet includes Malcolm Sinclair as Coward, Eleanor Bron as his secretary and Tam Williams as Cole Lesley.
'Two Old Queens' (2007), Perth, Western Australia, starring Edgar Metcalf as the Queen Mother and John Michael Swinbank as Coward. A conversation between the two at the unveiling of the statue of Coward in Poets' Corner.
In the (1969) classic English film Kes a man inquires about his interest in Coward's autobiography Present Indicative.
'The Actors Nightmare' contains a scene from 'Private Lives'

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