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LevelFile
Finding Number (Click this to view full catalogue structure)COW/4/H/8
TitleDiary: 1948
Extent1 file
Date1948
DescriptionEntries dated Thursday 1 January 1948 to Friday 31 December 1948.

Coward comments on the American revival of 'Tonight at 8.30' starring Gertrude Lawrence and Graham Payn; visits Jamaica as a winter retreat and purchases land near Port Maria; and makes arrangements for 'Joyeux Chagrins' ['Present Laughter'] including an autumn visit to Bruxelles and Paris to prepare production. In January he saw 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and visits America with Lorn Loraine; and in June he refers to a Garden Party to raise funds for the Actors' Orphanage.

People referenced in the diary include Joyce Carey; Edward Molyneaux; Hugh 'Binkie' Beaumont; Ronald 'Ronnie' Neame; Gladys Calthrop; Arthur Macrae; Violet Coward; John C. 'Jack' and Natasha Wilson; Fanny Holtzmann; Lorn Loraine; Neysa McMein; Henry Luce; Ann Rothermere; Wolcott Gibbs; Graham Payn; Gertrude Lawrence; Gracie Fields; George Cukor; Judy Garland; Ronald Colman and Benita Hume; Irene Dunne; Joan Crawford; Douglas Junior and Mary Lee Fairbanks; Charles Chaplin and Oona O'Neill; Alfred Hitchcock; James Stewart; David Niven; Deborah Kerr and Anthony Bartley; Clifton Webb; Katharine Hepburn; Claudette Colbert; Gene Kelly; Fred Astaire; Jules Steins; Bette Davis; Howard Holtzmann; Michael Mac Liammoir [Alfred Willmore] Maurice Chevalier; Lee Shubert; Max Gordon; Kitty Miller; Ian Fleming; Howard Young; Russell Lewis; Leonard Sillman; Jed Harris; Louella Parsons; Raymond Masset; Michael Redgrave; Nelson Doubleday; Alex Korda; Derek Hill; Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; Sophie Tucker; Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt; Mollie, Duchess of Buccleuch; Sibyl Colefax; Lord Louis and Edwina Mountbatten; Lewis and Peggy Douglas; Charles Russell and Lance Hamilton; Hermione Baddeley; Dinah Shore; Margaret 'Maggie' Case; George Schlee; Pamela Churchill; Charlie MacArthur; Cary Grant; Nadia Gray; Dame Lilian Braithwaite; Elsa Schiaperelli; Cole Porter; Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer; Barbara Hutton; Madeline and Ludwig Bemelman; Duke of Duchess of Windsor; Violet Coward; Sybil Payn; Eleanor Roosevelt; Coco Chanel; Diana Cooper; Orson Wells; Nancy Mitford
NotesFormer reference: Section H Diaries of Noël Coward, Box 2
Access StatusOpen
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