{"id":751,"date":"2010-01-23T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-23T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clients.chrisvanpatten.com\/theatreaficionado.com\/2010\/01\/john-wayne-loved-noel-coward.html"},"modified":"2010-01-23T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-23T23:11:00","slug":"john-wayne-loved-noel-coward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=751","title":{"rendered":"John Wayne loved Noel Coward?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dick Cavett in today’s NY Times recalls a conversation<\/a> with John Wayne on the set of The Shootist, <\/span>the Duke’s final film in which the rugged star of war films and westerns talks about his love of Noel Coward’s work:<\/p>\n

\n

Wayne:<\/strong> Wasn\u2019t he great?<\/p>\n

Me (Cavett):<\/strong> Who?<\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> Coward.<\/p>\n

Me [startled, realizing now that the tune was Noel Coward\u2019s \u201cSomeday I’ll Find You\u201d]:<\/strong> Yes. <\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> I\u2019ve always loved his stuff. Remember the scene in \u201cPrivate Lives\u201d when they realize they still love each other?<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> Yes, and did you know there\u2019s a recording of Coward and Gertrude Lawrence doing that scene?<\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> Gee, I gotta get that. I guess I\u2019ve read most of his plays.<\/p>\n

Me [still not convinced there isn’t a ventriloquist in the room]:<\/strong> I\u2019ll send you the record.<\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> Well, thank ya. I like the line [he switched to quite passable upper-class British], \u201cYou\u2019re looking very lovely you know, in this damned moonlight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> I did a show with Coward and, as he introduced them, \u201cMy dearest friends, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> I sure would love to have seen them in \u201cDesign for Living.\u201d [Mentally I reach again for the smelling salts.]<\/strong> And, damn, I\u2019d love to see that show of yours.<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> I\u2019ll see that you do. [Jesus! Did I? Oh, I hope so.] <\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> That\u2019d be awful nice of ya.<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> Did you ever think of doing one of his plays?<\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> Yeah, but it never got past the thought stage. I guess they figured that maybe spurs and \u201cBlithe Spirit\u201d wouldn\u2019t go together. Can\u2019t you see the critics? \u201cWayne should go back to killing Indians, not Noel Coward.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dick Cavett in today’s NY Times recalls a conversation with John Wayne on the set of The Shootist, the Duke’s final film in which the rugged star of war films and westerns talks about his love of Noel Coward’s work: Wayne: Wasn\u2019t he great? Me (Cavett): Who? Wayne: Coward. Me [startled, realizing now that the … Continue reading John Wayne loved Noel Coward?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2464,2465,2105],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-dick-cavett","tag-john-wayne","tag-noel-coward"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}