Quote of the Day (Noel Coward, on Why ‘Writing Is More Important Than Acting’)

"Writing is more important than acting, for one very good reason: it lasts. Stage acting only lives in people's memories as long as they live. Writing is creative; acting is interpretive.”— English playwright, fiction writer, memoirist, composer, actor and wit Sir Noel Coward (1899-1973), quoted in The Noel Coward Reader, edited by Barry Day (2010)

The 125^th birthday of Noel Coward passed almost two weeks ago, but I couldn’t allow 2024 to go by without noting the worldwide observance of the event.

The image of Coward that has come down to posterity—in dinner jacket, with slicked-back hair and cigarette in hand (kind of like what you see with this post)—obscures a polymath of ferocious energy and dedication who shames the rest of us by comparison. 

Even more than the bon vivant of legend, it is this artist who scoffed at notions about his genius but gladly accepted compliments about his professionalism, that I celebrate with this post.

One last thing, though: You’ll notice in the above quote that Coward refers not to “acting” in general but to “stage acting” in particular. The latter certainly offers the possibility of an electricity between audience and performer that is not possible on film.

But film acting, in contrast, certainly “lives in people's memories as long as they live.” Coward himself is a good example.

Modern audiences will have no idea how he appeared onstage in 1933 with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in his comedy Design for Living. But as long as a TV station or movie revival house exists, viewers can watch him 18 times on film, from his 1935 screen debut in The Scoundrel to his 1969 swan song, The Italian Job.

Those roles, as fleeting or even imperfect as they could sometimes be, show why so many people of his time—and even ours—remain “mad about the boy.”