Word: cowardly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...culminating event of the Coward year was last week's sold-out gala at Carnegie Hall. Too many celebrators retailed the clever mots that have diminished Coward's reputation to something like that of, say, Fran Lebowitz's, instead of revealing him as the theatrical and musical prodigy he was. Happily, though, the evening was primarily an opportunity for the aristocracy of the cabaret world--led by Michael Feinstein, Barbara Cook and Andrea Marcovicci--to sing the luminous songs on which Coward's legacy should most comfortably settle...
...centennial has spawned revivals and observances. In London there have been productions of three of his plays. New York City has seen a sprightly all-Coward revue featuring Twiggy and a terrific concert version of Sail Away, starring Elaine Stritch in the role she created in 1961. On Dec. 16 (Coward's birthday), Lauren Bacall opens in Waiting in the Wings; late winter will bring Suite in Two Keys, starring Keir Dullea (pretty creative casting, given Coward's famous 1965 dismissal of the actor: "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow...
Anyone assembling a roster of artistic types who shaped the 20th century aesthetic could do worse than a team comprising Duke Ellington, Fred Astaire, Ernest Hemingway, Alfred Hitchcock and Noel Coward. Through some unlikely alignment of the planets, all five were born in the last eight months of 1899, and thus have all been celebrated in this centennial-sodden year...
Oddly, the most protean among them is the least well known today. No other 20th century figure approaches Coward's creative breadth: playwright, actor, composer, lyricist, novelist, stage director, film producer, Vegas "entertainer." His nose for talent was such that he launched Laurence Olivier's career and produced the first four films directed by David Lean. "Success," he once said, "took me to her bosom like a maternal boa constrictor...
...Tassel. Riding home after being rebuffed by Katrina at a quilting party one night, Ichabod begins to take the town's superstition more seriously when he hears the clippety-clop of a following horse. His fears getting the best of him, he is eventually reduced to a quivering coward racing for the covered bridge that marks the end of the horseman's haunted territory. Just as he nears the bridge, he turns to see what looks like a headless horseman hurling his head at him. The next day, Ichabod is nowhere to be found; his horse if found grazing nearby...