A nightclub entertainer and occasional film actor, he was at least as famous in his own day as a star interpreter of the roles he had written for the West End. His role as playwright therefore gives only a faint outline of the comprehensiveness of his commitment to the professional theater.
Coward literally grew up in the theater. His real education began under the tutelage of Sir Charles Hawtrey, in whose acting company he learned the fundamentals of his craft. He was in several Hawtrey productions before he was twenty, hardly, as Cole Lesley reports, "ever leaving the side of the stage when Hawtrey was on, absorbing and retaining all he could of the great light comedian's technique, of how he got his effects." From Hawtrey he learned how to laugh naturally on stage, how to keep his hands out of his pockets (unless the part demanded it), how to use his arms freely and effectively, and how to master the tricks of comic timing. Coward learned how to become a playwright by first learning how to become an actor, through a practical knowledge of what works on stage. He also absorbed a great deal about stage composition from the ever-popular style of the music halls, which he attended regularly.
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