![]() The film director Basil Dean noticed that the 29-year-old Coward used it as a conductor employs a baton: 'Every effect was sharp and clear as a diamond. He started smoking in his youth, 'partly', he recalled, 'because everybody did it, and partly because it was at least an aid to outward nonchalance'.įrom early on, he had realised that a cigarette could be used to great theatrical purpose. In his top hat and tails, he posed for photographs outside Buckingham Palace, puffing away.Ĭoward was the last celebrity to be photographed on a regular basis with a cigarette holder He even smoked when he went to be knighted in 1970. Princess Margaret used to brandish one, almost as a weapon, but she was more sheepish about being photographed with it: for a royal, smoking in public was, even then, considered poor form.Ĭoward, on the other hand, was rarely seen without a cigarette. I would guess that, nowadays, if you showed one to someone under the age of 30, they might mistake it for a pen, or perhaps a tiny fishing rod.Ĭoward was the last celebrity to be photographed on a regular basis with a cigarette holder. Like Tipp-Ex, floppy disks, alcopops, skiffle and Yellow Pages, the cigarette holder has turned into a relic from bygone days, a reminder of what has been and gone. There it was, in virtually every photograph, an emblem of elegance now long past. Something struck me when I was looking at old photographs of Sir Noel Coward, who died 50 years ago next Sunday.
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