Interview: Broadway Golden Age Producer/Director John C. Wilson's Long-Lost NOEL, TALLULAH, COLE, AND ME Published

His forty-five Broadway credits between 1931 and 1957 include directing the original productions of KISS ME, KATE and GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and introducing Noel Coward to American audiences by producing the original New York productions of TONIGHT AT 8:30, SET TO MUSIC, BLITHE SPIRIT (which he also directed), PRESENT LAUGHTER and QUADRILLE. His productions starred theatre royalty like Tallulah Bankhead, Gertrude Lawrence, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

His wife, Natasha, was a descendant of Russian royalty and a model for Vogue, but he was also romantically involved with Coward, and his Fairfield, Connecticut mansion, Pebbles, regularly hosted parties with guest lists as dazzling as the lights of Times Square.

So why isn't the name John C. Wilson better known among theatre fans? Perhaps because the memoir he penned about his career, NOEL, TALLULAH, COLE, AND ME remained undiscovered for over half a century after his passing in 1961.

"I discovered the book when I was cleaning out the closets at my mother's place after she passed away," says Wilson's great nephew and godson, Jack Macauley, who refers to his godfather as Jack. "She inherited so much from Jack, including the original manuscript, a working draft with handwritten edits and a final typed draft. A little over 200 pages."

NOEL, TALLULAH, COLE, AND ME is finally available to the public, published by Rowman & Littlefield (www.rowman.com), but Macauley explains that before publishing there was still work to be done by he and entertainment author Thomas S. Hischak.

"This was Jack's first attempt at writing something, so we needed to edit it for grammar. Also, while all the people he writes about were very well known at that time, some are not quite as known today so we annotated it with explanations of who they were."

Those celebrities would regularly gather at the Wilson mansion.

"It was a real Great Gatsby abode. They would have these wild parties every weekend. One weekend it would be Tyrone Power there and the next it would be Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and Claudette Colbert. I've got the original guest book from the house that documents every date. Coward there 12-15 times."

A stockbroker and part-time actor, Wilson met Coward in 1925, when the young actor/playwright was first receiving West End success, starring in his own play, THE VORTEX.

"Jack sat in the front row and went backstage afterwards and just introduced himself. He was living in New York and Noel was just getting interested in having his plays come to New York so they started a business relationship. Jack was his representative for all of his shows in the United States for years, originally as a manager and later as a producer."

It was through that relationship that Wilson was introduced to Cole Porter.

"He originally met Cole in Venice, when he was there on a trip with Noel around 1926. Jack had gone to Yale about nine years after Cole Porter. KISS ME, KATE was the only show they worked on together, but Cole and Linda Porter were extremely close friends with Jack and Natasha."

As director, Wilson was there when Carol Channing auditioned for what would be her breakout role, Lorelei Lee in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES.

"They had many different actresses auditioning, but nobody could get them to laugh before her."

In addition to his Broadway ventures, Wilson ran Connecticut's Westport Playhouse from 1941 to 1957, bringing top stars in to summer theatre.

"Stephen Sondheim was part of his intern program. So was Mary Rodgers."

With so many fabulous names involved in his story, John Wilson graciously acknowledges in the opening paragraph of his memoir that to readers he would be regulated to being a supporting player.

"This book is not about me," he writes. "It is about the people with whom I have had the privilege of working, producing and associating. If I intrude into the pages, as I shall, it will only be as a rack on which to hang their famous hats and coats, and to provide some context for my happy life and incredibly good fortune."