Noël Peirce Coward (1899-1973) was a British playwright, most active in the twenties and thirties. Known for comedies featuring the upper class. In World War II, he talked Winston Churchill into making him an agent for British inteligence, and proved to be surprisingly good at it; his reputation as a comic celebrity helped loosen a lot of lips of the enemy. In the fifties he had a resurgence as a singer, singing his own comic songs.