16 Facts About Graham Payn

Graham Payn was a South African-born English actor and singer, known for being the life partner of the playwright Noel Coward.

Graham Payn was educated in South Africa and, after his parents divorced, in England.

Graham Payn made his first stage appearance, aged 13, at the London Palladium, as Curly in Peter Pan.

Graham Payn first appeared in films as a boy soprano in the same year.

Graham Payn volunteered for the army but was discharged on health grounds after a few weeks because of a hernia.

In Magic Carpet, Graham Payn appeared with Sydney Howard and then, after The Lilac Domino, he played Lewis Carroll, the Mock Turtle and Tweedledum in Clemence Dane and Richard Addinsell's musical version of Alice in Wonderland.

Graham Payn was widely thought to overrate his protege's talents.

Graham Payn received consistently good notices for his performances, but lacked drive and star quality, as he himself knew.

In 1951, Graham Payn returned to revue at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.

In London, Graham Payn appeared in Coward's new works, Pacific 1860, Ace of Clubs, After the Ball, and Waiting in the Wings.

Graham Payn's performances were well reviewed, but the shows were unsuccessful.

Graham Payn appeared in two films with Coward: The Astonished Heart and The Italian Job, in which Coward played a criminal mastermind with Payn as his obsequious assistant.

Graham Payn was a generous, uncomplicated man, and he will be missed by his many friends.

Graham Payn wrote Noel Coward and His Friends with Sheridan Morley and Cole Lesley, and, with Morley, was co-editor of The Noel Coward Diaries, which they dedicated to Lesley.

Graham Payn wrote his autobiography, My Life With Noel Coward, in 1994.

Graham Payn retained their other home, Chalet Covar, at Les Avants in Switzerland, where he died in 2005, aged 87.