Graham Payn is a relatively unknown figure to most; and if he is known, it is usually in connection with Sir Noel Coward. What many who do know about him don’t realize, however, is that Payn was a singer as well as stage and film actor.

Graham Payn was born April 25, 1918, in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. At the age of ten, his family moved to England, where he began to develop his singing talent. Like so many singers before him, Payn began in a boy’s choir. With his soprano voice, Payn also partook in concerts.

After only three years in England, Payn felt the desire to diversify his talents. To that end, in addition to singing, Payn began to pursue his acting career. His first stage production was as the character of Curly in Peter Pan. He was thirteen years old.

By the age of fourteen, Payn took a role in Words and Music by his future partner, Noel Coward. This spawned a lifelong relationship, both professionally and personally. By the mid-1940s, Coward was writing a new play entitled Sigh No More, which eventually hit the stage in 1945. He wrote the lead exclusively for Payn.

While Payn felt most at home on stage, he also knew the exposure afforded by television and film was far greater. Making the decision to pursue this media form, his first television appearance was in 1939 with More Fun and Games! costarring character actor Eric Christmas. In this same year, he appeared in a televised production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He concluded 1939 with a small role in the television comedy A Ship in the Bay.

1949 brought Payn another role closely connected to Coward. Coward’s play The Astonished Heart was adapted into film, and Payn played the supporting part of Tim opposite Coward’s leading role as Dr. Christian Faber.

Beginning to gain some notoriety and clout as an actor, Payn landed parts in more commercial productions - including a pivotal role in Boys in Brown. Not only was the film seen by a wider audience than his previous work, but he also began working alongside more notable actors such as Richard Attenborough and Dirk Bogarde.

Payn’s sporadic film and television appearances fell off completely after Boys in Brown, because he was focusing exclusively on theater productions. He found almost continuous work for twenty years at the West End in London.  The highpoint in his stage career was arguably a turn on Broadway in Tonight at 8:30, not surprisingly, another Coward play.

His last few television appearances were in 1962 for the crime/drama Jigsaw and Koroshi in 1966.

Some might argue the highpoint of his screen career came three years later when he appeared in the original comedy/drama The Italian Job. He co-starred with Coward, Michael Caine, and Benny Hill.

Coward died in 1973, which inspired Payn to write the novel Noel Coward and His Friends in 1979. He is also noted for editing The Noel Coward Diaries. Payn’s autobiography was released in 1994.

Shortly after, on November 4, 2005, Payn died of natural causes. He passed away in Les Avants, Switzerland in the chalet he shared with Coward.

YUDDY