The Stage

Charles Russell

Published Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 09:20 by Michael Quinn

The theatre impresario, costumier, actor and pioneer of Noel Coward’s career in the States, Charles Russell, has died at the age of 93.

London-born Russell was cast as a shipwrecked sailor in the 1941 film In Which We Serve (for which he changed his surname from Rowsell) while serving in the navy, after writing to Coward. The following year he was employed as ASM and understudy for the national Play Parade tour of three Coward plays.

The relationship with the playwright continued when Russell and his partner, Lance Hamilton (with whom he lived until his death in 1990), opened a costumiers in 1945 and set themselves up as theatre impresarios three years later. Although Coward disapproved of, and tried to cancel, their first production - of his own Fallen Angels - its nine-month spell in the West End prompted new collaborations, including a revival of Blythe Spirit and a cabaret featuring Coward and Mary Martin.

In 1954, Russell launched the first of what was to become a decade-long fixture in the West End: Night of the Stars. Over the years it was to revel in unexpected performances by theatre and Hollywood stars including Judy Garland, Laurence Olivier and Marlene Dietrich.

The following year he assumed managerial responsibility for Coward in the United States, almost immediately securing him a lucrative television contract. The partnership quickly soured and was dissolved in 1962, with a writ issued against the playwright.

Russell all but turned his back on theatre in the last 30 years of his life, developing instead successful interests in property.

Born on January 12, 1916, he died on April 15.