Globe Revue, which ran for six months. Coward cast Payn in an American revival of some of his Tonight at 8.30 plays, with Gertrude Lawrence. They were well received on tour but failed on Broadway. In London, Payn appeared in Coward's new works, Pacific 1860, Ace of Clubs, After the Ball, and Waiting in the Wings. Payn's performances were well reviewed, but the shows were unsuccessful. In the 1960s, he played the supporting role of Morris Dixon in Present Laughter. Payn also did some film work. In 1949, he was in the Borstal drama Boys in Brown, with Dirk Bogarde and Richard Attenborough. He appeared in two films with Coward: The Astonished Heart (1950) and The Italian Job (1968), in which Coward played a criminal mastermind with Payn as his obsequious assistant. Coward estate After Coward died in 1973, Payn's career for the rest of his life became the administration of the Coward estate. The Coward authority Barry Day wrote, "It was not a job he ever wanted or expected but he brought to it a dedication and focus that Noël would have been surprised and pleased to see. [He] was thrust into his biggest role and played it as he knew Noël would have wanted him to. It was a fitting farewell performance." Coward's biographer, Philip Hoare, wrote, "Graham disproved his partner's assessment of himself as 'an illiterate little sod' by publishing his memoir and by managing the Coward estate. He was a generous, uncomplicated man, and he will be missed by his many friends." In 1988, 15 years after Coward's death, Payn, who "hadn't the heart to use it again", gave their Jamaican home, the Firefly Estate, to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. He retained their other home, at Les Avants in Switzerland, where he died in 2005, aged 87. Publications Payn wrote Noël Coward and His Friends (1979) with Sheridan Morley and Cole Lesley, and, with Morley, was co-editor of The Noël Coward Diaries, which they dedicated to Lesley. Payn wrote his autobiography, My Life With Noël Coward, in 1994. Filmography References Notes Sources Payn, Graham, with Barry Day. My Life with Noel Coward. Applause Books, 1994. External links Graham Payn at the Boy Choir & Soloist Directory 1918 births 2005 deaths 20th-century English male actors 20th-century British male singers 20th-century English writers 20th-century South African male actors Male actors from London Boy sopranos English autobiographers English