She was heard one night by impresario George Black Senior, who put her into the touring company of the big musical Black
Velvet.
Penge, immortalised as a music hall joke, taught Noele to send her voice soaring to the back of the gallery
and how to make the fullest use of those beautiful blue eyes. And it set her on the long road to the top ...
She toured two years with Black Velvet, and as a principal was paid £10 a week. Then, in 1942, she went
into Let's Face It, her first West End musical which, oddly enough, was a version of a play she had already done
in Penge.
Three months after the opening Joyce Barbour, who played the lead opposite Bobby Howes, fell ill and Noele took over.
The following year she went into The Lisbon Story and in a run lasting more than a year became a musical comedy
star who doubled as a firewatcher during the wartime night raids on London.
One night a flying bomb landed near the theatre during a performance and blew the scenery all over the stage. This
convinced the management they had to take off the show, and for a few months Noele worked with ENSA, giving concerts at Army
camps and military hospitals. The Lisbon Story was resumed, but finally came off in deference to the German
rockets.
"I remember the charlady who cleaned the flat at the time saying, 'The bombs I didn't mind - and the flying bombs, at
least you heard them coming - but these rubber-heeled devils are getting me down!' "
That Christmas Noele did her first pantomime, playing Prince Charming in Cinderella at the Alexandra Theatre,
Birmingham, and the following year was back again to play Dick Whittington, which helped to celebrate the end of the war.
She made the film version of The Lisbon Story and played a singing newspaper reporter in A.P. Herbert's politico-musical
Big Ben at London's Adelphi Theatre in 1946. That Christmas she also did her first West End pantomime,
playing Prince in Red Riding Hood at the same theatre.
There were six months with Mae West in Diamond Lil that she prefers to forget, because the show was not a success,
and then came what she describes as her first whiff of the big time.
The show Brigadoon was running in New York and would soon be coming to London. Her agent had told her that
the small, but important, part of Meg Brockie was tailormade for her.
"He said 'You are going to play this part if it kills you and me !' I didn't want to be doing anything that would
tie me down, so I went back into repertory at Penge, Bromley and Palmers Green, doing all sorts of lovely parts.
"People ask me if I ever had to fight for anything - and you imagine a ruthless actress trampling on her rivals' faces
- but I really wanted the part in Brigadoon. There were two songs in the part, and I worked on them for six
solid months before doing the audition.
"It is, of course, a Scots part and I got myself up in all the gear, including a tartan skirt. I sang the first song,
The Love of my Life, and there was this little man sitting in the stalls, looking just like Punch, who stood up and
said: 'Miss Gordon, are you married? If not, will you marry me, so you will always be there to sing my songs the way
you've just sung that one.'
"There was the sound of sharpening knives in the wings, where the other ladies were waiting to do their audition, and I
sang the other song, My Mothers's Wedding Day, and got the part !"
The proposal had come from song-writer Frederick Loewe. The gold cigarette lighter he gave her on the opening night
of Brigadoon was stolen last year when 'Weir End' was burgled.
Noele gave 987 performances in the sort of "minor" part that ends up stealing the show. In November, 1949, she did
a Royal Variety Performance before the late King and Queen on the strength of this success.
