Private Lives has been described as the play which established Noël Coward in theatrical permanence. Coward met Lawrence when they were both children in 1913 travelling on a train to Liverpool with a group of child actors: "She ...gave me an orange and told me a few mildly dirty stories, and I loved her from then onwards".In 1929, having promised to write a play for her, Coward found himself unable to sleep in a hotel room in Tokyo where he was awaiting the arrival of a travelling companion: "The moment I switched out the lights, Gertie appeared in a white Molyneux dress on a terrace in the South of France and refused to go again until four in the morning, by which time 'Private Lives', title and all, had constructed itself"...

Coward played opposite Lawrence as Elyot to her Amanda and the two friends lit up the stage and ensured the play's success. T.E.Lawrence, a good friend of Coward's, apparently said after seeing them in Private Lives -- "I could not always tell when you were acting and when you were talking to one another". The story of an argumentative divorced couple who leave their new spouses to run off together was both shocking and hilarious. Amanda's/Lawrence's young husband Victor, was played in the original run by the twenty-three year old Laurence Olivier.