Cole Porter

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Cole Albert Porter
Cole Albert Porter
Composer and Songwriter.
Born June 9, 1891
Peru, Indiana, USA
Died October 15, 1964
Santa Monica, California, USA

Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter.

His works include the musical comedies Kiss Me, Kate (1948) (based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew), Fifty Million Frenchmen and Anything Goes, as well as songs like "Night and Day", "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "I've Got You Under My Skin". He was noted for his sophisticated lyrics, clever rhymes, and complex forms. Irving Berlin used to refer to "Begin the Beguine" as "that long, long song."

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The early years

Porter was born in Peru, Indiana, into a wealthy Protestant family; his grandfather was a coal and timber speculator. Music was one of his escapes to get away from the iron hand of his grandfather, J.O. Cole entertained people on boats and got lost in the music, which was his life. His mother started Cole Porter in musical training at an early age, and Porter learned the violin at age 6, the piano at age 8, and he wrote his first operetta (with help from his mother) at age 10. Cole's mother, Kate Porter, recognized and supported her son's talents. Kate had registered him as two years younger than he actually was to make him look like an advance child. Porter's grandfather wanted the boy to become a lawyer, and with that career in mind, Porter attended Worcester Academy and then Yale University beginning in 1909, (at Yale he became a member of the famous secret society, Scroll and Key) and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and spent a year at Harvard Law School in 1913. Story tells it that it was the dean of the law school who, in frustration over Cole's lack of performance in the classroom, suggested tongue-in-cheek that Cole "not waste his time" studying law, but instead focus on his music. Taking this "suggestion" to heart, Cole transferred to the School of Music. After realizing that he wanted to concentrate on music, he transferred to Harvard's School of Music. Porter's first Broadway production, in 1916, See America First (book by Lawrason Riggs), was a flop, closing after two weeks.

In 1915, Cole’s first song to appear on Broadway in the revue titled Hands Up was “Esmeralda”. He soon started to feel the crunch of rejection, as other revues he wrote for were all colossal flops. After his first Broadway failure, Cole banished himself to Paris, France. Selling songs and living off an allowance partly from his grandfather and partly from his mother, he was writing and selling songs and holding “glittering soirees” when the U.S. declared war on Germany in 1917. He traveled and lived all over Europe, living very freely and really savoring the good life around him. He lived lavishly and partied with some of the most well known intellectual artists in Europe. Cole, believing he would continue to lead his charmed life, did not register for the draft (although he was 26, 24 according to school records).He loved to tell people back home that he had joined the French Foreign Legion, but in reality, he went to work for the Duryea Relief Fund. Cole had a closet full of various tailormade military uniforms that he wore when the mood suited him. He set up a luxury apartment in Paris. His Relief Fund duties left him plenty of time to lead a playboy lifestyle. In 1918, in Paris, he met Linda Lee Thomas (1883 – 1954), a rich Louisville, Kentucky-born divorcée several years his senior; they were married in 1919. She was extremely wealthy, beautiful, shared a love of travel, an American divorcee', and also lied about her age. Linda was a brilliant hostess with an innate sense of style and class, and Cole loved learning these tastes and disciplines from her. Despite his fairly known homosexual endeavors, they married as a happy contrast to the abusive marriage Linda had just left, making Cole an even wealthier man.

His musicals and individual songs soon gained him popularity; many were written specifically with Fred Astaire and Ethel Merman in mind. Another important role Mr. Porter played was advancing new talent. He had a keen eye for talent, which he grabbed and showcased. His revues, La Revue in Paris and Paris in New York were successes and some of his most memorable songs came into existence. His next revues were harshly seen; what did well in America did not necessarily do well over seas and vice versa. He went traveling with Linda and friends when he needed a break, and although the ‘20s were not terribly successful for Cole, the '30s turned around.

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The middle years

The 1930s were Porter's Golden Decade. He had a string of hit shows, among them "The New Yorkers", "Gay Divorcee", "Anything Goes", "Jubilee", "Red Hot And Blue", and "Dubarry Was A Lady". Cole expanded to movies, starting with films like the "Gay Divorcee" after its stage life. This was the first time Cole’s technique of feminine and masculine themes within songs appeared and his ability to cater to the singer’s voice, such as in “Night and Day” sung by Fred Astaire.

Porter was renowned for his throwing of and attendance at lavish parties. He hobnobbed with the likes of Elsa Maxwell, Monty Woolley, Beatrice Lillie, Igor Stravinsky and Fanny Brice. While he truly loved the elite society and rubbing elbows with the upper crust, Cole saw these galas as an opportunity and used them as a vehicle to further his career. He would play his songs at parties for potential producers and star performers and in this way he would deal directly with the backers rather than having the formality of arranging time to promote his music through management. It was in this way that Fanny Brice commissioned him to write some material for her, which he readily did through a mutual admiration of the famed star of the Ziegfeld Follies. Porter fashioned a song in the style of Brice's famous number "Second-Hand Rose" entitled "Hot-House Rose." As Brice never ended up using the song in her act, it was forgotten and goes unrecognized today.

In 1937, a riding accident crushed his legs and left him in chronic pain and largely crippled, but he continued to compose. (According to a biography by William McBrien, a probably apocryphal story from Porter himself has it that he composed the lyrics to part of "At Long Last Love" while lying in pain waiting to be rescued from the accident.) Cole underwent more than forty surgeries on his legs and was in constant pain for the rest of his life. During this period, the many operations led him to severe depression. Cole was one of the first people who experienced a new treatment for depression, electric shock therapy, which at that time was particularly barbaric.

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Sexuality

Porter was plainly and openly homosexual, which was not a concern for his almost a decade older wife, Linda. They both got what they wanted from each other. Linda was no longer interested in sex and was the glamorous wife of a world famous songwriter, who would never physically mistreat her; Cole had a beautiful woman on his arm when the situation warranted it. In those days, it was not uncommon for wealthy gay men to marry wealthy socialite women. Cole and Linda did separate in the early 1930s when Porter's sexuality became more and more open during their time living in Hollywood. He had an affair in 1925 with Ballets Russes star Boris Kochno and reportedly had a long relationship with his constant companion, Howard Sturges, a Boston socialite, as well as architect Ed Tauch (for whom Porter wrote "Easy to Love"), choreographer Nelson Barclift (who inspired "Night and Day"), director John Wilson (who later married international society beauty Princess Nathalie Paley), and longtime friend Ray Kelly, whose children still receive half of the childless Porter's royalty copyrights.

A review of a recent Porter biography recounts that in his later years, the composer kept "breaking appliances so he could lure cute repairmen into his lair". When in Hollywood, Cole was also a regular guest at George Cukor's Sunday pool parties, which were completely devoid of women, but featured plenty of young men who were Hollywood hopefuls.

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The later years

After a series of ulcers and 34 operations on his left leg, it had to be amputated and replaced with a fake limb. Cole Porter died of kidney failure at the age of 73 in Santa Monica, California and is interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in his native Peru, Indiana.

His life was made into Night and Day, a very sanitized (almost fantasy) 1946 Michael Curtiz film starring Cary Grant and Alexis Smith. His life was also chronicled, somewhat more realistically, in De-Lovely, a 2004 Irwin Winkler film starring Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as Linda.

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Song samples

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Well-known songs

Shows listed are stage musicals unless otherwise noted. (Where the show was done both as a film and on stage, the year refers to the stage version.)

A far more comprehensive list of Cole Porter songs, along with their date of composition and original show, is available here: [1].

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Sources

  • Charles Schwartz: Cole Porter: A Biography (Hardcover and a Da Capo Paperback): May 1, 1979 : ISBN: 0306800977
  • Don Powell: Music Producer, Playwright.
  • McBrien, William (1998). Cole Porter: A Biography. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0679727922.
  • JX Bell Cole Porter Biography (retrieved February 16, 2005)
  • Stefan Kanfer (Winter 2003) The Voodoo That He Did So Well City Journal
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cole_Porter"
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