Cole Porter-Born On This Day
William/ MuckTheDuck
day. He wrote great music and I was made more aware of who he was when I
was 17 and appeared in one of his musicals at a local YMWHA production
of probably his greatest show written for the stage.
The musical was “Kiss Me Kate” and is currently being revived on
Broadway. It received honors this past Sunday Night during the annual
Tony Awards for recogniziton to Broadway performers and works.
This show was also made into a movie and can be seen on television from
time to time. The music is great and I suggest you listen to the
original cast recording and/or soundtrack available on cd.
Cole Porter was a homosexual man with talent that contributed to enrich
all our lives thru his wonderful talents of not just writing music but
that rare gift like Irving Berlin had where he was also his own
lyricist.
Wm/MuckTheDuck
This appeared in today's NY Times:
In 1891, Cole Porter, the American composer and lyricist, was born.
(Read about his life.)
Here is his obituary that appeared in the New York Times when he died.
October 16, 1964
OBITUARY
Cole Porter Is Dead; Songwriter Was 72
By The Associated Press
ANTA MONICA, Calif., Oct. 15--Cole Porter, the world-famed composer and
lyricist, died at 11:05 P.M. today at a Santa Monica hospital, where he
underwent kidney surgery last Tuesday. He was 72 years old.
Mr. Porter wrote the lyrics and music for his songs, and to both he
brought such an individuality of style that a genre known as "the Cole
Porter song" became recognized.
The hallmarks of a typical Porter song were lyrics that were urbane or
witty and a melody with a sinuous, brooding quality. Some of his
best-known songs in this vein were "What Is This Thing Called Love,"
"Night and Day," "Love for Sale" and "Begin the Beguine."
But an equally typical and equally recognizable Porter song would have a
simple, bouncy melody and a lyric based on a long and entertaining list
of similarities, opposite or contrasts. "Let's Do It" ticked off the
amiable amatory habits of birds, flowers, crustacea, fish, insects,
animals and various types of humans, while "You're the Top" was an
exercise in the creation of superlatives that included such items as
"the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire," "Garbo's salary" and
"Mickey Mouse."
Still a third type of Porter song was exclamatory in both lyrics and
melody. "Just One of Those Things," "From This Moment On" and "It's All
Right With Me" were instances.
Reflected His Living
The glossy opulence of the scores Mr. Porter wrote for Broadway and
Hollywood was a valid reflection of his own manner of living. Between
World Wars he and his wife, the former Linda Lee of Louisville, Ky.,
were active in a gay international set that gathered at Paris, the
Riviera and Venice.
Their home on the Left Bank in Paris had platinum wallpaper and chairs
upholstered in zebra skin. Mr. Porter once hired the entire Monte Carlo
Ballet to entertain his house guests. For a party in Venice, where he
rented the Palazzo Rezzonico for $4,000 a month, he hired 50 gondoliers
to act as footmen and had a troupe of high-rope walkers perform in a
blaze of lights.
Most of Mr. Porter's songs were written far from Broadway. His score for
"Anything Goes," which included "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You're the
Top," "All Through the Night" and the title song, was composed while he
was cruising down the Rhine. He wrote the songs for "Jubilee" ("Begin
the Beguine," "Just One of Those Things" and "Why Shouldn't I?" among
others) during a round-the- world cruise with the show's librettist,
Moss Hart.
But Mr. Porter was no dilettante composer. Not even the rigors of his
busy social rounds interfered with his creativity.
"I've done lots of work at dinner, sitting between two bores," he once
said. "I can feign listening beautifully. I can work anywhere."
Praised by Rodgers
He was a careful craftsman whose work won the admiration of his peers.
Richard Rodgers has said, "Few people realize how architecturally
excellent his music is. There's a foundation, a structure and an
embellishment. Then you add the emotion he's put in and the result is
Cole Porter."
Mr. Porter himself could not characterize his songs.
"I don't know how my music gets that way," he said when he was asked to
make the effort. "I simply can't analyze it. I can analyze the music of
others. The word for Dick Rodgers's melodies, I think, is holy. For
Jerome Kern, sentimental. For Irving Berlin, simplicity. For my own, I
don't know."
Mr. Porter was a trim, slight, dark man, groomed in subdued, elegant
taste. He usually sported a boutonniere in the lapel of his
well-tailored suits. His speech was quiet, reserved, almost clipped.
He was born on a 750-acre farm in Peru, Ind., on June 9, 1892, the son
of Samuel Fenwick Porter, a fruit grower, and the former Kate Cole. He
could play the violin when he was 6 and the piano when he was 8. At the
age of 10 he composed a song, "The Bobolink Waltz," that pleased his
mother so much that she had it published in Chicago.
Despite the boy's musical leanings, his maternal grandfather, J. O.
Cole, who had made a fortune in the lumber business, wanted him to be a
lawyer. To this ostensible end, young Porter was sent to Worcester
Academy in Massachusetts and to Yale, where he wrote two of the most
famous of all college songs, "Bingo Eli Yale" and the "Yale Bulldog
Song."
He continued his studies at the Harvard Law School but, at the
suggestion of the dean, transferred to the School of Music. With a
fellow student, T. Lawrason Riggs, he wrote a show, "See America First,"
which was produced on Broadway in 1916 with a cast that included Clifton
Webb. It was a failure. Mr. Porter then joined the French Foreign Legion
where he had a specially constructed portable piano made for him so that
he could carry it on his back and entertain the troops in their
bivouacs.
In 1919 he married Mrs. Linda Lee Thomas, widow of E. R. Thomas, a
banker and publisher, and settled in Paris.
Mr. Porter made casual contributions to two revues during the early
1920's, "Hitchy-Koo" and "Greenwich Village Follies of 1924," but he was
not induced to write a Broadway score again until 1928, where he
contributed the songs to "Paris," a play with incidental music that
starred Irene Bordoni. Only five of Mr. Porter's songs were used in the
final production, but one was the provocatively amusing "Let's Do It."
During the intervening years he had been writing and performing songs
for the amusement of his friends, but the reception accorded "Let's Do
It" apparently convinced him that he could communicate pleasurably to a
broader audience. As a result, a steady series of Porter show scores and
a wide variety of memorable songs followed during the next 15 years.
Among these shows and songs were "Fifty Million Frenchmen" in 1929 ("You
Do Something To Me"); "Wake Up and Dream," also 1929 ("What Is This
Thing Called Love"); "The New Yorkers" in 1930 ("Love for Sale"); "Gay
Divorce" in 1932 with Fred Astaire ("Night and Day"); "Anything Goes"
with Ethel Merman, Victor Moore and William Gaxton in 1934 ("You're the
Top," "I Get a Kick Out of You"); "Jubilee" in 1935 ("Begin the
Beguine," "Just One of Those Things"); "Red, Hot and Blue" with Miss
Merman, Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope in 1936 ("It's De-lovely," "Down in
the Depths of the '0th Floor").
Also, "Leave It to Me" in 1938 in which Mary Martin made her Broadway
debut singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy"; "Dubarry Was a Lady" with
Miss Merman and Bert Lahr in 1939 ("Friendship"); "Panama Hattie" with
Miss Merman in 1940 ("Make It Another Old Fashioned, Please"), "Let's
Face It" in which Danny Kaye sang "Melody in 4F" in 1941; "Something for
the Boys" with Miss Merman in 1943 and "Mexican Hayride" with Bobby
Clark in 1944.
While Mr. Porter was horseback riding in the summer of 1937, his horse
slipped, threw him and fell on top of him, breaking both his legs and
damaging his nervous system. One result of Mr. Porter's accident was
chronic osteomyelitis, a bone disease. In attempts to alleviate this, he
was subjected to more than 30 operations during the next 20 years but,
despite this, his right leg had to be amputated in 1958. For the rest of
his life, Mr. Porter lived under the constant pressure of pain and,
reversing his previously gay social life, became a virtual recluse.
Worked in Wheel Chair
Still he continued to turn out his songs. The score for "Leave It to
Me," written shortly after his accident, was composed while he was
almost completely bedridden. In order to continue his work, he had his
piano placed on blocks so that he could roll up to the keyboard in his
wheel chair.
At the end of World War II, Mr. Porter hit what seemed to be a dry
period. Two successive shows-- "Seven Lively Arts" in 1944 and "Around
the World in 80 Days" in 1946--were failures. But in 1948 he came back
with his biggest artistic and commercial success, "Kiss Me Kate," a
musical treatment of "The Taming of the Shrew."
In this score, Mr. Porter was not only at his Porterian best with such
songs as "Too Darn Hot," "Always True to You in My Fashion" and "So in
Love," but he also revealed a remarkable talent for blending the idioms
of both Porter and Shakespeare in "I've Come to Wive It Wealthily in
Padua," "I Am Ashamed that Women Are So Simple," "I Hate Men" (which
Brooks Atkinson called "the perfect musical sublimation of Shakespeare's
evil-tempered Kate") and the kind of grammatical challenge that Mr.
Porter relished, a song written entirely in the subjunctive, "Were Thine
That Special Face."
Other Musicals
Mr. Porter's later Broadway scores included "Out of This World" (1950),
"Can-Can" (1953) and "Silk Stockings" (1955).
For films he wrote "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Easy to Love" for
"Born to Dance" in 1936; "Rosalie" and "In the Still of the Night" for
"Rosalie" in 1937; "I Concentrate on You" for "Broadway Melody" in 1940
and "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" for "Something to Shout About" in
1943.
Mr. Porter's wife died in 1954. During his last years he lived in a
nine-room, memorabilia-filled apartment in the Waldorf Towers. On
weekends he was driven to a 350-acre estate in the Berkshires and in the
summers he lived in California.
He rarely saw anyone except intimate friends. A 90-minute television
program honoring him was presented in 1960, and a party celebrating his
70th birthday was given in 1962, but he was unwilling to attend either
event. When Yale University wished to confer an honorary degree of
Doctor of Humane Letters on him in 1960, Mr. Porter accepted on
condition that the presentation be made in his apartment.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
red...@webtv.net
popular music. During my recent Alaska cruise, one of the big live
production shows in the ship's Galaxy Theatre was "The Songs Of Cole
Porter" with a very talented cast of singers and dancers. It was a
terrific one hour show and the audience really loved it!
Thanks for posting the obituary, William. It was very interesting to
read.
During Cole's residency at the Waldorf Towers, one of his visitors was
the bisexual Jack Cassidy (father of Shawn and Patrick). As the story
goes, Jack and Cole loved to play certain B & D games. And, in the old
days, Cole and Monty Wooley would cruise the gay bars of Greenwich
Village together.
In 1946, Warner Brothers released a Technicolor "biography" of Cole
Porter called "Night And Day." It starred Cary Grant and Alexis Smith,
with Monty Wooley playing himself. Cole was portrayed in the film as a
complete heterosexual, of course, which must have given Wooley and the
bisexual Grant quite a chuckle!
Richard
David
matthew ignoffo
***********************************
If you're one who loves the sea
And likes to read mythology,
Then plunge into the depths with me.
http://www.mermaid.net/mermatt/
Don Tallman
demanding an outrageous fee, Cole disdainfully whipping out a check and
paying with contempt as though he expected the best and expected to pay
dearly. And then the song "Miss Otis Regrets" came into it somehow.
Anyone able to tell the story so it's not a, um..."shaggy dog tale?" DT
Don Tallman
charming (and passionate). His father wanted him to be a doctor and
promised a new Lincoln if he completed his studies. He did so, but his
heart wasn't really in it. He went around saying "Happy Beethoven's
Birthday" long before that Peanuts character. I've lost track and
(shamefully),
am no longer sure of his name. But, if you're out there, CALL Home! DT
William/ MuckTheDuck
wonderful talent to Americana. I love all that music and with the
Gershwin's, Berlin's, Rodger's and so many others that have contributed
to American Popular music over the years....it sure gives you many hours
of great music. You should see my music collection! Porter was one of
the top five in this category and may be among the top three.
I personally think Gershwin, Berlin and Porter are tops for American
composers.
BTW....I didn't know that Jack Cassidy was BI and you learn something
new everyday. That was a shame what happened to him in the tragic fire
that took his life.
David....I love Sousa also and next month I will focus on his music as
well as Louis Armstrong's when his birthday is celebrated. It was
thought for many years that Louis Armstrong was born on the Fourth of
July but it is now known it was August 4th.
Every year in the New York City area a public radio station called WKCR
does a weekend celebration of his music and a wonderful marathon not
only on the 4th of July but also on the 4th of August with another
marathon and they celebrate his birthday twice. Yep Next month
Armstrong's music and Sousa's music will be especially listened to by
me.
William
ver...@webtv.net
Alan
third...@webtv.net
about the musical surge of Indiana springtimes and the nostalgic
serenity of its autumns that brings out the tunes in people such as Cole
Porter and Hogie Carmichael...both Hoosiers.
I love those old buttermilk skies when August falls on Indiana, and the
deep purple of sleepy garden walls that the mosquitoes always invade in
Posey County.
It's easy to get caught up in the star dust of a song here in corn
country...except for the dog days of summer and the slippery days of
winter.
David
I've always liked to hear Louis Armstrong sing "Hello Dolly". I thought
it would have been great if at some large affair that the Dalai Lama was
at to have had Louis Armstrong sing that song as the Dalai Lama entered
the room. ;-))
matthew ignoffo
Woolley used to cruise NYC at night looking for young men.
Did any of you see NIGHT & DAY in which Monty Woolley played himself?
Cary Grant (CARY GRANT -- get it?) played Porter as completely str8.
voodoo
(William/ MuckTheDuck) wrote:
>Cole Porter was a homosexual man with talent that contributed to enrich
>all our lives thru his wonderful talents of not just writing music but
>that rare gift like Irving Berlin had where he was also his own
>lyricist.
Speaking of the great Cole Porter, I happen to have an internet radio
station, it's a Shoutcast stream actually, which features several Cole
Porter songs, among other music, mostly hits from the 50's and early
60's. I call the station "Music from the Blue Light" after the classic
KGO radio program from the late 50's.
If you are interested, you can view the station's playlist at:
http://homepages.go.com/~smiley451/list1.html .
To listen, click on this URL:
http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/shoutcast-playlist.pls?rn=440823&addr=216.32.166.79:12704file=filename.pls
.
It's a very long URL, so be sure your news reader doesn't wrap it, or
the link might not work.
I am not sure if Webtv users can listen to Shoutcast streams or not,
or whether it has to do with whether they have got the latest upgrade
or not.
But computer users who have either Winamp or Sonique can listen. If
you have Real Player 7 you can also listen, but a bug in the Real
Player causes Shoutcast streams to unexpectedly stop occasionally. In
that case, you would have to manually restart it.
The station streams at 16 kbps so modem users should be able to listen
just fine.
William/ MuckTheDuck
reasons.
I love this music and your playlist looked great....I am a nostalgia
buff and love the crooners and great singers and songwriters that have
contributed over the years to Stage, Screen and great American Popular
Song.
Unfortunately having tried tried the audio it did say webtv can not
access this info and I just got the upgrade...too bad because it would
have been something I would have enjoyed.
I am also a fan of radio and was a former radio announcer and take great
interest in radio.
Thanks and good luck with your station.
William
voodoo
(William/ MuckTheDuck) wrote:
>Thanks for posting this...I took interest in your post for several
>reasons.
Thanks for your interest William. We have something in common. I used
to have a 3rd class radiotelephone license and worked at a 500 watt
college radio station.
Since I know now that it won't work on Webtv, I will try to start up a
stream that defaults to Windows Media Player. Since all but the old
classic users will have WMP, perhaps that will work. When I have the
stream up I will post back about it.