Who Is Cole Porter?
by David Bianco
One of the most popular composers of the first half of the 20th century,
Cole Porter wrote more than 800 songs. What many of Porter's fans still don't know is that the composer was a closeted gay man who wrote romantic classics such as "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" and "In the Still of the Night" for his male lovers.
Porter was born in Peru, Indiana, in 1891. He showed his musical talents at an early age. He gave violin recitals at the Marion Conservatory of Music, but he preferred the piano and occasionally played accompaniment to the silent films shown at the local theater.
Benefiting from his family fortune, Porter traveled east with his piano to boarding school and then to Yale, where he composed the university's football songs and concentrated on dramatic and singing clubs rather than academic studies.
Theatrical producer Elisabeth Marbury (a lesbian and Oscar Wilde's agent) gave him his first chance on Broadway. But See America First, which opened in 1916, closed after just 15 performances. A disillusioned Porter served briefly in France during World War I, then opted to stay on in Europe.
While living in Paris, Porter met Linda Lee Thomas, a divorced American socialite eight years his senior, who may have been a lesbian. Porter and Thomas wed in 1919, and their marriage, according to their intimates, was largely companionate.
Like his Broadway debut, Porter's other early musicals were short-lived and routinely panned. He had almost given up when Irving Berlin got Porter another shot at Broadway in 1928. Paris included the instantly popular "Let's Do It," whose coyly provocative lyrics ("Birds do it, bees do it,/Even educated fleas do it") established Porter's signature style of wit and playful naughtiness. The Porters left Europe for New York, where Porter created a string of hit Broadway shows.
In 1935 Porter went to Hollywood to write music for the movies. In California, he began leading a more flamboyantly gay life. Throughout his marriage, Porter had both long-term lovers and short flings, and his all-male pool parties were famous. Not surprisingly, many of Porter's songs had gender-neutral lyrics and could be sung by either women or men. "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To," which became an anthem for servicemen during World War II, was actually written for Nelson Barclift, a choreographer.
Porter was so popular that in 1945 Hollywood made a movie about his life. Night and Day was a distortion that made Cole and Linda's "romance" its central theme. Porter happily approved the final script because, as he put it, "None of it's true."
But Porter's musical popularity continued to grow. Even a painful riding
accident in 1937, which crushed his leg, didn't keep him from writing his greatest Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s: Kiss Me, Kate,
Can-Can, and Silk Stockings. The movies High Society (1956) -- a musical version of The Philadelphia Story -- and Les Girls (1957) were both written after Linda's death and were Porter's last major creative accomplishments.
In 1958, Porter's leg was amputated at the knee. He died on October 15, 1964, after surgery for a kidney stone. His remains were sent back to Indiana with a missive from an admiring mortician: "We congratulate you. You are receiving the body of Cole Porter."
David Bianco is the author of Gay Essentials (Alyson
Publications), a
collection of his history columns, and Modern Jewish History for Everyone. He can be reached at DaveBianco@aol.com.
For further reading:
Citron, Stephen. Noel and Cole: The Sophisticates
McBrien, William. Cole Porter: A Biography
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