# Cole Porter is the arch cynic to whom a crushing love affair was “just one of those things” and who could be true to his girl “only in my fashion”: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/06/09/cole-porter-is-the-arch-cynic-to-whom-a-crushing-love-affair-was-just-one-of-those-things-and-who-could-be-true-to-his-girl-only-in-my-fashion-video/
- Published: 2018-06-09T00:02:52+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**09.06. – Happy Birthday !!! While the 1920’s ended on December 30, 1929–and a 
far different political, social, and sociological climate prevailed during the ensuing
decade–a number of highly gifted writers managed to keep alive in the musical theater
of the 1930’s some of the feverish spirit and the unconventional attitudes of the“
roaring Twenties.” The most significant of these was Cole Porter.**

In his lyrics and melodies–for like Irving Berlin he wrote both–he fixed the smartness
and cynicism, the freedom in sex attitudes, the lack of inhibitions in speech and
behavior, and the outright iconoclasm that had characterized the 1920’s. He is the
arch cynic to whom a crushing love affair was “just one of those things” and who
could be true to his girl “only in my fashion.” He is the dilettante who sprinkles
throughout his lyrics cultural, literary, and geographical allusions of a well-read,
well- educated, and well-traveled person. He is the nonconformist unafraid of the
erotic, the exotic, or the esoteric. He is the sensualist who brings to his melodies
throbbing excitement, purple moods, irresistible climaxes.

Most of all he himself is like a character from a novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. 
All his life Cole Porter was the avid hunter of excitement, adventure, and gaiety;
all his life he traveled under the banner of “anything goes”. He was the sybarite
to whom the good things of life was almost a religion. Provocative in his attitudes,
unpredictable in mood and action, irresponsible in behavior, he was truly a living
symbol of the decade in which he first achieved maturity as a song writer.

His background was unique among American popular composers in that he was born to
wealth, and that his apprenticeship took place not in Tin Pan Alley but in the playgrounds
of Europe. He was born in Peru, Indiana, on June 9, 1891, to a family that had accumulated
vast wealth through speculations in coal and timber. A comprehensive academic education
carried him through Yale, from which he was graduated in 1913. His musical training
had also been all-inclusive, beginning with the violin and piano in boyhood, continuing
at the Harvard School of Music after he left Yale, and ending some years after that
at the Schola Cantorum in Paris with Vincent d’Indy.

Porter had written a complete operetta (words as well as music) when he was only
ten; a year later he had a piano piece published; at seventeen he had his first 
popular song issued in Tin Pan Alley, “Bridget”; by nineteen he had written two 
famous college songs, “Bingo Eli Yale” and “Yale Bulldog Song”; and in 1916 he completed
his first score for a full-length Broadway musical comedy, _America First_, described
in the program as “a patriotic comic opera,” in which Clifton Webb starred as a 
titled Englishman. America First was produced by Elizabeth Marbury, the same person
who had just then scored such a decisive success as a co-producer of the first Princess
Theater Show. She could hardly have realized then that in young Cole Porter she 
had another gilt-edge investment, since America First lasted only 2 weeks.

Possibly because of his disappointment in America First–more probably because the
spirit of adventure and restlessness was already stirring within him–Cole Porter
now enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, with whom he served in North Africa. 
Some say he carried a portable piano on his back with which he used to entertain
his friends with improvised songs. In any event, it is a fact that he received the
Croix de guerre decoration from the French Government for keeping high the morale
of his regiment.

When America entered World War I, he was transferred to a French officer’s training
school in Fontainbleau, after which he was assigned to teach French gunnery to American
troops. He now rented a luxurious apartment in Paris, there to become the gracious
host of the élite of the social, political, and artistic worlds. All the while he
kept on writing smart, and often risqué, songs that delighted his guests to no end.
Immediately after the war, a few of those numbers appeared in the Broadway revue,
Hitchy-Koo of 1919, without attracting notice; one of these, “When I Had a Uniform
On”, helped to launch the New York stage career of an outstanding Broadway comic,
Joe Cook.

After the war, Porter married Linda Lee Thomas of the Social Register, and they 
set up a palatial home on Rue Monsieur in Paris. The garish furnishings (wallpaper
platinum in color, mirrors extending from the floor to ceiling, upholstery made 
from zebra skins, and so forth) were matched only by the splendor of the festivities
taking place there. On one occasion, the Porters hired the entire Monte Carlo Ballet
to entertain their guests; another time, on a moment’s whim they transferred their
guests by motor cavalcade from Paris to the Riviera for a gay weekend.

In 1923, the Porters rented the palace in Venice where the great English poet, Robert
Browning, had died. Fifty gondoliers served as footmen, and a special night club
was built outside the palace to accommodate 100 guests, whose various needs were
attended by a French chef, a Negro jazz band, and Elsa Maxwell devising for them
all kinds of stunts and games. The 1920’s were at hand, and the Porters were doing
their best to set the tone for this high-living era.

It took Porter 6 years after Hitchy-Koo to get more of his songs performed on Broadway,
and this happened in _The Greenwich Village Follies_ of 1924. It took him all that
time to develop that suave, provocative manner that would henceforth identify his
best songs. But once that manner was established, he stood so sharply apart from
most of his colleagues on Broadway and Tin Pan Alley that he could not fail any 
longer to arouse enthusiasm.

His identity first became crystallized in the sparkling musical comedy Paris (1928)
which starred Irene Bordoni; and that identity revealed itself in such a slick, 
smart, and slightly suggestive song as “Let’s Do It” which gained a new lease on
life in 1960 as a beer commercial over radio and television.

The Parisian setting of this musical suited Porter’s temperament and background 
neatly. So did that of _Fifty Million Frenchmen_ (1929) for which he wrote “You 
Do Something to Me,” “You’ve Got That Thing,” and “Find Me a Primitive Man,” all
three of which bear the Porter hallmark of culture and sophistication. (Fifty Million
Frenchmen was the first of seven Cole Porter musicals for which Herbert Fields was
either the sole librettist or a collaborator).

Porter’s first unqualified song masterpieces came soon after that in two lesser 
Broadway productions: “What Is This Thing Called Love?” in _Wake Up and Dream_ (
1929) and “Love for Sale” in _The New Yorkers_ (1930).

In the 1930’s there were seven Cole Porter musicals on Broadway. Four were among
the best of the period, and all four carried the mood and temper of the 1920’s into
the new decade. _The Gay Divorce_ (1932) starred Fred Astaire as a hired co-respondent
in a divorce action, a job he assumes almost willingly since it means he can thereby
woo and win the divorcee, the girl he loves. In this role, Astaire introduced one
of Porter’s greatest ballads, “Night and Day,” a title later expropriated for the
Cole Porter screen biography released in 1946. Porter’s stimulus in writing this
classic was said to have come from a hearing of rhythms of distant tom-toms while
he was cruising down the Nile in Egypt.

As a boy he took lessons in piano and violin, and began writing songs while in prep
school. He attended Yale College (Class of 1913), where he composed fight songs 
that are still used today. After graduating, he went on to Harvard Law School, but
he had little interest in law and soon began studying music instead. Porter would
later complete his musical education at the Schola Cantorum in Paris.

Porter’s first Broadway show, See America First, was staged in 1916, and over the
ensuing decade he wrote several more shows, but did not have his first big hit until
1929, with Fifty Million Frenchmen. From then on he was one of Broadway’s most popular
composers; his subsequent credits included _Gay Divorce_, _Anything Goes_, _Panama
Hattie_, and _Kiss Me, Kate_.

He composed numerous songs that became standards, including “Let’s Do It,” “What
Is This Thing Called Love?,” “Night and Day,” “Anything Goes,” “You’re the Top,”“
I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Begin the Beguine,” “Just One of Those Things,” “ 
Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,” “Don’t Fence Me In,” and “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”
In an era when most composers of popular songs worked with lyricists, Porter distinguished
himself by writing his own verses, which were notable for their wit and sophistication.

Porter earned a large income from his songs and was thus able to live the life of
high society, enjoying frequent trips to Europe and countless parties with celebrities
and aristocrats. In 1937, however, Porter’s life took a tragic turn when both of
his legs were crushed by a horse, leaving him unable to walk and in chronic pain.
Cole Porter died in Santa Monica, California on October 15, 1964.

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