Background
Cole Porter was born in Peru, Ind. , on June 9, 1891, the son of a pharmacist.
Cole Porter was born in Peru, Ind. , on June 9, 1891, the son of a pharmacist.
From 1905 to 1909 Cole Porter attended the academy in Worcester (Massachusetts). After the successful completion of secondary education, his grandfather gave him a trip to Europe. In 1909, Cole Porter enrolled at Yale University. During his studies he participated in various music clubs, wrote about 300 songs. After graduating from Yale University in 1913, he enrolled at Harvard Law School. Soon he realized that he did not want to become a lawyer, and moved to the music faculty of Harvard University.
By 1901 he had composed a one song "operetta" entitled The Song of the Birds; then he produced a piano piece, "The Bobolink Waltz, " which his mother published in Chicago. In 1917 Porter was in France, and for some months during 1918-1919 he served in the French Foreign Legion. After this he studied composition briefly with the composer Vincent d'Indy in Paris. Returning to New York, he contributed songs to the Broadway production Hitchy-Koo of 1919, his first success, and married the wealthy socialite Linda Lee. The Porters began a lifetime of traveling on a grand scale; they became famous for their lavish parties and the circle of celebrities in which they moved. Porter contributed songs to various stage shows and films and in 1923 composed a ballet, Within the Quota, which was performed in Paris and New York. Songs such as "Let's Do It" (1928), "What Is This Thing Called Love" (1929), "You Do Something to Me" (1929), and "Love for Sale" (1930) established him as a creator of worldly, witty, occasionally risqué lyrics with unusual melodic lines to match. In the 19306 and 19406 Porter provided full scores for a number ** of bright Broadway and Hollywood productions, among them Anything Goes (1934), Jubilee (1935), Rosalie (1937), Panama Hattie (1940), and Kiss Me Kate (1948). These scores and others of the period abound with his characteristic songs: "Night and Day, " "I Get a Kick out of You, " "You're the Top, " "Anything Goes, " "Begin the Beguine, " "Just One of Those Things, " "Don't Fence Me In, " "In the Still of the Night, " and "So in Love. " In his last years he produced one big Broadway success (Can-Can, 1953). He died on October 15, 1964, in Santa Monica, California.
Quotations:
“All the world loves a clown. ”
“He may have hair upon his chest but, sister, so has Lassie. ”
“I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles. ”
“In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking but now, God knows, anything goes. ”
“It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely. ”
“Most gentlemen don't like love, they just like to kick it around. ”
“My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director. ”
“What is this thing called love?
This funny thing called love?
Just who can solve this mystery?
Why should it make a fool of me?”
“If you want to buy my wares
Follow me and climb the stairs. ..
Love for sale. ”
“There's an, oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me. ”
“I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in”
“What moments divine, what rapture serene. ”
Serious injuries in a riding accident in 1937 plagued Porter for the remainder of his life. A series of operations led, in 1958, to the amputation of his right leg. Porter's songs show an elegance of expression and a cool detachment that seem to epitomize a kind of sophistication peculiar to the 1930. He was also an authentically talented creator of original melodies. Like George Gershwin, he frequently disregarded the accepted formulas of the conventional popular song (usually a rigid 32-measure framework) and turned out pieces of charm and distinction.
In 1918 Cole Albert Porter met Linda Lee Thomas. The couple shared mutual interests, including a love of travel, and she became Porter's confidant and companion. She was in no doubt about Porter's homosexuality, but it was mutually advantageous for them to marry. For Linda, it offered continued social status and a partner who was the antithesis of her abusive first husband. For Porter, it brought a respectable heterosexual front in an era when homosexuality was not publicly acknowledged. They were, moreover, genuinely devoted to each other and remained married from December 19, 1919, until her death in 1954. They had no children.