Cole Porter

Cole Porter
Información personal
Nombre de nacimiento	Cole Albert Porter
Nacimiento	9 de junio de 1891 localidad de Peru, estado de Indiana, Estados Unidos
Fallecimiento	15 de octubre de 1964 (73 años), localidad de Santa Mónica, estado de California, Estados Unidos Santa Mónica (Estados Unidos)
Causa de muerte	Insuficiencia renal
Sepultura	Mount Hope Cemetery
Nacionalidad	Estadounidense
Lengua materna	Inglés
Familia
Madre	Kate Porter
Educación
Educado en	Escuela de Derecho Harvard Universidad Yale Universidad Harvard Schola Cantorum de París Worcester Academy
Alumno de	Vincent d'Indy
Información profesional
Ocupación	compositor
Género	teatro musical
Instrumento	piano
Sitio web	www.coleporter.org
Distinciones	Estrella del Paseo de la Fama de Hollywood Premio Grammy fiduciario (1989)

Cole Albert Porter (Peru, Indiana, 9 de junio de 1891-Santa Mónica, California, 15 de octubre de 1964)​ fue un reconocido compositor y letrista de música popular estadounidense, autor de más de mil canciones (muchas de ellas, consideradas clásicos del cancionero estadounidense o Great American Songbook) realizadas principalmente para comedias musicales y películas musicales, entre las que destacan, mencionando algunas de las más populares y ampliamente versionadas: "Anything Goes", "Begin The Beguine", "Night and Day", "Easy To Love", "It's All Right With Me", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Just One Of Those Things", "Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)", "Love For Sale", "What Is This Thing Called Love", "Friendship", "You're the top", "True Love", o "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To".

Al contrario que la inmensa mayoría de célebres compositores de Broadway y del American Songbook, que trabajaban en equipo, Porter componía tanto la música como la letra de sus canciones. Nacido en una familia adinerada en Indiana, Porter desafió los deseos de su abuelo y tomó la música como profesión. De formación clásica, se sintió atraído por el teatro musical. Después de un comienzo lento, comenzó a alcanzar el éxito en la década de 1920 y, en la década de 1930, era uno de los principales compositores de canciones de Broadway. Después de un grave accidente montando a caballo en 1937, Porter quedó discapacitado y con dolores constantes, pero continuó trabajando. Sus espectáculos de principios de la década de 1940 no contenían los éxitos duraderos de su mejor trabajo de las décadas de 1920 y 1930, pero en 1948 hizo un regreso triunfal con su musical más exitoso, Kiss Me, Kate. Ganó el primer Premio Tony al Mejor Musical.

Los otros musicales de Porter incluyen Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady, Anything Goes , Can-Can y Silk Stockings. Sus numerosas canciones exitosas incluyen " Night and Day", "Begin the Beguine", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "Well, Did You Evah!", "I Have You Under My Skin", "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" y " Eres el mejor". También compuso partituras para películas de la década de 1930 a la de 1950, incluida Born to Dance (1936), que incluía la canción " You 'Rosalie (1937), que contó con "In the Still of the Night"; High Society (1956), que incluyó "True Love" y Les Girls (1957).

Primeros años y universidad

Nació en la ciudad de Peru, en el estado de Indiana, en el seno de una familia protestante acomodada; su abuelo materno, James Omar (J. O.: [yéiou]) era un rico comerciante de California, con una fortuna estimada en diecisiete millones de dólares, que poseía grandes extensiones de terrenos ricos en madera, carbón y petróleo y que ejercía una fuerte influencia sobre toda su familia. Sus padres eran Kate Cole y Samuel Fenwick Porter; un empresario, propietario de varias tiendas de droguería en Perú, pero que no alcanzaba el nivel económico de su suegro, era aficionado a la música y un buen pianista, de quien Cole heredó sus cualidades musicales. La residencia en la que vivió Porter de niño era una gran casa victoriana a solo unas calles del centro de la ciudad.

La muerte de dos hijos a temprana edad provocó que su madre se volcara profundamente hacia Cole, lo introdujo en la música muy pronto. Así, a los seis años practicaba diariamente el piano, aprendió a tocar el violín y escribió su primera opereta (con ayuda de su madre) a los 10. El abuelo de Porter quería que este se hiciera abogado, se convirtiera en su sucesor al frente de sus negocios y, con esa carrera en mente, asistió a la Academia Worcester y a la Universidad de Yale, donde inició sus estudios en 1909 (en Yale se unió a la sociedad secreta Pergamino y Llave, y a la fraternidad Delta Kappa Epsilon). En esta universidad desarrolló sus cualidades musicales, compuso canciones para el equipo de fútbol de la universidad que constituyeron grandes éxitos como «Bulldog Bulldog» y «Bingo Eli Yale».​​ y dirigió el coro Yale Glee Club,​ con el que realizó una exitosa gira en las navidades de 1912. Tras su paso por Yale accedió a la Facultad de Derecho de Harvard en 1913,​ donde permaneció un año, decidiéndose a concentrarse en la música, se trasladó a la Escuela de Música de Harvard.​

Carrera profesional

En 1915, compuso su primera canción para Broadway, «Esmeralda», para la revista musical Hands Up y un año más tarde, en 1916 realizó su primera producción teatral de Broadway, See America First, que fue un fracaso y solo permaneció dos semanas en cartel. Tras este primer traspié, Porter se refugió en París, donde estudió contrapunto, armonía y orquestación.​ Cuando volvió, le encantaba decirle a la gente que se había alistado en la Legión Extranjera de Francia, pero en realidad fue a trabajar para la Fundación de Socorro Duryea.​ Porter tenía varios uniformes militares hechos a medida que llevaba cuando el humor lo empujaba a ello. Se estableció en un apartamento de lujo en París.​ Sus deberes de la fundación le dejaban mucho tiempo libre para llevar una vida de playboy.​ En 1918, conoció a Linda Lee Thomas, una rica divorciada, ocho años mayor que él, quien le abrió aún más su esfera de contactos sociales y con la que contrajo matrimonio el 12 de diciembre de 1919, en París.

De izquierda a derecha: William Rhinelander Stewart, Elsa Maxwell y Cole Porter, en 1934.

En 1928, volvió a Broadway con el musical París, que constituiría su primer éxito.​ Fue un encargo de E. Ray Goetz, a instancias de la esposa de Goetz y de la cantante Irène Bordoni. Ella había elegido como compositores a Rodgers y Hart, pero no estaban disponibles y el agente de Porter persuadió a Goetz para contratar a Porter en su lugar.​ Los trabajos de Porter para la obra fueron interrumpidos en agosto de 1928 con motivo de la muerte de su padre. La obra se estrenó en Broadway el 8 de octubre de 1928. Porter no asistió a la primera representación porque se encontraba en París para supervisar el espectáculo La Revue, para el que había sido contratado y que también constituyó un éxito.​ Estos éxitos abrieron definitivamente a Porter las puertas de Broadway, siendo en palabras de Citron «aceptado en el escalón más alto de los compositores de Broadway».​ Los musicales y canciones de Porter pronto lo hicieron popular; muchos de ellos fueron escritos teniendo en mente a Fred Astaire y Ethel Merman.

En 1937, en un accidente montando a caballo, se partió las piernas que le dejaron dolores crónicos. .​​ De acuerdo con una biografía de William McBrien, una historia probablemente apócrifa del propio Porter dice que compuso la letra de parte de «At Long Last Love» mientras yacía dolorido esperando a que lo rescataran del accidente. Porter sufrió más de cuarenta operaciones en las piernas y padeció constantes dolores el resto de su vida. Durante este periodo, las muchas operaciones lo condujeron a una depresión. Porter fue una de las primeras personas en experimentar un nuevo tratamiento para esta enfermedad, el electrochoque.

Panama Hattie (1940) fue el éxito más duradero de Porter hasta esa fecha, con 501 representaciones en Nueva York a pesar de la ausencia de canciones perdurables de Porter,.​ protagonizada por Merman, Arthur Treacher y Betty Hutton. ¡Afrontémoslo! (1941), protagonizada por Danny Kaye, tuvo una carrera aún mejor, con 547 representaciones en Nueva York.​ También careció de números que se convirtieran en estándares, y Porter siempre la contó entre sus esfuerzos menores.​ Something for the Boys (1943), protagonizada por Merman, tuvo 422 representaciones, y Mexican Hayride (1944), protagonizada por Bobby Clark, con June Havoc, tuvo 481 representaciones.​ Estos espectáculos tampoco son estándares de Porter. Los críticos no se anduvieron con chiquitas y se quejaron de la falta de éxitos y del bajo nivel general de las piezas.​ Tras dos fracasos, Seven Lively Arts (1944) (que incluía el clásico "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye") y Around the World (1946), muchos pensaron que la mejor época de Porter había terminado.​

Fred Astaire en You'll Never Get Rich

Mientras continuaba con los musicales de Broadway, Porter siguió escribiendo para Hollywood, como en You'll Never Get Rich (1941), con Fred Astaire y Rita Hayworth, Something to Shout About (1943), con Don Ameche, Janet Blair y William Gaxton, y Mississippi Belle (1943-44), que se abandonó antes de comenzar el rodaje.​ También colaboró en la realización de la película Night and Day (1946), una biografía en gran parte ficticia de Porter, con un poco plausible Cary Grant en el papel principal. La crítica se burló, pero la película fue un gran éxito, sobre todo por la gran cantidad de números clásicos de Porter que contenía.​ El éxito de la biopic contrastó fuertemente con el fracaso de la película de Vincente Minnelli El pirata (1948), con Judy Garland y Gene Kelly,​ en la que cinco nuevas canciones de Porter recibieron poca atención.​ Porter y Jean Howard a principios de 1954

Desde este punto bajo, Porter hizo un llamativo regreso en 1948 con Kiss Me, Kate. Fue con diferencia su espectáculo de mayor éxito, con 1.077 representaciones en Nueva York y 400 en Londres.​ La producción ganó el premio Tony al mejor musical (el primer Tony concedido en esa categoría), y Porter ganó el premio al mejor compositor y letrista. La partitura incluye "Another Op'nin', Another Show", "Wunderbar", "So In Love", "We Open in Venice", "Tom, Dick or Harry", "I've Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua", "Too Darn Hot", "Always True to You (in My Fashion)" y "Brush Up Your Shakespeare".​

Porter comenzó la década de 1950 con Out of This World' (1950), que tenía algunos buenos números pero demasiado camp y vulgaridad,​ y no tuvo mucho éxito. Su siguiente espectáculo, Can-Can (1952), con "C'est Magnifique" y "It's All Right with Me", fue otro éxito, con 892 representaciones.​ La última producción original de Porter en Broadway, Silk Stockings (1955), con "All of You", también fue un éxito, con 477 representaciones.​ Porter escribió dos partituras más para películas y música para un especial de televisión antes de poner fin a su carrera en Hollywood. La película High Society (1956), protagonizada por Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra y Grace Kelly, incluía la última gran canción de éxito de Porter "True Love".​ Fue adaptada como musical de teatro del mismo nombre. Porter también escribió números para la película Les Girls (1957), protagonizada por Gene Kelly. Su última partitura fue para el especial de televisión de la CBS Aladdin (1958).​

Porter era clara y abiertamente homosexual, lo que parecía no ser problema para su esposa ocho años mayor que él.​ En esos días, no era infrecuente que gais ricos se casaran con mujeres acomodadas. Porter y Thomas estuvieron casados hasta que ella murió en 1954. Tuvo una relación en 1925 con el ruso Borís Kojnó y una larga relación con Howard Sturges; con un arquitecto de Boston, Ed Tauch, para quien escribió «Easy to Love»; con el coreógrafo Nelson Barclift (quien le inspiró la preciosa canción «Night and Day»); con el director de cine John Wilson y con su amigo durante mucho tiempo Ray Kelly, cuyos hijos aún reciben la mitad de los derechos de autor de Porter.

Además, muchas de las canciones de Porter se han hecho célebres gracias a las versiones de diversos músicos y cantantes. Entre las canciones: «I've Got You Under My Skin», «Night and Day», «I Get a Kick Out of You», «So in Love», «I Love Paris», «My Heart Belongs to Daddy» (que cantaron Marilyn Monroe y mucho después en español Rubi y los Casinos), «Anything Goes», entre muchas otras.

Entre los intérpretes habituales de sus éxitos, se cuentan Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker.

La película De-Lovely, dirigida por Irwin Winkler en 2004, narra la vida de Cole Porter en forma de musical.

En 2011 Woody Allen escribió y dirigió Midnight in Paris (Medianoche en París) donde Cole Porter, interpretado por Yves Hekc, aparece actuando, y su música también se escucha incidentalmente.

Musicales

Los cinco primeros títulos corresponden a trabajos realizados durante su etapa como estudiante en Yale y en Harvard.

• 1911: Cora
• 1912: And the Villain Still Pursued Her
• 1912: The Pot of Gold
• 1913: The Kaleidoscope
• 1914: Paranoia
• 1930: See America First (Su primer estreno en Broadway, un gran fracaso que duró dos semanas en cartel)
• 1932: Gay Divorce
• 1933: Nymph Errant
• 1934: Anything Goes
• 1934: Adiós Argentina (película no culminada que hubiera contenido su inmortal y ampliamente versionado tema country 'Don't Fence Me In')
• 1935: Jubilee
• 1936: Red, Hot and Blue
• 1937: You Never Know
• 1938: Leave It To Me!
• 1939: Broadway Melody Of 1940
• 1939: Dubarry Was A Lady
• 1940: Panama Hattie
• 1941: Let's Face It! (con libreto de Dorothy Fields y Hebert Fields)
• 1942: Something for the Boys (con libreto de Dorothy Fields y Hebert Fields)
• 1942: Something To Shout About
• 1943: Mexican Hayride (con libreto de Dorothy Fields y Hebert Fields)
• 1944: Seven Lively Arts
• 1946: Around the World in Eighty Days
• 1948: Kiss Me, Kate
• 1950: Out of This World
• 1953: Can-Can
• 1955: Silk Stockings
• 1956: Les Girls

Canciones

Hay varias listas compilando las canciones escritas por Cole Porter:

• En la Library of Congress
• the Cole Porter Collection
• Compilación playbill
• "A Cole Porter Bibliography" en Soundheimguide.com, consultada el 10 de marzo de 2011

Premios y distinciones

Premios Óscar

Año	Categoría	Canción	Película	Resultado
1937​	Mejor canción original	«I've Got You Under My Skin»	Nacida para la danza	Nominado
1942​	Mejor canción original	«Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye»	Desde aquel beso	Nominado
1944​	Mejor canción original	«You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To»	Something to Shout About	Nominado
1957​	Mejor canción original	«True Love»	Alta sociedad	Nominado

Bibliografía

• Algeo, Matthew (2011). Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip (en inglés). Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 9781569767078. 
• Citron, Stephen (2005). Noel & Cole: the Sophisticates (en inglés). Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 0634093029. 
• Kimball, Robert (1992). «Cole Porter». You're the Top: Cole Porter in the 1930s (en inglés). Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. ISBN 0-871-95089-8. 
• Kimball, Robert (1999). «Cole Porter». You're Sensational: Cole Porter in the '20s, '40s, & '50s (en inglés). Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. ISBN 0-871-95129-0. 
• McBrien, William: Cole Porter. Barcelona: Alba, 1999. ISBN 84-8428-004-7.
• Sánchez, Leo: Lunas de papel y polvo de estrellas. Compositores y letristas en la edad de oro del musical. Lérida: Milenio (Colección Música), 2005. ISBN 84-9743-172-3.

Enlaces externos

• Wikimedia Commons alberga una categoría multimedia sobre Cole Porter.
• Wikiquote alberga frases célebres de o sobre Cole Porter.

• Datos: Q215120
• Multimedia: Cole Porter / Q215120
• Citas célebres: Cole Porter

Porter in the 1930s

Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in Hollywood films.

Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, Porter defied his grandfather's wishes for him to practice law and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn to musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics as well as the music for his songs.

After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate. It won the first Tony Award for Best Musical.

Porter's other musicals include Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady, Anything Goes, Can-Can and Silk Stockings. His numerous hit songs include "Night and Day", "Begin the Beguine", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "Well, Did You Evah!", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and "You're the Top". He also composed scores for films from the 1930s to the 1950s, including Born to Dance (1936), which featured the song "You'd Be So Easy to Love"; Rosalie (1937), which featured "In the Still of the Night"; High Society (1956), which included "True Love"; and Les Girls (1957).

Life and career

Early years

Farmhouse at Westleigh Farms

Porter was born in Peru, Indiana, on June 9, 1891, the only surviving child of a wealthy family. His father, Samuel Fenwick Porter, was a pharmacist by trade. His mother, Kate, was the indulged daughter of James Omar "J. O." Cole, "the richest man in Indiana", a coal and timber speculator who dominated the family. J. O. Cole built the couple a house on his Peru-area property, known as Westleigh Farms. After high school, Porter returned to his childhood home only for occasional visits.

Porter's strong-willed mother doted on him and began his musical training at an early age. He learned the violin at age six, the piano at eight, and wrote his first operetta (with help from his mother) at ten. She falsified his recorded birth year, changing it from 1891 to 1893 to make him appear more precocious. His father, a shy and unassertive man, played a lesser role in Porter's upbringing, although as an amateur poet, he may have influenced his son's gifts for rhyme and meter. Porter's father was also a talented singer and pianist, but the father-son relationship was not close.

Porter as a Yale College student

J. O. Cole wanted his grandson to become a lawyer, and with that in mind, sent him to Worcester Academy in Massachusetts in 1905. Porter brought an upright piano with him to school and found that music, and his ability to entertain, made it easy for him to make friends. Porter did well in school and rarely came home to visit. He became class valedictorian and was rewarded by his grandfather with a tour of France, Switzerland and Germany. Entering Yale College in 1909, Porter majored in English, minored in music, and also studied French. He was a member of Scroll and Key and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and contributed to campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He was an early member of the Whiffenpoofs a cappella singing group and participated in several other music clubs; in his senior year, he was elected president of the Yale Glee Club and was its principal soloist.

Porter wrote 300 songs while at Yale, including student songs such as the football fight songs "Bulldog" and "Bingo Eli Yale" (aka "Bingo, That's The Lingo!") that are still played at Yale. During college, Porter became acquainted with New York City's vibrant nightlife, taking the train there for dinner, theater, and nights on the town with his classmates, before returning to New Haven, Connecticut, early in the morning. He also wrote musical comedy scores for his fraternity, the Yale Dramatic Association, and as a student at Harvard – Cora (1911), And the Villain Still Pursued Her (1912), The Pot of Gold (1912), The Kaleidoscope (1913) and Paranoia (1914) – which helped prepare him for a career as a Broadway and Hollywood composer and lyricist. After graduating from Yale, Porter enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1913, where he roomed with future Secretary of State Dean Acheson. He soon felt that he was not destined to be a lawyer, and, at the suggestion of the dean of the law school, switched to Harvard's music department, where he studied harmony and counterpoint with Pietro Yon. His mother did not object to this move, but it was kept secret from J. O. Cole.

In 1915, Porter's first song on Broadway, "Esmeralda", appeared in the revue Hands Up. The quick success was immediately followed by failure: his first Broadway production, in 1916, See America First, a "patriotic comic opera" modeled on Gilbert and Sullivan, with a book by T. Lawrason Riggs, was a flop, closing after two weeks. Porter spent the next year in New York City before going overseas during World War I.

WWI, Paris and marriage

Lady in Blue, 1906 portrait of Linda Lee Thomas by Emil Fuchs

In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, Porter moved to Paris to work with the Duryea Relief organization. Some writers have been skeptical about Porter's claim to have served in the French Foreign Legion, but the Legion lists Porter as one of its soldiers and displays his portrait at its museum in Aubagne. By some accounts, he served in North Africa and was transferred to the French Officers School at Fontainebleau, teaching gunnery to American soldiers. An obituary notice in The New York Times stated that, while in the Legion, "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." Another account, given by Porter, is that he joined the recruiting department of the American Aviation Headquarters, but, according to his biographer Stephen Citron, there is no record of his joining this or any other branch of the forces.

Porter maintained a luxury apartment in Paris, where he entertained lavishly. His parties were extravagant and scandalous, with "much gay and bisexual activity, Italian nobility, cross-dressing, international musicians and a large surplus of recreational drugs". In 1918, he met Linda Lee Thomas, a rich, Louisville, Kentucky-born divorcée eight years his senior. She was beautiful and well-connected socially; the couple shared mutual interests, including a love of travel, and she became Porter's confidante and companion. The couple married the following year. 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. Linda remained protective of her social position and, believing that classical music might be a more prestigious outlet than Broadway for her husband's talents, tried to use her connections to find him suitable teachers, including Igor Stravinsky, but was unsuccessful. Finally, Porter enrolled at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where he studied orchestration and counterpoint with Vincent d'Indy. Meanwhile, Porter's first big hit was the song "Old-Fashioned Garden" from the revue Hitchy-Koo of 1919. In 1920, he contributed the music of several songs to the musical A Night Out.

Ca' Rezzonico in Venice, leased by Porter in the 1920s

Marriage did not diminish Porter's taste for extravagant luxury. The Porter home on the rue Monsieur near Les Invalides was a palatial house with platinum wallpaper and chairs upholstered in zebra skin. In 1923, Porter came into an inheritance from his grandfather, and the Porters began living in rented palaces in Venice. He once hired the entire Ballets Russes to entertain his guests, and for a party at Ca' Rezzonico, which he rented for $4,000 a month ($72,000 in current value), he hired 50 gondoliers to act as footmen and had a troupe of tightrope walkers perform in a blaze of lights. In the midst of this extravagant lifestyle, Porter continued to write songs with his wife's encouragement.

Cole Porter, Linda Lee Thomas, Bernard Berenson, and Howard Sturges in gondola, 1923

Porter received few commissions for songs in the years immediately after his marriage. He had the occasional number interpolated into other writers' revues in Britain and the U.S. For a C. B. Cochran show in 1921, he had two successes with the comedy numbers "The Blue Boy Blues" and "Olga, Come Back to the Volga". In 1923, in collaboration with Gerald Murphy, he composed a short ballet, originally titled Landed and then Within the Quota, satirically depicting the adventures of an immigrant to America who becomes a film star. The work, written for the Ballets suédois, lasts about 16 minutes. It was orchestrated by Charles Koechlin and shared the same opening night as Milhaud's La création du monde. Porter's work was one of the earliest symphonic jazz-based compositions, predating George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue by four months, and was well received by both French and American reviewers after its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in October 1923.

After a successful New York performance the following month, the Ballets suédois toured the work in the U.S., performing it 69 times. A year later the company disbanded, and the score was lost until it was reconstructed from Porter's and Koechlin's manuscripts between 1966 and 1990, with help from Milhaud and others. Porter had less success with his work on The Greenwich Village Follies (1924). He wrote most of the original score, but his songs were gradually dropped during the Broadway run, and by the time of the post-Broadway tour in 1925, all his numbers had been deleted. Frustrated by the public response to most of his work, Porter nearly gave up songwriting as a career, although he continued to compose songs for friends and perform at private parties.

Broadway and West End success

Irène Bordoni, star of Porter's Paris

At the age of 36, Porter reintroduced himself to Broadway in 1928 with the musical Paris, his first hit. It was commissioned by E. Ray Goetz at the instigation of Goetz's wife and the show's star, Irène Bordoni. She had wanted Rodgers and Hart to write the songs, but they were unavailable, and Porter's agent persuaded Goetz to hire Porter instead. In August 1928, Porter's work on the show was interrupted by the death of his father. He hurried back to Indiana to comfort his mother before returning to work. The songs for the show included "Let's Misbehave" and one of his best-known list songs, "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love", which was introduced by Bordoni and Arthur Margetson. The show opened on Broadway on October 8, 1928. The Porters did not attend the first night because Porter was in Paris supervising another show for which he had been commissioned, La Revue, at a nightclub. This was also a success, and, in Citron's phrase, Porter was finally "accepted into the upper echelon of Broadway songwriters". Cochran now wanted more from Porter than isolated extra songs; he planned a West End extravaganza similar to Ziegfeld's shows, with a Porter score and a large international cast led by Jessie Matthews, Sonnie Hale and Tilly Losch. The revue, Wake Up and Dream, ran for 263 performances in London, after which Cochran transferred it to New York in 1929. On Broadway, business was badly affected by the 1929 Wall Street crash, and the production ran for only 136 performances. From Porter's point of view, it was nonetheless a success, as his song "What Is This Thing Called Love?" became immensely popular. Porter's new fame brought him offers from Hollywood, but because his score for Paramount's The Battle of Paris was undistinguished, and its star, Gertrude Lawrence, was miscast, the film was not a success. Citron expresses the view that Porter was not interested in cinema and "noticeably wrote down for the movies."

Still on a Gallic theme, Porter's last Broadway show of the 1920s was Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929), for which he wrote 28 numbers, including "You Do Something to Me", "You've Got That Thing" and "The Tale of the Oyster". The show received mixed notices. One critic wrote, "the lyrics alone are enough to drive anyone but P. G. Wodehouse into retirement", but others dismissed the songs as "pleasant" and "not an outstanding hit song in the show". As it was a lavish and expensive production, nothing less than full houses would suffice, and after only three weeks, the producers announced that they would close it. Irving Berlin, who admired and championed Porter, took out a paid press advertisement calling the show "The best musical comedy I've heard in years. ... One of the best collections of song numbers I have ever listened to". This saved the show, which ran for 254 performances, considered a successful run at the time.

1930s

Ray Goetz, producer of Paris and Fifty Million Frenchmen, the success of which had kept him solvent when other producers were bankrupted by the post-crash slump in Broadway business, invited Porter to write a musical show about the other city that he knew and loved: New York. Goetz offered the team with whom Porter had last worked: Herbert Fields writing the book and Porter's old friend Monty Woolley directing. The New Yorkers (1930) acquired instant notoriety for including a song about a streetwalker, "Love for Sale". Originally performed by Kathryn Crawford in a street setting, critical disapproval led Goetz to reassign the number to Elisabeth Welch in a nightclub scene. The lyric was considered too explicit for radio at the time, though it was recorded and aired as an instrumental and rapidly became a standard. Porter often referred to it as his favorite of his songs. The New Yorkers also included the hit "I Happen to Like New York".

Elisabeth Welch starred in Porter's The New Yorkers and Nymph Errant.

Next came Fred Astaire's last stage show, Gay Divorce (1932). It featured a hit that became Porter's best-known song, "Night and Day". Despite mixed press (some critics were reluctant to accept Astaire without his previous partner, his sister Adele), the show ran for a profitable 248 performances, and the rights to the film, retitled The Gay Divorcee, were sold to RKO Pictures. Porter followed this with a West End show for Gertrude Lawrence, Nymph Errant (1933), presented by Cochran at the Adelphi Theatre, where it ran for 154 performances. Among the hit songs Porter composed for the show were "Experiment" and "The Physician" for Lawrence, and "Solomon" for Elisabeth Welch.

In 1934, producer Vinton Freedley came up with a new approach to producing musicals. Instead of commissioning book, music and lyrics and then casting the show, Freedley sought to create an ideal musical with stars and writers all engaged from the outset. The stars he wanted were Ethel Merman, William Gaxton and comedian Victor Moore. He planned a story about a shipwreck and a desert island, and for the book he turned to P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton. For the songs, he decided on Porter. By telling each of these that he had already signed the others, Freedley gathered his ideal team together. A drastic last-minute rewrite was necessitated by a major shipping accident that dominated the news and made Bolton and Wodehouse's book seem tasteless. Nevertheless, the show, Anything Goes, was an immediate hit. Porter wrote what many consider his greatest score of this period. The New Yorker magazine's review said, "Mr. Porter is in a class by himself", and Porter subsequently called it one of his two perfect shows, along with the later Kiss Me, Kate. Its songs include "I Get a Kick Out of You", "All Through the Night", "You're the Top" (one of his best-known list songs), and "Blow, Gabriel, Blow", as well as the title number. The show ran for 420 performances in New York (a particularly long run in the 1930s) and 261 in London. Porter, despite his lessons in orchestration from d'Indy, did not orchestrate his musicals. Anything Goes was orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett and Hans Spialek. Now at the height of his success, Porter was able to enjoy the opening night of his musicals; he made grand entrances and sat in front, apparently relishing the show as much as any audience member. Russel Crouse commented "Cole's opening-night behaviour is as indecent as that of a bridegroom who has a good time at his own wedding."

Anything Goes was the first of five Porter shows featuring Merman. He loved her loud, brassy voice and wrote many numbers that displayed her strengths. Jubilee (1935), written with Moss Hart while on a cruise around the world, was not a major hit, running for only 169 performances, but it featured two songs that have since become standards, "Begin the Beguine" and "Just One of Those Things". Red, Hot and Blue (1936), featuring Merman, Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope, ran for 183 performances and introduced "It's De-Lovely", "Down in the Depths (on the Ninetieth Floor)", and "Ridin' High". The relative failure of these shows convinced Porter that his songs did not appeal to a broad enough audience. In an interview, he said "Sophisticated allusions are good for about six weeks ... more fun, but only for myself and about eighteen other people, all of whom are first-nighters anyway. Polished, urbane and adult playwriting in the musical field is strictly a creative luxury."

Porter also wrote for Hollywood in the mid-1930s. His scores include those for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Born to Dance (1936), with James Stewart, featuring "You'd Be So Easy to Love" and "I've Got You Under My Skin", and Rosalie (1937), featuring "In the Still of the Night". He wrote the score of the short film Paree, Paree, in 1935, using some of the songs from Fifty Million Frenchmen. Porter also composed the cowboy song "Don't Fence Me In" for Adios, Argentina, an unproduced movie, in 1934, but it did not become a hit until Roy Rogers sang it in the 1944 film Hollywood Canteen. Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters, and other artists also popularized it in the 1940s. The Porters moved to Hollywood in December 1935, but Porter's wife did not like the movie environment, and Porter's closeted homosexual acts, formerly very discreet, became less so; she retreated to their Paris house. When his film assignment on Rosalie was finished in 1937, Porter hastened to Paris to make peace with Linda, but she remained cool. After a walking tour of Europe with his friends, Porter returned to New York in October 1937 without her. They were soon reunited by an accident Porter suffered.

On October 24, 1937, Porter was riding with Countess Edith di Zoppola and Duke Fulco di Verdura at Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, New York, when his horse rolled on him and crushed his legs, leaving him substantially crippled and in constant pain for the rest of his life. Though doctors told Porter's wife and mother that his right leg would have to be amputated, and possibly the left one as well, he refused to have the procedure. Linda rushed from Paris to be with him, and supported him in his refusal of amputation. He remained in the hospital for seven months before being allowed to go home to his apartment at the Waldorf Towers. He resumed work as soon as he could, finding it took his mind off his perpetual pain.

Porter's first show after his accident was not a success. You Never Know (1938), starring Clifton Webb, Lupe Vélez and Libby Holman, ran for only 78 performances. The score included the songs "From Alpha to Omega" and "At Long Last Love". He returned to success with Leave It to Me! (1938); the show introduced Mary Martin, singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy", and other numbers included "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love" and "From Now On". Porter's last show of the 1930s was DuBarry Was a Lady (1939), a particularly risqué show starring Merman and Bert Lahr. After a pre-Broadway tour, during which it ran into trouble with Boston censors, it achieved 408 performances, beginning at the 46th Street Theatre. The score included "But in the Morning, No" (which was banned from the airwaves), "Do I Love You?", "Well, Did You Evah!", "Katie Went to Haiti" and another of Porter's up-tempo list songs, "Friendship". At the end of 1939, Porter contributed six songs to the film Broadway Melody of 1940 for Fred Astaire, George Murphy and Eleanor Powell.

Meanwhile, as political unrest increased in Europe, Porter's wife closed their Paris house in 1939, and the next year bought a country home in the Berkshire mountains, near Williamstown, Massachusetts, which she decorated with elegant furnishings from their Paris home. Porter spent time in Hollywood, New York and Williamstown.

1940s and postwar

Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich

Panama Hattie (1940) was Porter's longest-running hit so far, running in New York for 501 performances despite the absence of any enduring Porter songs. It starred Merman, Arthur Treacher and Betty Hutton. Let's Face It! (1941), starring Danny Kaye, had an even better run, with 547 performances in New York. This, too, lacked any numbers that became standards, and Porter always counted it among his lesser efforts. Something for the Boys (1943), starring Merman, ran for 422 performances, and Mexican Hayride (1944), starring Bobby Clark, with June Havoc, ran for 481 performances. These shows, too, are short of Porter standards. The critics did not pull their punches, complaining about the lack of hit tunes and the generally low standard of the scores. After two flops, Seven Lively Arts (1944) (which featured the standard "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye") and Around the World (1946), many thought that Porter's best period was over.

Between Broadway musicals, Porter continued to write for Hollywood. His film scores of this period were You'll Never Get Rich (1941) with Astaire and Rita Hayworth, Something to Shout About (1943) with Don Ameche, Janet Blair and William Gaxton, and Mississippi Belle (1943–44), which was abandoned before filming began. He also cooperated in the making of the film Night and Day (1946), a largely fictional biography of Porter, with Cary Grant implausibly cast in the lead. The critics scoffed, but the film was a huge success, chiefly because of the wealth of vintage Porter numbers in it. The biopic's success contrasted starkly with the failure of Vincente Minnelli's film The Pirate (1948), with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, in which five new Porter songs received little attention.

Porter and Jean Howard in early 1954

From this low spot, Porter made a conspicuous comeback in 1948 with Kiss Me, Kate. It was by far his most successful show, running for 1,077 performances in New York and 400 in London. The production won the Tony Award for Best Musical (the first Tony awarded in that category), and Porter won for best composer and lyricist. The score includes "Another Op'nin', Another Show", "Wunderbar", "So In Love", "We Open in Venice", "Tom, Dick or Harry", "I've Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua", "Too Darn Hot", "Always True to You (in My Fashion)", and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare".

Porter began the 1950s with Out of This World (1950), which had some good numbers but too much camp and vulgarity, and was not greatly successful. His next show, Can-Can (1952), featuring "C'est Magnifique" and "It's All Right with Me", was another hit, running for 892 performances. Porter's last original Broadway production, Silk Stockings (1955), featuring "All of You", was also successful, with a run of 477 performances. Porter wrote two more film scores and music for a television special before ending his Hollywood career. The film High Society (1956), starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly, included Porter's last major hit song "True Love". It was adapted as a stage musical of the same name. Porter also wrote numbers for the film Les Girls (1957), which starred Gene Kelly. His final score was for the CBS television special Aladdin (1958).

Last years

Porter's mother died in 1952, and his wife died of emphysema in 1954. By 1958, Porter's injuries caused a series of ulcers on his right leg. After 34 operations, it had to be amputated and replaced with an artificial limb. His friend Noël Coward visited him in the hospital and wrote in his diary, "The lines of ceaseless pain have been wiped from his face...I am convinced that his whole life will cheer up and that his work will profit accordingly." In fact, Porter never wrote another song after the amputation and spent the remaining six years of his life in relative seclusion, seeing only intimate friends. He continued to live in the Waldorf Towers in New York in his memorabilia-filled apartment. On weekends, he often visited an estate in the Berkshires, and he stayed in California during the summers.

Porter died of kidney failure at age 73 on October 15, 1964, in Santa Monica, California. He is interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in his native Peru, Indiana, between his wife and father.

Tributes and legacy

Porter family gravesite in Peru, Indiana

Many artists have recorded Porter songs, and dozens have released entire albums of his songs. In 1956, jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald released Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook. In 1972, she released another collection, Ella Loves Cole. Among the many album collections of Porter songs are the following: Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook (1959); Anita O'Day Swings Cole Porter with Billy May (1959); All Through the Night: Julie London Sings the Choicest of Cole Porter (1965); Rosemary Clooney Sings the Music of Cole Porter (1982); Anything Goes: Stephane Grappelli & Yo-Yo Ma Play (Mostly) Cole Porter (1989) and Love for Sale (Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, 2021). In 1990 Dionne Warwick released Dionne Sings Cole Porter. In that same year, Red Hot + Blue was released as a benefit CD for AIDS research and featured 20 Cole Porter songs recorded by artists such as U2 and Annie Lennox.

Additional recording collections include Frank Sinatra Sings the Select Cole Porter (1996) and John Barrowman Swings Cole Porter (2004); Barrowman played "Jack" in the 2004 film De-Lovely. Other singers who have paid tribute to Porter include the Swedish pop music group Gyllene Tider, which recorded a song called "Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång" ("That Girl from the Cole Porter Song") in 1982. He is referenced in the merengue song "The Call of the Wild" by David Byrne on his 1989 album Rei Momo. He also is mentioned in the song "Tonite It Shows" by Mercury Rev on their 1998 album Deserter's Songs. After Can-Can was adapted as a film, the soundtrack won the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album.

In 1965, Judy Garland performed a medley of Porter's songs at the 37th Academy Awards shortly after Porter's death. The biographical show Cole, by Alan Strachan and Benny Green, featuring Porter hits, ran in 1974 at London's Mermaid Theatre. In 1980, Porter's music was used for the score of Happy New Year, based on the Philip Barry play Holiday. The cast of The Carol Burnett Show paid a tribute to Porter in a humorous sketch in their CBS television series. You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story, a video of archival material and interviews, and Red, Hot and Blue, a video of artists performing Porter's music, were released in 1990 to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Porter's birth. In contrast to the highly embellished 1946 screen biography Night and Day, Porter's life was chronicled more realistically in De-Lovely, a 2004 Irwin Winkler film starring Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as Linda. The soundtrack to De-Lovely includes Porter songs sung by Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall and Natalie Cole, among others. Porter also appears as a character in Woody Allen's 2011 film Midnight in Paris.

Many events commemorated the centenary of Porter's birth, including the halftime show of the 1991 Orange Bowl. Joel Grey and a large cast of singers, dancers and marching bands, performed a tribute to Porter in Miami, Florida during the 57th King Orange Jamboree parade, whose theme was "Anything Goes". The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra performed a program of Cole Porter music at the Circle Theatre in Indianapolis, which also featured clips of Porter's Hollywood films. "A Gala Birthday Concert" was held at New York City's Carnegie Hall, with more than 40 entertainers and friends paying tribute to Porter's long career in theater and film. In addition, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Porter's birth. The Indiana University Opera performed Porter's musical, Jubilee, in Bloomington, Indiana.

In May 2007, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated to Porter. In December 2010, his portrait was added to the Hoosier Heritage Gallery in the office of the Governor of Indiana. Numerous symphony orchestras have paid tribute to Porter in the years since his death including Seattle Symphony Orchestra, with Marvin Hamlisch as conductor and the Boston Pops, both in 2011. In 2012, Marvin Hamlisch, Michael Feinstein, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra honored Porter with a concert that included his familiar classics. The Cole Porter Festival is held every year in June in his hometown of Peru, Indiana, to foster music and art appreciation. Costumed singers in the cabaret-style Cole Porter Room at the Indiana Historical Society's Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center in Indianapolis take requests from visitors and perform Porter's hit songs. Since Porter's death, except for a brief time at the New York Historical Society, his 1908 Steinway grand piano, which he had used when composing since the mid-1930s, has been displayed and often played in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Porter is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame and Great American Songbook Hall of Fame, which recognized his "musically complex [songs] with witty, urbane lyrics". In 2014, Porter was honored with a plaque on the Legacy Walk in Chicago, which celebrates LGBT achievers.

Notable songs

See also: Category:Compositions by Cole Porter

Shows listed are stage musicals unless otherwise noted. Where the show was later made into a film, the year refers to the stage version. A complete list of Porter's works is in the Library of Congress in its Cole Porter Collection.

• (1916) See America First
• (1919) Hitchy-Koo of 1919 – "Old-Fashioned Garden"
• (1928) Paris – "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love"
• (1929) Wake Up and Dream – "What Is This Thing Called Love?"
• (1929) Fifty Million Frenchmen – "You Do Something to Me"
• (1930) The New Yorkers – "Love for Sale", "I Happen to Like New York", "Where Have You Been?"
• (1932) Gay Divorce – "After You, Who?", "Night and Day" (adapted as The Gay Divorcee, 1934)
• (1933) Nymph Errant – "Experiment", "The Physician", "It's Bad for Me"
• (1934) Hi Diddle Diddle (revue) — "Miss Otis Regrets"
• (1934) Anything Goes – "All Through the Night", "Anything Goes", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "You're the Top"
• (1934) Adios Argentina (un-produced film) – "Don't Fence Me In"
• (1935) Jubilee – "Begin the Beguine", "Just One of Those Things"
• (1936) Red, Hot and Blue – "Down in the Depths (on the Ninetieth Floor)", "Ridin' High", "It's De-Lovely"
• (1936) Born to Dance (film) – "You'd Be So Easy to Love", "I've Got You Under My Skin"
• (1937) Rosalie (film)  – "In the Still of the Night"
• (1937) You Never Know – "At Long Last Love", "From Alpha to Omega", "Let's Misbehave"
• (1938) Leave It to Me! – "From Now On", "Get Out of Town", "My Heart Belongs to Daddy"
• (1939) Broadway Melody of 1940 (film) – "Between You and Me", "I Concentrate on You", "I've Got My Eyes on You", "I Happen to Be in Love", "Begin the Beguine"
• (1939) DuBarry Was a Lady – "But in the Morning No", "Do I Love You?", "Well, Did You Evah!", "Friendship"

• (1940) Panama Hattie – "I've Still Got My Health", "Let's Be Buddies"
• (1941) You'll Never Get Rich (film) – "Dream Dancing", "So Near and Yet So Far"
• (1941) Let's Face It! – "I Hate You, Darling", "Ace in the Hole"
• (1942) Something for the Boys – "Could It Be You"
• (1942) Something to Shout About – "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To"
• (1943) Mexican Hayride – "I Love You"
• (1944) Seven Lively Arts – "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye"
• (1946) Around the World – "Look What I Found"
• (1947) The Pirate (film) – "Be a Clown", "Mack the Black", "You Can Do No Wrong"
• (1948) Kiss Me, Kate – "Always True to You in My Fashion", "Another Op'nin', Another Show", "Brush Up Your Shakespeare", "I Hate Men", "Why Can't You Behave?", "So in Love", "Tom, Dick or Harry", "Too Darn Hot", "Wunderbar"
• (1950) Out of This World – "From This Moment On", "I Am Loved"
• (1950) Stage Fright (film) – "The Laziest Gal in Town"
• (1953) Can-Can – "I Am in Love", "I Love Paris", "C'est Magnifique", "It's All Right With Me"
• (1954) Silk Stockings – "All of You", "Paris Loves Lovers"
• (1955) High Society (film) – "Mind if I Make Love to You?", "True Love", "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", "You're Sensational"
• (1956) Les Girls (film) – "Ça, C'est L'amour", "You're Just Too, Too"
• (1958) Aladdin (television) – "Come to the Supermarket (In Old Peking)"

Notes, references, sources and further reading

Sources

• Algeo, Matthew (2011). Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 9781569767078.
• Citron, Stephen (2005). Noel & Cole: the Sophisticates. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 0634093029.
• Coward, Noël (1982). Graham Payn; Sheridan Morley (eds.). The Noël Coward Diaries (1941–1969). London: Methuen. ISBN 0-297-78142-1.
• Kimball, Robert, ed. (1984). The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-394-72764-9.
• Kimball, Robert (1991). Cole Porter: Overtures and Ballet Music, Liner note to EMI CD CDC 7 54300 2. London: EMI Records. OCLC 315563881.
• Kimball, Robert (1992). "Cole Porter". You're the Top: Cole Porter in the 1930s. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. ISBN 0-871-95089-8.
• Kimball, Robert (1999). "Cole Porter". You're Sensational: Cole Porter in the '20s, '40s, & '50s. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. ISBN 0-871-95129-0.
• McBrien, William (1998). Cole Porter: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-58235-7.
• Miller, Michael (2008). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music History. Penguin. ISBN 978-1-440-63637-0.
• Schwartz, Charles (1977). Cole Porter: A Biography. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80097-7.
• Seuss, Dr (2012). Richard Marschall (ed.). Just What the Doctor Disordered: Early Writings and Cartoons of Dr. Seuss. Mineola, NY: Dover. ISBN 978-0486498461.

Further reading

• Garrison, John S. Red Hot + Blue (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2024). ISBN 9798765106648
• Greher, Gena R. "Night & Day: Cole Porter, hip hop, their shared sensibilities and their teachable moments." College Music Symposium. Vol. 49. 2009. online
• Hill, Edwin. "Making claims on echoes: Dranem, Cole Porter and the biguine between the Antilles, France and the US." Popular Music 33.3 (2014): 492–508.
• McAuliffe, Mary. When Paris Sizzled: The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). ISBN 1442253320
• Porter, Cole. The Letters of Cole Porter (Yale University Press, 2019). ISBN 030021927X
• Randel, Don M., Matthew Shaftel, and Susan Forscher Weiss, eds. A Cole Porter Companion; (U of Illinois Press, 2016). ISBN 0252040090
• Savran, David. "'You've got that thing': Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, and the Erotics of the List Song." Theatre Journal (2012): 533–548. online
• Spirou, Penny. "From Night and Day to De-Lovely: cinematic representations of Cole Porter." Refractory: a journal of entertainment media 18 (2011): 1–13.
• Wells, Ira. "Swinging Modernism: Porter and Sinatra beneath the Skin." University of Toronto Quarterly 79.3 (2010): 975–990.

External links

• Works by or about Cole Porter at the Internet Archive
• Cole Porter discography at Discogs
• Cole Porter at the Internet Broadway Database
• Cole Porter at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Cole Porter at IMDb
• Cole Porter at Playbill Vault
• Cole Porter Birthplace & Museum
• Cole Porter Festival
• Cole Porter Collection at the Library of Congress
• Cole Porter recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.