Cole Porter

[5] 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.

[17][2] 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.

[15] 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.

[18] 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.

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.

[23] 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.

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".

[5] 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.

The Porter home on the rue Monsieur near Les Invalides was a palatial house with platinum wallpaper and chairs upholstered in zebra skin.

[32] 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.

[34] 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.

[37] 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.

[45] 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.

"[47] 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".

Originally performed by Kathryn Crawford in a street setting, critical disapproval led Goetz to reassign the number to Elisabeth Welch in a nightclub scene.

[n 9] 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.

[n 11] 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.

[63][n 13] 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.

[64] 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".

[65] 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".

[69] 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.

[95] The biopic's success contrasted starkly with the failure of Vincente Minnelli's film The Pirate (1948), with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly,[96] in which five new Porter songs received little attention.

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".

The film High Society (1956), starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly, included Porter's last major hit song "True Love".

[105] 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.

[111] 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.

[122] The soundtrack to De-Lovely includes Porter songs sung by Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall and Natalie Cole, among others.

[125][126] 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".

[126] "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.

[n 16] 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.