Cole Porter; A Biography

New York, N.Y. Alfred A. Knopf, INC., 1998. First Edition, Stated [No Price on DJ flap]. Hardcover. While stated as a First Edition, there is no information on printing and no price on the Dust Jacket. However, there is no symbol or depression on the back cover near the bottom of the spine. This is considered as possibly being a Book Club edition. xiii. [1], 459, [5] pages. Includes Acknowledgments, Notes, and Index. Includes chapters on We Open in Peru; I Want to Be a Yale Boy; Seeing America First; I'm Tired of Living Alone; Raising Hell in Europe; Mesdames, Messieurs; Take Me Back to Manhattan; Anything Went; World-Famous Tunesmith; Like Living on the Moon; Back in Stride; DuBarry; I'm in Love with a Soldier Boy; Little Houses in Which Our Hearts One Lived; Night and Day; The Champ is Back; Down in the Depths; Can-Can; The Dream Is Over; After You, Who?; and He Kept On Living. Also includes 72 black and white photographs. William McBrien's biography, the result of ten years of work and bursting with stories and scenes of Porter's life, takes us beyond the patina of Porter's very public career, beyond the high and low aristocratic worlds of Venice, beyond the opulent parties and costume balls on two continents he not only attended but threw himself--and made into an art form. He had long relationships as well as frequent dalliances with many men, but for thirty-five years maintained a loving marriage to the woman he truly adored. Derived from a Publisher's Weekly review: The wit, sophistication and often-surprising depth of feeling in the music and lyrics of Cole Porter are at last fully realized in this latest of the songwriter's many biographies. Making illuminating use of previously unpublished material at Yale and at the Cole Porter Trust, McBrien weaves a complex and groundbreaking portrait of Porter, interspersed with lyrics and illustrations, recounting his affluent upbringing in Peru, Indiana and his emergence in the 1930s as the musical theater's reigning sophisticate. A delicious chapter on the making of Kiss Me Kate in 1948 demonstrates what sharp talons were needed to create a hit. But McBrien's most startling scholarship is on the subject of Porter's homosexuality. Although Porter's marriage remained sexless, he and his wife Linda were the most intimate of soulmates, says McBrien. He traces the early years of their marriage in the expatriate Europe of the 1920s--during which time Linda would meet and approve Porter's male lovers--through their older years in postwar Broadway and Hollywood, when Linda's respiratory illnesses and Porter's paralyzed legs racked their bodies but not their spirits. Never-before-seen letters shine light into Porter's ongoing relationships with Ballets Russes star Boris Kochno, architect Ed Tauch, choreographer Nelson Barclift, director John Wilson, and longtime friend Ray Kelly, whose children still receive half of the childless Porter's copyrights. McBrien locates the psychological roots of Porter's love songs in his unrequited love for the men he could have but not forever. This astute biography will help to create a standard-setting portrait of Porter.

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 film. Born to a wealthy family, Porter defied his grandfather's wishes 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. 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 '30s, 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).
Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: Cole Porter, Composers, Censorship, Moss Hart, Ray Kelly, John Wilson, Boris Kochno, Ed Tauch, Nelson Barclift, Bert Lahr, Elsa Maxwell, Ethel Merman, Howard Sturges, Bella Spewack, Monty Woolley, Yale University, Linda Porter

ISBN: 0394582357

[Book #79805]

Price: $25.00

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