Cole Porter

Me. He's the TopI

I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top🎵

I’m always true to you, darling, in my fashion!

He always got good dick despite being leg-less

Stop calling him gay! He was MARRIED!

Love for sale Appetizing young love for sale If you want to buy my wares Follow me and climb the stairs Love for sale.

Bet he wrote Love For Sale based on personal experiences

He was one of the homeliest sophisticates of all time.

I don't think he was that bad looking

A dick-a-dick-a-dick-a-dick-a-dick .....

Blow, Gabriel. Blow

^ What I said to my last boyfriend

When Love Comes In, and Takes You For a Spin - Ooh La, La, La! C’est Manifique!!

No fans of Red, Hot and Blue? A tribute album to Cole Porter in 1990. Featuring artists such as Sinead O'Conner, KD Lang, The Neville Brothers, Erasure, The Pogues, Tom Waits, and more! I wore that album out.

We remember, r13...

Famous pimp Scotty Bowers claimed he procured about a dozen guys for Cole to blow one after the other.

Major props for not suing Arthur Freed when he reworded "Be a Clown" into "Make 'Em Laugh."

While Tearing off, A Game of Golf , I might make a play for the Caddie! But when I do, I never follow through - Because my Heart Belongs to Daddy!

My version was "Make 'Em Crawl"!

My personal favorite from Red, Hot + Blue...

He loved to take it up the butt!

Related.

Mary!

[quote] And he got a ton of dick!

An undocumented allegation with nil photographic evidence.

R21, lol. Who posted that?

Yay! Hey #22 - Thank you for posting Mary and her Finnen Haddie!! ^

Alanis singing Let's Do It

R13 Who said there were no fans?

His beautiful wife, Linda, was the love of his life!

Have you heard? It’s in the stars - next July we collide with Mars! Well - Did you Evah! What a swell party this is!

That's one of my favorites also, R19, but I might love this one just a little more.

R30 that’s my favorite from the album too. The video is also heartbreaking. I seem to recall that the little boy in those home movies is not Annie’s brother but is instead a famous gay movie director who may have died of AIDS.

Sorry, I should have read the YouTube description. They are home movies of Derek Jarman, who did die of AIDS.

Got a lot of good dick and good blow.

Red Hot and Blue was awesome

Do do that voodoo that you do so well...

I’m a Maid mad to marry and would take with no qualm - Any Tom, Dick or Harry any Harry, Dick or Tom!

But if baby I’m the bottom, you’re the top

r36 Really?

From this moment on You for me, dear Only two for tea, dear From this moment on From this happy day No more blue songs Only whoop-de-doo songs

If love affairs you like

With young bears you like,

Why nobody will oppose!

Hard to believe this was even permitted in Kiss Me Kate:

When your baby is pleading for pleasure

Let her sample you Measure for Measure

And nowadays this would be literal violence:

If she says she won't buy it or like it

Make her tike it, what's more As You Like It

Night & Day

He needs a good biopic. Night and Day and De Lovely both sucked

Yes, one would normally expect an improvement after fifty years but they were both as clandestine, closeted and fake as each other.

^ Agreed!

The first one featured an elegant woman playing 'Mrs Cole Porter'.

The second one featured a chubby-cheeked, fat-faced frau.

Kiss...

Looks sickly

Can-Can

r19

Absolutely, my favorite too.

So, supposedly he leased Venice’s Ca’ Rezzonico for $4,000 a month, where he would compose in a ballroom hung with Tiepolos, employ 50 gondoliers to work as footmen, and deploy a troupe of high-wire walkers as an after-dinner diversion.

Credible?

Oh, probably. It's at least as credible as today's billionaires having trips into space.

If a dachshund in Berlin can, If a tomcat in Pekin can, If a crowded sardine in a tin can, Baby, you can can-can too.

You can hear Vivienne Segal and Harold Lang in “Pal Joey” on Amazon Music. It’s delightful but it’s not Cole Porter.

I'm sure those gondoliers were more than just "footmen"

Was his wife a dyke?

People who do List Songs are lazy lyricists.

But his list songs were good!

You can't do a list song without a Rhyming Dictionary.

The Incomparable...

Dolly recorded a bluegrass version of a Cole song.

S&S

Birds do it, bees do it

He was my grandfather’s first cousin

Banned from the radio for many years. It appears in MGM's anemic film version as instrumental background music.

This "just OK" version doesn't have all the lyrics .

Primitive...

r64, who inherited the estate?

R64 None of my immediate family! I know he was infatuated (in a platonic sense) with his cousin Desdemona….so maybe her? We do have a few of his things, like his childhood (very uncomfortable) desk. Nothing of value and unfortunately none of his musical talent!

Maybe he was just infatuated with her FABULOUS name!

R69 my grandfather always said that Cole wrote Night and Day for her…..family lore, not sure if it’s true

R69 ha! But yes, I like that theory!!! We need more Desdemonas in this world

I thought Night and Day was inspired by his bf, Ed Tauch

As I said, family lore…..

Red Blues

R65 Why would 'Du Barry' be banned from the radio?

Blow...

^ That should be DL's theme song

They say that bears have love affairs

And even camels

We're merely mammals

Let's misbehave!!!

r75 Read the lyrics and get back to us.

R78, that's one of my favorite Cole songs

R70 I love that family lore tid bit you shared. I will not ever forget that. Porter was such a romantic, and it was so tragic and unfair that accident. He was one of the greatest songwriters and lyricists ever.

I wonder if So in love was also inspired by Desdemona ? Any family lore on that as well?

First time I heard it, it haunted me for months. It’s so very beautiful. I can never hear it without being totally emotionally affected by it.

The song lyric wasn't inspired by this Desdemona woman.

It was inspired by Jonah the Poolboy.

R81 tomorrow I’ll ask my mom for more stories and post any tidbits I learn. You all would Love her, a true eccentric and a bit of a Forrest Gump having had randomly encountered Elvis, Timothy Leary, Tennessee Williams and others….

He was one of the "mad queens" - he could never get enough dick.

Oh I love this, R83! Thank you 😊

Yes, thank you, r83.

Are the stories about him and Jack Cassidy true?

If a Jap with a flap of her fan can baby you can can can too.

I assume it is cut but it is clever.

My favorite Porter song is Begin the Beguine so beautiful I can't believe somebody wrote it.

[quote] He was my grandfather's first cousin.

R64 That makes Porter your first cousin twice removed. I can imagine a Porter lyric about a cousin twice removed...from a bar.

R83 , would you please ask your mom about Cole's final resting place? The story I heard was he wanted to be buried in either New York or Paris but someone (his wife?) just had him buried in the family plot, on the cheap, out of greed.

I would sacrifice anything come what might for the sake of having you near in spite of a warning voice that comes in the night and repeats and repeats in my ear don't you know little fool you never can win use your mentality wake up to reality but each time I do just the thought of you makes me stop before I begin cause I've got you under my skin.

All the great love songs are not about healthy love but obsession.

Linda Porter died in '54. Cole in '64.

In the Still of the Night is a masterpiece.

Do you love me As I love you? Are you my life to be My dream come true? Or will this dream of mine Fade out of sight? Like the moon growing dim On the rim of the hill In the chill still of the night?

I've always loved that lyric too. And the music is beautiful.

k.d. lang's version of So In Love is stunning. I want this to be played at my funeral.

Not only is it an exquisite version all on its own, but it may be the finest example of the heights that k.d.'s voice achieved. EVERYTHING here is perfection. Every note, every phrasing, her breath control.....FLAWLESS.

You may "MARY!" me all you want. I'll pay your round trip airfare to do it....I stand by this statement. FLAWLESS.

Everything But The Girl's first single, released.....*gasps* 40 years ago.

A jazz/pop classic as EBTG's entry in the eighties jazz/pop revival, the one that included Sade, EBTG, Alison Moyet (singing That Ole Devil Called Love) and the Style Council, among others.

R95

You are so right.

PM&L

Loving all these musical clips so much! Thanks, all!

Can anyone post something from Out of This World, please?

Here you go.

And another. One of the great list songs

David Burns and Charlotte Greenwood must have been magic.

Milton Berle oughta be you!

R83 Mom didn’t have a whole lot but here are a few things…, -she was emphatic that he did indeed want to be buried in his hometown in the family plot. Used to joke that he’d have to be buried standing up as it was already so full. He loved Peru and used to sneak back home frequently…..interestingly enough felt he could just be himself there. Maintained strong friendships from childhood into adulthood and was genuinely beloved. She mentioned it’s an oddly phallic graveyard….. - Night and Day was definitely written for Desdemona, or ‘little Desi’ as he called her. They were extremely close until she, her husband and young child all died tragically from sleeping sickness, tb and spinal Meningitis… - he had a bar built into the back of his wheelchair

Sorry it’s not much, wish I had more for you. Next time I see some of my relatives from that side I’ll ask for more….my mom is big on broad sweeping feelings and not so much on specifics. His genuine kindness was mentioned multiple times

There's a wonderful rendition (is that still a word?) of "From This Moment On" on that OUT OF THIS WORLD recording of the Encores concert sung by Marin Mazzie and Gregg Edelman.

Believe it or not, apparently, that fabulous song was cut from the show before it arrived on Broadway but it's been inserted in many other Cole Porter revivals since than as well as the KISS ME KATE film, of course. I'm so grateful Encores restored it to the score.

Patti/Paris

Miss Eye Roll

[quote] One of the great list songs

The quintessential list song—

Sukiyaki

One of my father's favorite songs. It sounds happy, but then if you read the lyrics...

Was that during Cole's Japanoise period, r108?

Didn't Cole Porter write Come to the Supermarket in Old Peking for a TV musical? Another list song. He was very good with them.

R109 omg! I posted this on the wrong thread! Admin, if you will please remove! Or how can I?

Sorry, r111, it's...forever.

Babs

Or an egg that's full of rusty cade??

What exactly is that lyric? I've never understood it but one of you queens will surely know.

Rusty cade?

"Or an egg that's more or less decayed"

The song is from a TV version of Aladdin. With DL fave Sal Mineo. And that old queen, Cyril Ritchard.

She mentioned it’s an oddly phallic graveyard….

R103 what does that mean?

103 Her impression of the old (pre-Cole) stones, said they were unusually phallic and impossible not to notice. I’ve never been there myself

R103

Well I thought that was very interesting! So Night and Day WAS written for Desdemona. What a shame they all got sick like that. I'm all ears for anything else you share. Very interesting.

No, it was not written for Desdemona....or any female

Doris Day sings "Just One of Those Things" in male drag

Excuse me, r121, it was written for...

GAY DIVORCE

And Lena Horne (in her MGM debut) sings "Just One of Those Things" - (I think) her only movie song by Porter.

A very simple Porter song , from GAY DIVORCE

Cary Grant played him in the movie Night and Day 1946.

I meant to add - even though it's a relatively simple song, its very direct and beautiful. One of my favorite Porter songs. Fred Astaire was uncertain about committing to GAY DIVORCE - he signed on after Porter performed this song for him. A shame it wasn't included in THE GAY DIVORCEE

" I could search years, but who else who change my tears into laughter , after you?"

r101: I adore that song. I wish someone would write updated lyrics with modern references.

"City dump, oughta be you. Donald Trump, oughta be you"

[quote] Cary Grant played him in the movie Night and Day 1946.

And did you find him in anyway credible?

I know this doctor...

^ Another list song.

Solomon

R118 I wondered the same thing so I looked up the Peru, Indiana graveyard. The stones are oddly shaped. I’m thinking this is what he meant.

^. That is bizarre. I've seen a similar one in an 1890s Methodist graveyard in Australia.

Yeah, r133, I'd say so.

[quote]Cary Grant played him in the movie Night and Day 1946.

Cary Grant played a highly fictionalized version of him in the movie Night and Day 1946.

Both Cary Grant and Kevin Kline were wrong for Cole

Nobody calls me and I object! Nobody calls me even collect!

Each night I get the mirror from off the shelf/ Each night I'm getting queerer chasing myself.

Old Miss Pringle just came back / With her child and the child is black . Well, did you evah! What a swell party this is!

Interesting the dirty lines kept in the excellent '53 film version of Kiss Me Kate. And I'm not talking about Tom Dick or Harry.

[quote]Both Cary Grant and Kevin Kline were wrong for Cole

Yes, but Peter Lorre didn't want to do it.

OP you misspelt coal and that isn’t even a job anymore now that most people have oil furnaces.

I think Jefferson May, David Hyde Pierce, and Michael Emerson at some point in their respective careers could have made a reasonable Porter in a biopic.

Yeah, r144, they all would have been Socko at the B.O.

Yes Night and Day was a big hit.

I didn't say it was, r146.

But it was. I meant because it had a big star like Cary Grant and many popular singers of the era. I was only reinforcing what you said. I know you were being sarcastic and Warner Bros proved you right. I guess I wasn't clear about that.

Sorry, r148, I was thinking It's De-Lovely.

I prefer Cole Slaw!

With apologies to Merman and Patti Lu, this is the very best version of "I get a kick out of you." Porter was camp, but with soul — very hard to do.

Eileen Rodgers had a wonderful voice, r151.

R129 No but I'll watch Cary in anything.

At the time the film of Night and Day premiered, the world really believed Cole Porter was as handsome and suave as Cary Grant. Based on his sophisticated and witty music and lyrics, and some blurry society column photos, nobody questioned that casting at the time. Alexis Smith was perfectly cast as his statuesque society wife Linda.

By 1994 when De-lovely premiered, the world was a lot wiser and nobody could accept the ultra sexy and sleek heterosexual Kevin Kline as gay Cole and even less, farm-fed girl next door Ashley Judd as his world-weary wife.

Alexis Smith was not a good Linda, in real life Linda was practically old enough to be Cole's mom. The De-Lovely casting also failed to address this

[quote] ultra sexy and sleek heterosexual Kevin Kline

Kevin Kline who starred in In or Out as a gay man?

And Kevin is....well, let's just say he may be somewhat or mostly heterosexual but not entirely.....

r153=Randolph Scott

In real life, r155, Linda was 8 years older than Cole. That's some young mother!

I meant that Alexis Smith was ideal casting as Cole's wife in that she perfectly fit the image of what everyone wanted Linda to be like (based on Cole's music and public image), much as Cary fit the idealized image of Cole.

Hattie...

I really like the idea of going to a club and seeing Porter playing the piano, doing one of his songs, back in the 20s,as in Midnight in Paris.

Farming

^^ An expurgated version:

"Miss Elsa Maxwell so friends prattle/Got well goosed by dehorning her cattle"

"Don't inquire of Georgie Raft/Why his cow has never calfed/Georgie's bull is beautiful but he's gay!" {This seems a very early use of the word to mean homosexual.)

*

R163 George Raft is only mentioned because of his rhyming surname.

Cole Porter was a eunuch without his rhyming dictionary.

Cole Porter loved My Fair Lady, had a permanent house seat. and went to it nearly every week for years.

My Fair Lady had twelve brilliant songs in one three-hour show.

Cole Porter didn't do that.

Yeah, if only Kiss Me Kate had a few good songs . . .

I was going to say. KMK is chock full of terrific songs.

Sondheim also used a rhyming dictionary. So that's really all it takes to be a hit Broadway composer.

And I wouldn't have known a rhyming dictionary would have included Raft and calfed.

I would guess that any good lyricist worth their salt uses a rhyming dictionary.

What is a rhyming dictionary?

What is a melody?

What is musical comedy?

Yeah, well...

So, two of Porter's greatest, most memorable songs, FROM THIS MOMENT ON and JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS, were cut from their original scores? What an abundance of treasures.

Was From this Moment On cut from KMK but then made it into the movie? That's pretty unusual.

No.

[quote] And I wouldn't have known a rhyming dictionary would have included Raft and calfed

You would if you listened to the words.

rhyming dictionaries use movie stars' names? or rhymes like Blanche and avalanche?

A highly coked up version of You're the Top.

Porter was like WS Gilbert.

He created crazy situations in order to get a rhyme.

George Raft NEVER owned a cow.

Elsa Maxwell never owned cattle, either.

Maybe that's part of the joke??

Satchmo & Der Bingle...

He wrote his best songs in the 1920s.

Nonsense.

Nonsense.

Which is his best song?

The Beguine?

My personal favorites are:

Night and Day

Let's Misbehave

Always True to You in My Fashion

Love For Sale

Anything Goes

^ They're all from the 1930s?

And you know exactly how?

He wrote great songs from the 20s to the 50s. 4 decades of terrific work.

Rebecca Luker did a nice album of Porter standards

Thank you, r193. That was absolutely enchanting!

The fact that Rebecca Luker is no longer with us is proof God does not exist.

Way over orchestrated and orchestra too loud. It's in competition with her.

Didn’t crazy John McGlinn make that album with Rebecca Luker?

R196 I believe Patrick Brady and Larry Moore were the arrangers

"If I didn't belong to a nation where people go from Poland to polo in one generation" The Boyfriend Back Home - 50 Million Frenchmen

"Garbo in Grable's tights ought to be you". Cherry Pies Ought To Be You - Out Of This World

Let’s speak of Lamarr, that Hedy so fair, Why does she let Joan Bennett wear all her old hair? If you know Garbo, then tell me this news, Is it a fact the Navy’s launched all her old shoes? Let's Talk About Love/Let's Not Talk About Love - Let's Face It - 1941

"...such as betting with Baby Brother to dowagers' maiden names..." My Cozy Little Corner in the Ritz - Hitchy-Koo of 1919

Was he an octoroon?

[quote] Was he an octoroon?

No, actually, he was a baboon who, by light of the moon, blew his maroon bassoon whilst opportunely swooning and crooning his wahune.

And the Wahunies just love their beguines.

Nymph Errant

Poor Gertie, replaced for the second time by Ginger.

[quote] replaced

That is the common theme for wonderful English performers who are brilliant on stage but are thoroughly ignored by the vulgar movie-men.

The same is true for the charming Peggy Ashcroft.

And the wonderful Margaret Leighton.

R193 Is that raucous-looking woman holding a cigar?

Cole Porter was a pole courter

Leighton and Ashcroft were hardly ignored by the movies. But for the movies, I wouldn't have known about either of them.

They look for a movie star quality which they didn't have but do give wonderful performances in the few they've made. Lawrence is very good in Glass Menagerie but the changes to the script and the director sunk that one.

Julie does a wonderful The Physician in Star! on the album.

Gertie in one of her most dazzling successes on stage was replaced in the film by DL superstar Norma Shearer. It's a very good movie actually.

[quote] Leighton and Ashcroft were hardly ignored by the movies.

They most definitely were! Most of their great roles on stage were stolen by wishy-washy Deborah Kerr or Vivien Leigh.

[quote] But for the movies, I wouldn't have known about either of them.

Dear R207, that is a comment on you (and your youth or your ignorance) rather than the charm, intelligence, and discreet vibrancy of the intelligent Peggy Ashcroft or the elegant Margaret Leighton.

Clomp...clomp...

Peggy Ashcroft was extremely charming in a sweet scene as the crofter's wife in Alfred Hitchcock's 'The 39 Steps'. François Truffaut told Hitchcock that her scene was as affecting as the whole movie.

She also had some amusing scenes as a kooky 1940s version of a Social Justice Warrior in 'Quiet Wedding' a 'rom-com' directed by (homosexual) Antony Asquith) in 1941.

She also won an Oscar and oodles of other awards for A Passage to India.

[quote] A Passage to India.

That one was the oddity where the roles were reversed.

It was offered to Deborah Kerr but she said no.

I was just going to mention Ashcroft's unforgettable cameo in The 39 Steps, r211. Lovely actress, like no other really.

Would have been odd to see young Peggy rolling around on the beach with Burt.

R215 Peggy was mature woman at that stage.

Peggy had a bust— unlike the slim-hipped Deborah.

Any info on Cole's pole or his hole?

[quote] Peggy rolling around

Vulgar gossips (such as the late Donald Spoto) loved to insist that Peggy rolled around with Max Reinhardt and her Othello.

I was hoping to see Peggy in All's Well when it came to New York but she decided not to come. I wonder why Kerr would have turned down the role in Passage.

Florida when it rains ought to be you.

R219 She also turned down the role of Mrs Maudsley in 'Go-Between'.

As far as I'm concerned Deborah Kerr was still a good-looking woman at age 51 and not suitable to play the mother to 31 year old Julie Christie.

Christie had a drooping lower lip and what I call a slovenly look to her face.

Josephine

I have associated this song with AIDS since

Silk Stockings is one of my favorite movies but I've never heard that before. The film has a fraction of that. I wonder if it was all filmed and it still exists. They should have had it as an extra on the dvd and bluray.

Margaret Leighton's performance in THE GO-BETWEEN was ruined by her ridiculous wigs that looked like whipped cheese towers.

Kevin Kline and John Barrowman sing Cole Porter's "Night and Day".

Pole Courter: his porn name...

Diane Schuur singing "Love For Sale."