Randolph Magri-Overend

COLE PORTER: A LOOK AT HIS LEGACY

Cole Porter

Comedian Alan Davies (he of QI fame) would have classified Cole Albert Porter as a party-going mushroom or a fun guy (fungi for thems what didn’t get it!).  However, that description had more relevance prior to Porter’s riding accident in October 1937. Certainly after the accident, except for the odd fit and spurt of musical genius, the fun and frivolity that punctuate his earlier successes dried up and Porter had to put up with the drudgery and pain of cripple-hood and practical immobility.  

But for those in-between years when he thrilled all and sundry with a steady flow of sophisticated lyrics and hummable tunes, what ‘swonderful (with apologies to George Gerswin) years they were.  Even with the constant pain of shattered legs – which eventually led to gangrene and amputation – he still managed to write and compose but the incessant pain forced him to complain to friends that it had left him as  ‘only half a man’.

The in-between years saw a number of memorable songs and shows.  His first Broadway hit in 1928 ‘Paris’ included such hits as Let’s Misbehave and Let’s Do It.  Even with the onset of the 1929 Wall Street crash Porter’s revue entitled ‘Wake Up and Dream’ saw his What is this thing Called Love? become a popular hit.  But his biggest hit came in 1934 with ‘Anything Goes’ which featured his favourite singer, Ethel Merman – she whose fame soared when Pavarotti claimed she had the most indiscernible ‘passagio’ (the vocal break from chest to head voice) in the business. ‘Anything Goes’, with words by PG Wodehouse, became an instant success with songs like I Get a Kick out of You, All Through the Night, You’re the Top, Blow Gabriel Blow as well as, of course, the title number.

Hollywood wasn’t immune to his musical charms either.  In 1936 ‘Born to Dance’ with James Stewart (James Stewart in a musical?) featured such hits as You’d be so Easy to Love and I’ve got you under my Skin while earlier in 1935 his Broadway ‘Jubilee’ starring Ethel Merman again (Porter used her at least 5 times because of her loud, brassy voice….not to mention her passagio) produced such everlasting hits as Begin the Beguine and Just One of Those Things. 

Not all his shows were hits but they still produced some memorable songs.  Fred Astaire in the 1932 ‘Gay Divorcée’ included Night and Day, the 1929 show ‘Fifty Million Frenchmen’ spawned You Do Something to Me while the 1930’s ‘The New Yorker’ achieved notoriety with a street-walker singing Love For Sale.  The lyrics were deemed too risqué for radio although it later became an instrumental hit.  

Born with a silver spoon in Peru, Indiana in 1891, Porter owed most of his initial affluence to his grand-father James Omar Porter supposedly the richest man in Indiana (the result of coal and timber speculation) and although grandpa disapproved of his grandson’s dalliance in music he did finance his enrolment at Yale University to study law.  Porter wrote 300 songs while at Yale. Like Irving Berlin (who admitted to harbouring a mutual admiration fraternity with him) Porter wrote both the music and lyrics of his songs. When the United States entered World War I, Porter moved to Paris where some historians claim he joined the French Foreign Legion serving in North Africa, later transferring to the French Officer’s School in Fontainebleu.

While in Paris, Porter maintained a luxury apartment holding ‘gay and bisexual’ parties of immeasurable extravagance.  In 1918 he met Linda Lee Thomas, herself a rich heiress in her own right, and they married the following year.

Following the barren years after war’s end, Porter finally came up with a hit in 1948.  Based on Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, ‘Kiss me Kate’ ran for 1077 performances in New York and 400 in London.  It emerged to be his most successful production, won the Tony Award for best musical and included such hits as Another Op’nin’ Another Show, Wunderbar, So in Love, We Open in Venice, Too Darn Hot, Always True to You in my Fashion and Brush up your Shakespeare.  In fact, it was the latter song that includes the immortal lyrics:

If she says your behaviour is heinous

Kick her right in the Coriolanus….

In 1956 Porter produced another cinematic hit with ‘High Society’ which starred Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly.  The song list includes True Love, Samantha and Did you Evah?  The latter contains more memorable words in: She got pinched in the Astor Bar!

After 25 years of pain (in which time the public hardly knew of his disability) Porter died in 1964 of kidney failure.  

As Howard Markel, MD, PhD eulogised at the time, his story reminds “patients and doctors alike that regardless of the outcome, the human spirit remains the most formidable foe of illness.”

 

 

 

 

Published by Randolph Magri-Overend

One of the questions Randolph hates to answer is “Where do you come from?” Why? Because the answer can be so time-consuming and, in a way, also gives away how old he is!! Plus the questioner has to wrestle with the wish he hadn’t asked the question!! He was born in Cairo, Egypt, many moons ago of British parents although he can trace Maltese and Croatian ancestry in his lineage. Educated in a Jesuit college in London his wander lust for things unorthodox drove him to embark on a seafaring career with both Canadian Pacific Steamships and Shaw Savill. That in itself dates him because both lines have been redundant for many a year. One of his boasts is that he was the Purser on the “Gothic” which ten years previously had been Queen Elizabeth II’s Royal Yacht soon after her coronation in 1953. One of the objects imported on the ship by HM and left behind was a tape player which Randolph utilised on many a memorable Sunday evening with a classical concert for his passengers. Thus began a journey that not only awakened Randolph’s love for good music but also eventually led to his extensive knowledge of music in all forms. That he loves the era of Sinatra, Crosby, Armstrong, Dorsey (both) and many many more exponents of the post-war music scene is also part and parcel of his appreciation of the music of many an era. These days Randolph is retired but still reviews CDs and DVDs and has written articles on such diverse personalities as Yvonne Kenny, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Alexander Briger, the late Sir John Tavener, Sir James Galway, Dawn Upshaw and countless probes into the music of Gustav Mahler, Elizabeth Shwarzkopf and her husband Walter Legge, Glenn Gould, Leonard Bernstein and many many more he regrets to admit he has lost track of! Before emigrating to Australia, Randolph spent a number of years as a Flight Dispatcher in Canada. Since arriving in Australia, Randolph has written for The Weekend Australian (especially in their travel pages), The Sydney Morning Herald, Opera Opera and Fine Music magazine as well as some jazz magazines. If you require an extensive coverage of your music to a public that, at last count, reaches the best part of 818,000 please contact David Kary on editor.sydneyartsguide@gmail.com or email me directly on ibmar@bigpond.com. This also includes advertising any forthcoming shows by promoting featured artists. Cheers and thank you.