Early years 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. After high school, Porter returned to his childhood home only for occasional visits. Porter's strong-willed mother doted on him 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. He became class
valedictorian 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. and "Bingo Eli Yale" (aka "Bingo, That's The Lingo!") that are still played at Yale. 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. Porter spent the next year in New York City before going overseas during World War I. Some writers have been skeptical about Porter's claim to have served in the
French Foreign Legion, 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." 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". She was beautiful and well-connected socially; the couple shared interests, including a love of travel, and she became Porter's confidante and companion. The couple married the next 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. 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 $4,000 a month ($ 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 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. The next month, the Ballets suédois toured the work in the U.S., performing it 69 times. Reviews of the inaugural performance in New York were mixed; critics found the work to be too much like Milhaud and not American enough. 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. Frustrated by the public response to these works, Porter nearly gave up songwriting as a career, although he continued to compose songs for friends and perform at private parties. It was commissioned by
E. Ray Goetz at the instigation of Goetz's wife and the show's star,
Irène Bordoni. 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 written for the show included "
Let's Misbehave", which was dropped before the show opened in New York, and one of Porter's best-known
list songs, "
Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love", which replaced "Let's Misbehave" and 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 des Ambassadeurs at the
Les Ambassadeurs music hall. 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". 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 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. The show ran for 420 performances in New York (a particularly long run in the 1930s) and 261 in London. 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."
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. 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 war became imminent 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 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. 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 puerile humor, 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. The soundtrack from
Can-Can's film adaptation won the 1960
Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album. 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".
Last years Porter's mother died in 1952, and Linda 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 few visitors. He is interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in his native Peru, Indiana, between his wife and father. ==Musical style==