by Cole Porter
I suppose people always say that operations are successful. On my left leg, Moorehead† first had to break both bones again, take out the jagged ends, splice the tendon of achilles and then further up on the tibia cut eight inches of bone to the marrow out and graft it over the fracture. He didn’t want to do it as he was so afraid there were still streptococci in the fracture, but I insisted because I was so tired of hanging on to people. Luckily, he didn’t find streptococci, but staphlococci, which are much less dangerous germs. So I didn’t die at all. Then he operated on the right heel in order to get the scar tissue out of it, so that I could once more, after seven and a half years, lie on a bed without putting my heel over the edge; it was so painful when it touched even a sheet, as the scar tissue pressed upon the heel bone. The first operation on this wasn’t a success and he had to do it again. While this was going on I had two nervous breakdowns and lost 25 pounds which I am still regaining. I arrived here more or less of a wreck, but within two weeks I feel like a different person. I walk on crutches, short distances, but the wheel-chair is used a great deal. The pain in the left leg is hard to take, but it will gradually disappear within a year, he promises me. And that’s the last story of my legs for the moment. You ask me how many more operations are necessary. I can’t tell you yet as I am not at all sure that the last three were really successful. It will take time to know. If this work doesn’t have to be done again, I still have two operations ahead, but I can name my date for them which I should think would be in about two years.
Why do you start me on stories about these legs? I have never talked so much about them in my life, as I am now. They don’t depress me in the least, luckily, as my ultimate aim is to win the 100 yard dash and anything that will go toward their getting better is exactly what I want.
I didn’t receive your letter telling me of John’s meeting with Bob Lynn, the former vet of Lido Beach. Please write me this news again.*
“Night and Day” starts shooting the first week in June. I got everything I asked for including Cary Grant and technicolor. Last week I okayed Alexis Smith for the “Linda” part. Henry Stephenson plays my grand-dad, temporarily dropping his British accent.† They have five mothers picked out for me and any number of fathers, and I shall go to the Warner lot soon to take my pick.‡ Monty [Woolley] also is signed to play himself and he runs all through the picture. He gloats now because he has been under salary already for six weeks at $6,500 a week. What is more this money all stays in his bank because, according to his contract with Darryl,§ he has the right to do one outside picture a year. The shooting will take about six months so figure out what “The Beard’s” income tax will be. The last script that I saw was very good. Mike Curtiz, who will direct, and Arthur Schwartz, who will produce, are coming out to see me this week with the final script. It took any number of authors and any number of scripts before I gave my okay, as there was [sic] too many gloomy moments. At present it is rather light except for the wonderful love story of Cole and Linda. I believe the music will be beautifully presented, so I am really not worried. We also have Fred Astaire to do the “Night and Day” song and dance¶ and several other personalities will appear only in spots.
I am delighted to hear that “Don’t Fence Me In” is doing well with the natives, but I resent getting word from a friend of mine that the Japs sing it too.
Jeannie* is not having a baby. On the other hand she is very busy learning how to be a professional photographer. She attends a school downtown, goes to work at nine every morning and often doesn’t return until eleven at night. She has been working consistently and has now reached “Color Photography”. She looks more beautiful than ever, although, unluckily, I see her only on Saturday nights when there is a party or now and then during the week when she gets off work early and comes here to dine with Sturge and me.
Please tell your friend, Stuart Churchill, the vocalist with Fred Waring, that I believe it unwise that he sing the first “Just One of Those Things”.† It would make a great row between Chappell’s and Harms, and I should probably end up in jail.
The Warners have never been happier. As for Joy, she went to New York and had her nose bobbed. The result is that she is one of the prettiest girls in town and last month married a Navy man, Lieutenant Orr, who seems like an awfully nice chap. I don’t know whether Shirley Temple‡ is engaged or not, as I don’t know Shirley Temple.
I missed seeing Irving§ when he was here, but people who did, say that he is very worried about the world indeed. I know nothing of your T.I.T.A. plans from this end, but I do hope they will let you all continue at least until the end of the war, instead of putting guns on your shoulders.
Thank you very much for the pictures, but I couldn’t recognize anybody in them. Of course, I am certain that you are in all of them, but you must have changed radically.
If you are burned at Gilbert Miller for doing a musical version of “The Swan”,¶ because you had worked on the same thing for so long, you can imagine the heat of my burn when you write me that a song of yours entitled “You Forgot To Tell Me That You Love Me” is about to be published. I have had this title in my title book for years. How dare you tread upon my source of revenue!
Please tell Artie that I shan’t send him further books unless he wants that one he read in Williamstown.
Dick Clayton’s address is:
COM. SEEVE. PAC. ADM.
c/o Fleet Post Office
San Francisco, Calif.
I was delighted to read that you are working very hard and have completed a play. As for your missing all your friends here, you have no idea of how often they all ask me about you.
The Sunday lunches are exactly as they have always been. Roger still sits at the end of the table, with a clown hat on, and throws everybody into the aisles.
Sturges stays on with me until July 1st. In the meantime, Bob Bray of Peleliu* is at this moment flying back to be here for six months and I hope awfully that he can spend most of his time in the house with me. [Len] Hanna took a house not far from me for two months and only left today. Harry Krebs is staying with me on his furlough. He certainly is a problem child as I take him everywhere and unless people make a great row over him he spits at them. But it is great fun having him and I shall hate to see him leave.
Linda has been having one of those terrible colds again and, in spite of the fact that everything is open at Williamstown, she has to stay in bed for another two weeks at the Waldorf before she can risk making the trip. Poor darling – it is pitiful, the unending recurrence of these terrible colds. Thank God for the Sulphas.† If it weren’t for them she wouldn’t be alive today, as the scars in her lungs have gradually become bigger and it is practically impossible for her to throw off any infection. Please write her at Williamstown when you have time and ask Artie to write also. She loves you both dearly and it would buck her up.
So good-bye, Sargeant Barclift. I should be here probably until October. I have three offers,* but nothing can be set until after this strike† is over. I shall not do an autumn show, but have already been accosted for several productions for the spring.
Your old pay [sic]
Cole
[signed:] Cole
In June Porter wrote to Barclift about the time he spent with Cary Grant, and problems with Mississippi Belle:
5 June 1945: Porter to Nelson Barclift21
Barclift –
The enclosed snapshot will show you that “plus ca [sic] change, plus c’est la meme [sic] chose.”‡
But during the week, life is entirely different. We dine at home nearly every night. We never go to restaurants. We never go to night-clubs. For Saturday lunch there is a gang here always, a combination of the east & the west, nicely mixed & then Sunday, the ole time stuff.
My hours will shock you. I rise at nine, breakfast by the pool at nine thirty. My trainer whom I brought west appears at eleven. There are infinite exercises & an interminable massage. Freedom comes at three P.M. & a secretary at four who s
tays an hour. Miss M.§ is not allowed to come west but in spite of letters she wines [sic] that she must come “to clear up her files.”
The strike continues so I see no picture work. I have no longer any ideas as to a N.Y. show even for the spring of ‘46. The income tax when you work is too big to cope with. Believe it or not, my first quarter was $140,000 & my second, $100,000.
I shall do my best for Deseterins Liguit. [?] Thanks a lot for wishing me a happy birthday. If you knew how happy it will be, you would do your best to bitch it. Night & Day starts shooting next week. I see a good deal of Cary [Grant]. He is nice but he studies me too much & it embarrasses me.
Mississi-pee-pee Belle is still on the shelf. Annie W.[arner] has a beautiful young lover but she hides him. Merle & Lucian [sic] Ballard* are merely waiting for Korda† to arrive in two weeks to sign a little paper. Then they go to work. Lucian [sic] is nice too but dull. In fact, everybody is nice including Sturge who sends you his love.
I send you my respects. Go further west & invade Bali. That is where you will be re-born.
A big kiss for Artie – Cole
Shooting on Night and Day began in mid-June. On 13 July, Arthur Schwartz wrote to Porter, sending him the latest version of the script, informing him that the first thirty pages had been shot, and in particular alerting him to some changes in the lyrics to his songs demanded by the Hays Office. Censorship of Porter’s lyrics was a problem throughout his career:‡
BLOW, GABRIEL, BLOW: You understand, I think, that the word ‘hell’ is included on the list of forbidden words and phrases which has been adopted by the Association, and, consequently, it will be necessary for you to change this word in this lyric.
I GET A KICK OUT OF YOU: Political Censor Boards everywhere will delete the word ‘cocaine’.
ME AND MARIE: Please eliminate the underlined portion of the following lines: ‘Me and my Marie proceed to raise the dickens by the old seaside.’
MY HEART BELONGS TO DADDY: In the second refrain, please eliminate the underlined portion of the following line, ‘I never dream of making the team.’
Porter made several handwritten notations on this letter. In the left margin, beside ‘BLOW, GABRIEL, BLOW’ he wrote: ‘I was wrong. / Gabriel wrong / mighty wrong / etc. – so long.’ Underneath ‘cocaine’ he wrote ‘Some go for perfume from Spain’, and under ‘making the team’, ‘coaching’. But, in fact, few of the suggested replacement lyrics were used, in part because two of the songs – ‘Blow, Gabriel, Blow’ and ‘Me and Marie’ – were not used in the film, and in the case of ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’, because the portion of the text in which the ‘offending’ words occur was not included. In ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’, the line ‘Some get a kick from cocaine’ was replaced with ‘Some go for perfume from Spain’ (as Porter had written), followed, in both cases, by ‘I’m sure that if I took even one sniff’. In his next letter to Schwartz, Porter suggests a change to the unused ‘Me and Marie’:
4 August 1945: Cole Porter to Arthur Schwartz22
Dear Arthur:
Will you be very kind and send me several stills of Selena Royle? My mother clamors for them. (Third request).
Forgive me for being a pest.
The following is a suggestion for a lyric to replace the present one in “Me And Marie”.
And until the sun begins to beckon
We go on and on a-neckin’ and a-neckin’.*
Sincerely,
COLE
Porter was apparently in frequent contact with Irving Berlin around this time – in August, Berlin sent a pre-release copy of one of his new songs and throughout his career Porter appears to have been closer to Berlin than any other songwriter – and in September he wrote an encouraging note to William Skipper, whose career was floundering:
21 August 1945: Cole Porter to Irving Berlin23
Dear Irving:
“You Keep Coming Back Like a Song”* arrived. It’s great Berlin.
Thanks a lot for your thoughtfulness.
Your pal,
COLE
24 September 1945: Cole Porter to William Skipper24
Dear Skipper:
Your note arrived. I understand exactly how you feel, my boy, but please don’t be discouraged. You have far too much talent not to be recognized and soon. I believe your state of mind is the usual post-war depression that every G.I. has and has had after every war. So please cheer up.
I shall call you soon. In the meantime, my blessings upon thee.
Your old friend,
Cole
Night and Day was finished in November 1945, and on 20 November, Jack Warner sent Porter a (self-)congratulatory telegram: ‘DEAR COLE. HAVE FINALLY COMPLETED PICTURE. GOING ON RECORD WITH YOU HAVE MOST IMPORTANT MUSICAL EVER PRODUCED. THIS NOT MERELY WORDS BUT REALLY A FACT. WILL TAKE SEVERAL WEEKS BEFORE SCORING COMPLETED BUT WHEN YOU SEE THE FILM I KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO BE EXTREMELY HAPPY AS I AM. EVERYBODY DESERVES PLENTY OF KUDOS FOR THE GREAT WORK DONE ARRIVING NY AROUND DECEMBER FIRST. STAYING AT TOWERS WILL SEE YOU THEN. LOVE FROM ANNIE [AND] MYSELF=JACK’.25
20 November 1945: Cole Porter to Jack Warner26
Delighted with your enthusiastic wire. When do you think I should come West to look at it? Very anxious to see it. My love to Annie and to you.
Cole
Although in his letter of 5 June to Nelson Barclift, Porter said he ‘no longer [had] any ideas as to a N.Y. show even for the spring of ’46’, by the summer he had started working with Orson Welles on a musical adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days, as Welles himself recounted in an article in the New York Herald Tribune.* Probably they met again at the end of November, as a 26 November telegram from Welles to Porter suggests: ‘DEAREST COLE: I SHOULD BE ON MY WAY EAST IN A COUPLE OF DAYS. FONDEST ORSON.’27 Around the World came to the stage on 31 May 1946.† In the meantime, Porter wrote in late December 1945 to Jack Warner – ‘Wasn’t it a nice Christmas’?28 – and to Sam Stark, with New Year’s wishes:
30 December 1945: Cole Porter to Sam Stark29
Sam –
This is a note to wish you the happiest so far of all your New Years.
I wish you were with us. [Howard] Sturge[s] + I spent the entire day reading Snowbound aloud.‡ You have never seen nature turning on the snow better than she has for the last 24 hours.
Perhaps however it is just as well that you weren’t here. For you would have been outdoors all days on your snow-shoes making a snow-man + throwing snow-balls + that would have embarrassed us.
I forgot to thank you for the collapsible camp-stools. They arrived + charmed the populace. Linda keeps the green one permanently in her green sitting-room + puts extra men on it.
But this is merely a note so I must say goodbye ere it become a god-damned bore.
Again, my sweet Sam, a magnificent 1946 + thanks an awful lot for garnishing so beautifully my 1945.
Your slave –
Cole
In early January, Porter read an article in the New York Sun about a vote in Town Line, New York, a hamlet about fourteen miles east of Buffalo, ‘the last remnant of the Confederacy’: ‘Town Line, Last Stronghold of the Confederacy, Votes Jan. 24 on Return to the Union . . . Since Dade County, Ga., and Vicksburg, Miss., voted to return to the Union of July 4 last, it is believed that Town Line, N. Y., is the last bit of confederacy left in the United States. Just why Town Line ever lined up with the Confederates is now obscure, but the records show that the hamlet voted 85 to 40 to secede from the Union back in 1861.’* Porter sent Sam Stark a copy of the article and wrote to him on 9 January:
9 January 1946: Cole Porter to Sam Stark30
Dear Sammy:
Don’t you think this extraordinary? How do these people ever hold out for the Confederacy, especially during the Civil War, surrounded as they were by the enemy? This article has worried Monty [Woolley] and me to such an extent that he called up Harold Ross† and asked him to send a special man up there to get all the data about it for an article in The Ne
w Yorker. Ross seemed very interested. I enclose the article because it all seems to be your kind of dish.
Your great heavy joke about becoming so thin, was finally discovered when I talked to Robert‡ on Tuesday. What with a letter from him telling me about you having become a mere wraith, and one from Bobby Raison with the same news, Linda and I began to be very worried about you, decided you were taking Thyroid and were on the point of writing you a very severe letter, when Robert suddenly let the cat out of the bag. He does say, however, that you are not nearly as – shall I say – fat as you were.
Orson [Welles] and I really are at it now and starting to cast.* After everything looked completely off, Mike Todd† suddenly gave in to all the clauses in my contract. We have to open the show cold‡ in New York, due to all the mechanical devices necessary for this production. There will be at least 32 scenes - - and an aerial ballet to close the first act.
Please reserve April for this and no fooling.
Lots of love from us and my best to Allen [Walker],
[signed:] Cole
About this time, Porter appears to have been feeling healthier than he had for a while. On 14 January, Linda wrote to Sam Stark about the time she spent with him, driving around Massachusetts, and on 15 January, Porter’s secretary Margaret Moore wrote to Stark that ‘Mr. Porter seems to be better now than he has been for the past eight years’.31 Porter himself wrote to Stark again on 18 January:
18 January 1946: Cole Porter to Sam Stark32
New York, January 18, 1946
Dear Sam:
This is one of those “pest” requests. My sister-in-law has an ill husband§ and she wants to take him somewhere for a re-build. She asked for information concerning LaQuinta.* I know nothing about it. Could you find this out for me? Have they bungalows, how much do they cost and is the food edible? Also can one rent an automobile there so that the two of them can tour southern California?