by Cole Porter
I suppose the best thing for you to do would be simply to ask a few friends and then request the present manager of hotels to send me a letter with all the details.
Forgive this bother to you.
Love,
[signed:] Cole
As was the case throughout his career, Porter was regularly sent books, scripts or plot synopses to read. One such request gives some insight into his notion that the plot of a successful musical comedy always included some element of suspense:
22 January 1946: Cole Porter to Mrs John Shelton33
Dear Honoria:
I was delighted to get your letter and to read your synopsis. Unluckily I was not born a critic, but this is my opinion; it seems to me that you have a very good basis for a ballet but not for a musical comedy. I do not believe there is enough story for a musical comedy, as you have no suspense whatever. Even though most people do not realize it, no musical comedy is a success unless its book has a solid story with suspense.
Take this advice for what it is worth, which is practically nothing, but I have done my best.
My love to you,
[signed:] Cole
Night and Day, in the meantime, had its first preview at the Warner Brothers Beverly Hills Theatre on 11 February; the next day Jack Warner sent another congratulatory telegram to Porter: ‘DEAR COLE: HAD SNEAK PREVIEW LAST NIGHT AT OUR BEVERLY HILLS THEATRE. AS YOU KNOW MAJORITY OF AUDIENCE PROFESSIONAL PEOPLE. REACTION WAS EVERYTHING ONE WOULD DESIRE. WE HAVE AN IMPORTANT FILM AND ONE I KNOW YOU WILL BE VERY PROUD OF AND ALSO A SUCCESS WHICH I KNOW IS WHAT COUNTS. ANN SENDS HER LOVE. EVERY GOOD WISH=JACK’.34
Porter wrote back:
12 February 1946: Cole Porter to Jack Warner35
Delighted with the beautiful news. When do you expect to send a print East? All my best,
Cole
Slightly later, after he had heard parts of the film’s soundtrack, Porter was particularly complimentary about the song arrangements:
19 April 1946: Cole Porter to Ray Heindorf*
Dear Ray: Herman Starr sent me pressings of some of the proofs from Night and Day. Your arrangements are magnificent. Don’t forget that you promised me three complete sets of all music including what has been cut out. I shall appear on June first and menace you till I get these. All my gratitude,
COLE PORTER
At the start of April 1946, Porter had signed a contract with Orson Welles’s Mercury Enterprises for Around the World, based on Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. The terms included a $5,000 advance for Porter against a 5 per cent interest in the show; film rights (50 per cent each to Porter and Welles); and subsidiary rights (25 per cent each to Porter and Welles). The film contract, between Porter and Welles on the one hand, and London Film Productions on the other, was signed on 25 April.36 Among the provisions in it is one that is true of Porter’s contracts generally and that gives further and more detailed insight into what he considered to be essential to his music: ‘The purchaser shall have the right in every instance to orchestrate and arrange said musical compositions so long as no substantial change is made in their basic melody.’ In short, Porter understood the ‘basic melody’ to be the most distinctive aspect (together with the words) of his songs; this was especially the case with respect to film scores, which often used orchestrations radically different from those used in stage productions. There were also, as usual, rumours, including one that Porter and Orson Welles had had a falling out. Hedda Hopper, who earlier had misrepresented Porter’s relationship with Jack Warner, also apparently reported problems between Porter and Welles, which prompted another telegram from the composer:
15 February 1946: Cole Porter to Hedda Hopper37
HEDDA DARLING. YOUR SOURCE ABOUT ORSON AND ME QUITE WRONG. WE ARE GETTING ALONG FAMOUSLY AND THE SHOW IS PRACTICALLY IN REHEARSAL. I DONT [sic] COME OUT TO METRO UNTIL IT HAS BEEN PRODUCED. LOVE AND KISSES=COLE
The Boston tryout for Around the World opened on 28 April to mostly negative reviews. The Daily Boston Globe for 29 April, for instance, described it as ‘indeed a Welles production, vast, occasionally brilliant, sometimes dull and confused, satirical and compounded of many elements . . . “Around the World” was postponed from Friday night, and it might just as well have been put off until tonight. The show is about 90 percent settings and production and things kept going wrong Saturday night in what must have been a phenomenally rough performance . . . Mr. Porter’s melodic invention has resulted in only two really striking songs, “Look What I Found,” “Should I Tell You I Love You”; a bright little circus march and a comic number, “Missus Aoda.” ’38 Possibly Porter himself was concerned about the success of the show, since in an interview on the day of the opening he seems both to distance it from his previous works and to claim some affection for it:
Cole Porter Would Rather Write Crazy Shows Than Gay Musicals . . . “Now I am planning to associate myself with the crazy and unusual productions of the theatre – the kind of thing one dreams about but never quite dares to attempt. I shall never follow a pattern again – which means I shan’t write the kind of musical show I have been doing for so long.
“Frankly, it’s because I am bored. I want to do something different.”
. . . “This is a drama – with music, too,” says Porter, as he sits at a scenic rehearsal. Several whistles and a strange contraption which sounds like a Fourth of July “cannon” suddenly shriek with deafening results.
“Just to get the audience in a proper mood to appreciate your music,” grins Welles.
“My music will be louder and noisier,” boasts Porter, who doesn’t mean a word of it. He says that he hopes the public will like best his “Should I Tell You I Love You,” which is sung in an Indian jungle setting . . . “My last songs are always my favorites,” he says with the pride of a father of new-born triplets.”39
One review galled Porter in particular and in a letter to Sam Stark he explained why he thought the review was negative, indulging in conspiracy theory:
30 April 1946: Cole Porter to Sam Stark40
Dear Sam:
We had to open last Saturday night although totally unprepared because the show cost so much money that there was none left unless we opened.
You will notice that the review in THE RECORD is by far the worst. This is because it is a Hearst paper and after Orson made the picture CITIZEN KANE,* Hearst gave an order that for the rest of Orson’s life, his name should never be mentioned and that anything that he did should be condemned to hell. I am not a bit depressed about these notices, as I think we have a show.
Love,
[signed:] Cole
Porter gave Stark more details in a letter the next week:
4 May 1946: Cole Porter to Sam Stark41
Dear Little Sammie:
I have neglected you shamefully, but many troubles have been mine. At the present moment I count on arriving on the Constellation May 31st., 11:45 PACIFIC STANDARD TIME, and if you have daylight time – (12:45 at night). It looks as if Robert Bray* will be in Mexico on location, so you will probably have to meet me, or if this is inconvenient, hire a chauffeur and a car to meet me.
Will you also rent a good car for me without chaffeur [sic]. I shall need it until my Buick arrives on the coast, which will probably be two or three weeks after I do.
I can’t give you any news on the show† yet, as in Boston we are the prey of drunken stage hands and drunken electricians – even when they are sober. Most of them are 90 years old. They all hate the show because there are so many changes, scenes and light changes and they are used to nice comfortable operas in which there are only two sets and no changes of lighting whatsoever.
We open in New Haven next Tuesday night, or at the latest next Wednesday night, after which we shall know more, what with a new gang of mechanics.‡
Orson has been a tower of strength and the most considerate producer I have ever met. The whole company loves him and rightfully so, because he ne
ver loses his temper, or his power to surmount almost impossible difficulties. So if the show flops I shall at least have had a great experience with a wonderful guy.
Linda, [Howard] Sturge[s] and I saw the NIGHT AND DAY picture last night – and it is a dream. I know you will like it.
It will be so nice to see your slender svelte form again. Please don’t make too many engagements as I want to wreck most of your evenings.
Love from your devoted
[signed:] Cole*
Around the World opened at the Mercury Theatre, New York, on 31 May and fared no better than it had in Boston. The New York Times for 1 June reported that ‘Cole Porter has written an inferior score’, the Newark Evening News for the same date said that ‘Once again the Adelphi Theater is the dispirited scene of some extremely painful and inept globe-trotting set to music with a dire what-you-may-call-it known as “Around the World” blasting away in a tasteless, amateurish fashion’, and the New York Morning Telegraph for 3 June lamented that ‘Mr. Welles manhandled the Jules Verne novel, with insipid contributions from Cole Porter.’ A few reviews gave grudging approval to some of Porter’s songs: the Brooklyn Eagle wrote that ‘Cole Porter wrote the music, a pretty good song here and there, nothing very lovely, nothing as beguiling as is to be expected of Cole Porter’, while according to the New York Journal American, ‘The music, by Cole Porter, is friendly and familiar, especially “Should I Tell You I Love You.” ’
As Porter noted in his letter to Sam Stark, he had finally seen Night and Day on 3 May. He wrote to congratulate the producer, Michael Curtiz, three days later:
6 May 1946: Cole Porter to Michael Curtiz42
Beloved Mike. Linda and I saw Night and Day picture Friday night and you have our eternal gratitude for treating us so beautifully. What a great director you are and how lucky we were to have been put in your hands. Love,
Cole.
The same day, Porter also wrote to several of the actors in Night and Day, thanking them for their performances, including Alexis Smith, who took the role of Linda Porter, and Ginny Simms, who took the role of Carole Hill.* Porter wrote to Smith, ‘We saw the NIGHT AND DAY picture last Friday night and what pleased us most was your wonderful performance as Linda. As my Linda said to me about your Linda, as we left the picture, “How lucky I am to be shown on the screen as such an enchanting girl” . . .’ and to Ginny Simms, ‘I saw the NIGHT AND DAY picture last Friday night and I can never tell you how happy you made me by the way you sang my songs.’43 A few weeks later he sent a telegram to Arthur Schwartz:
28 May 1946: Cole Porter to Arthur Schwartz44
DEAR ARTHUR I SAW A SHOWING OF NIGHT AND DAY AND I COULD NOT HAVE HAD A BETTER PRODUCER. LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU AND HEARING YOUR NEW SCORE† WHEN I HIT THE COAST. ALL MY BEST. COLE.
Early in May, Porter wrote again to Barclift:
6–7 May [1946]:* Cole Porter to Nelson Barclift
2 A M on
May 6–7
Glitter-boy –
One of those quiet Monday nights. Sturge & I were dining at Chassin’s [sic].† Jimmie Shields & Roger Davis joined up . . . Vera was at the next table – we told her our plans – so she brought her boy-friend. So we all spent the evening on Sylvia [Ashley]’s boat, drinking Black Velvet & zee wheeskey [!] et soda. [Howard] Sturge[s] found his way into Sylvia’s fur safe & suddenly appeared with all of them on, including the god-damnedest little mull you’ve ever seen. I examined Douglas’ [Fairbanks, Jr.] mink-lined over-coat on the Q.T. as Sylvia had mentioned it & (dare I say?) with an idea of selling it. But it’s a dud. The collar is Astrachan & the stuff of the coat is a restrained dark-blue tweed but oh my God, that mink lining! Its [sic] lemon-colored alley-cat. So even if the whole ensemble . . . were a foot & a half longer, I shouldn’t allow you to be seen in it as it’s Hollywood trash. Therefore, my pretty, no mink lined coat yet. Chin up but until I meet some richer widow, no mink-lined over-coats a-tall.
Two of your letters tottered in – one written Thursday – the first, in fact & all the time me sitting on the mail-box waiting for the news of your opus at the opera.‡ Thank God, it was good. And even if you didn’t get top-billing in Variety, it all counts a great deal & the recognition of it will come as surely as ours did before when the critics kicked us around for so long simply because we were raising hell on the Continent.
Please go out of your way to be nice to Linda. She likes you an awful lot already & I want you to be friends, not only for her sake but even more, for yours. All you have to do is to call her up from time to time & go to see her around the six oclocks. [sic] Do that for me.
And now good night Nelson. I actually miss you in spite of the fact that I realize perfectly that you are incapable of love, affection, loyalty, sentiment or friendship.
Why should I suddenly throw away so much writing-paper? Could it be “My Cute Little Nose?” For Christ’s sake don’t have it altered!
Love
C
. . . P.S. Sturge isn’t leaving here for months!
A few days later, he gave the bandleader Paul Whiteman an account of the song ‘Rosalie’ (Rosalie, 1937), which Whiteman was performing at the time:
9 May 1946: Cole Porter to Paul Whiteman*
Dear Paul:
This is the only story I have about the song Rosalie:
In 1937 I was writing a picture for M-G-M called Rosalie and it was very important that the title song be good. I wrote six before I handed one in, but I was very proud of No. 6. Louis B. Mayer asked me to play the score for him and when I finished he said to me, “I like everything in the score except that song Rosalie. It’s too high-brow. Forget you are writing for Nelson Eddy† and simply give us a good popular song.” So I took Rosalie No. 6 home and in hate wrote Rosalie No. 7. Louis B. Mayer was delighted with it, but I still resented my No. 6 having been thrown out, which to one seemed so much better.
Six months later when the song became a hit, I saw Irving Berlin and he congratulated me on it. I said to him “Thanks a lot, but I wrote that song in hate and I still hate it.” To which Irving replied, “Listen, kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold a half million copies.”
This is the only story I have about Rosalie. I am delighted you are playing it and shall listen in with great interest.
Your old friend,
Cole Porter
In the meantime, Linda wrote to Jean Howard to tell her of their plans and mentioning Porter’s upcoming trip to Hollywood: ‘I am off to Williamstown early Wednesday morning for the Spring planting, and hope to see all the apple trees in full bloom! I return on Sunday to spend the rest of the month in N.Y. with Cole. He leaves May 31st for Hollywood, and June 1st Weston and I motor to Buxton Hill for four solid months, where I hope to regain my strength.’45 About the same time, Porter sent a telegram to Sam Stark, alerting him to his arrival in California:
30 May 1946: Cole Porter to Sam Stark46
STILL ARRIVING TOMORROW FRIDAY NIGHT BY CONSTELLATION UNLESS ROBERT* TELEPHONES YOU OTHERWISE WILL YOU MEET ME. ALSO CAN YOU HAVE MASSEUR FOR ME AT NOON SATURDAY LOVE=COLE.
Porter had travelled to California to work on songs for the MGM film The Pirate. Apparently he composed six songs in about a month, but four of them disappointed the producer, Arthur Freed, who asked for rewrites and otherwise truncated some numbers.† Porter later complained to Sam Stark in a telegram:
[n.d.]. Cole Porter to Sam Stark47
DEAR SAM AND STAN [MUSGROVE] I ALSO SAW PIRATE NITE BEFORE LAST I AGREE WITH YOU THAT [IT] IS A HIT BUT LOVE OF MY LIFE HAS BEEN CUT TO A MERE REPRISE WHICH DOES IRREPARABLE HARM TO SCORE AND TO ME OTHERWISE EVERYTHING FINE=COLE.
In the meantime, Around the World closed on 29 July 1946 after only seventy-five performances, excepting See America First, the least for any show Porter was involved with.*
29 July 1946: Cole Porter to Orson Welles48
DEAR ORSON[,] YOUR TRAGIC NEWS ARRIVED THIS MORNING STOP ALL MY SYMPATHY GOES OUT TO YOU FOR
YOU HAVE MADE MORE THAN HUMAN EFFORTS TO KEEP OUR POOR LITTLE SHOW RUNNING SO LONG[.] YOUR DEVOTED=COLE.
Night and Day was released on 3 August, only a few days after Around the World closed. Although a commercial success – Night and Day was tied for fourteenth on a list of the top-grossing films of 1946† – the film received mixed reviews, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of Porter, Jack Warner and the public. To be sure, Variety described it as ‘a smash. It will mop up from New England to New Zealand. It has everything’, anticipating its financial success.49 And the New York Herald Tribune wrote that:
Cole Porter . . . has been accorded a splendidly restrained accolade for his more or less memorable tunes and words . . . “Night and Day” weaves a casual biography around its subject, depending more on music and authenticity than big dramatic punches . . . [Cary Grant] is almost arrogant enough to look like a Yale man, and he pretends to play the piano with remarkable deception. [Monty Woolley] is as arrogant as any Yale professor who made good in the outside world, and he quips a quip better than ever . . . No end of credit must go to Michael Curtiz for his restrained direction of a tale which might have been a caricature of the Era of Wonderful Nonsense. He has inserted a few sequences of hullabaloo which are likely to look corny to a new generation, but let me assure the kids that they are muted rather than overdrawn. In short “Night and Day” is a gala tune-fest, sticking to the creations of a popular song-writer rather than the birth-pains attending them.50
John McCarten, however, writing in the New Yorker, dismissed the film as a travesty:
Fairly early in “Night and Day,” there is a scene in which we discover Cary Grant sitting moodily at a grand piano in a room not much smaller than Carnegie Hall and designed to represent a nook in an Indiana homestead. Rolling his eyes around this plushy interior, Mr. Grant presently lets his glance rest on an elegant grandfather’s clock. “Loike,” he says in an accent that sounds singularly remote from the Middle West, “the tick, tick, tock of the stitely clock,” and before you know it, he has put together the words and music of Cole Porter’s most popular song. Mr. Grant, in passing himself off as Cole Porter, labors under an almost unbearable series of handicaps. Although he is getting on in years now, he is compelled by the script to depict the composer in his early days, as a Yale undergraduate even more bouncy than most, and to indulge in such painful juvenile activities as leading a chorus through that song about Eli Yale and a bulldog. Apart from having to attend college at an age when most Yale men would be working for the Luce publications, Mr. Grant is forced to break into song every now and then, which is rather too bad, since his voice, though resonant, is no more mellifluous than the average subway guard’s. Like most actors confronted with the problem of portraying a composer at work, he doesn’t try to show how the muse is wooed but shows instead how she may be knocked down, jumped on, and tossed over the piano like an afghan.