by Cole Porter
Keep this strictly subcutaneous but ponder there on. I shall look up the boat question quick, quick.
Linda + I motor back to Winchellville* tomorrow. Pep [Porter’s dog] was embarrassed to get that book, “More Please”† from Judy [Stark’s dog] but he was charming about it. He gave it to a cur in the village. He is sending Judy a book that he just finished. Read it to her aloud. I’m sure she could never read it herself.
I gloated when you told me that you had invited Robert to dine with you with Stan + John. Or was it Robert who told me? In any case, I know you all had a lot of fun + it was grand of you to do that, Sambambino.
That’s enough now. So goodnight.
Your fan
Cole
[Added in margin to left:] My best to Allen [Walker].
Work on The Pirate continued through early 1947, when Porter corresponded with the composer Roger Edens,‡ who was responsible for some of the uncredited music in the film, about ‘Niña’ and ‘Mack the Black’ in particular:
18 February 1947: Cole Porter to Roger Edens65
Dear Roger:
A spy of mine met some one who had been to your house and you played some transcriptions from THE PIRATE. He spoke especially of LOVE OF MY LIFE. If this rumor is correct, and if you could spare a few extra transcriptions, I should be so grateful to receive them here at the Waldorf.
All my best,
Sincerely yours,
[signed:] Cole
26 [February 1947]: Cole Porter to Roger Edens
NINA. NINA. NINA. FASCINATION NINA. WHAT A LOVELY CHILD: NINA. YOU ENCHANT ME NINA. YOU’RE SO SWEET. I MEAN YUH. FAIRLY DRIVE ME WILD COLE.
27 February 1947: Cole Porter to Roger Edens
IN NINA. CHANGE LINE YOU BROKE MY HEART EITHER TO YOU STOPPED MY HEART OR YOU HIT MY HEART* COLE.
4 March 1947: Cole Porter to Roger Edens66
Dear Roger:
The record of MACK THE BLACK arrived and has me in a dither. Also the sheet music of MACK THE BLACK parts 1 and 2, my original song of MACK THE BLACK and the new arrangement of LOVE OF MY LIFE. It seems to me that this last arrangement is beautiful and I am very grateful to you.
Will you kindly tell all of this to Miss Lela Simone?†
All my best,
[signed:] Cole
In late March, Porter wrote to Mrs Arthur Reis, executive chair of the League of Composers, that he was about to leave for Hollywood for ‘the preparation of a new musical play in the films’,67 presumably The Pirate. And as a result, he could not accept an invitation from Irving Berlin to a dinner for Sophie Tucker. After his time in Hollywood, Porter toured the American Southwest, including Tombstone, the Grand Canyon, San Antonio and the Alamo and sent a postcard to Monty Woolley:
1 [or 19] April 1947: Cole Porter to Irving Berlin68
VERY SORRY CANNOT ATTEND SOPHIE TUCKER DINNER ON MAY FOURTH AS WILL STILL BE IN LOS ANGELES=COLE PORTER
19 April 1947: Cole Porter to Monty Woolley
April 1947
I arrive April 28. Telephone when you can spare a dime
C. P.
Shortly after his return to New York, Porter made a quick trip to Peru, Indiana, to see his mother, who was unwell.* While there, he sent Roger Edens another telegram concerning ‘Niña’:
8 May 1947: Cole Porter to Roger Edens
NINA / NINA NINA NINA / YOU’RE THE PRIZE GARDENIA / OF THE SPANISH MAIN. / NINA / WHILE MY THEME SONG I SING / DON’T BE SO ENTICING / OR I’LL GO INSANE. / NINA – TILL ALAS I GAZED IN YOUR EYES. / NINA I WAS MENTALLY FINE / BUT SINCE I’VE SEEN YUH / NINA NINA NINA / I’LL BE HAVING SCHIZOPHRENIA / TILL I MAKE YOU MINE / STOP ADDRESS ME WALDORF NEW YORK CITY FROM MONDAY ON UNTIL THEN PERU INDIANA BEST COLE
The line given here by Porter, ‘While my theme song I sing’, does not appear in the published text.*
Boris Kochno, Porter’s lover in the 1920s, apparently returned to New York in May 1947, although it is unlikely that he saw Porter, as a note dated 29 May to him from Linda Porter suggests: ‘Dear Boris: I am so glad that you are returning to New York in October; – do phone me as soon as you arrive, for by that time I shall probably be back from the country. Cole is in Hollywood – I go tomorrow to my house at Williamstown, thank Heaven!’69 In August, Porter wrote to Monty Wolley:
28 August 1947: Cole Porter to Monty Woolley70
Beard –
I hear it was a horror† + I’m so damned sorry.
I fly eastward slowly, stopping off for a few days in Indiana. My ma isn’t nearly well enough. Then I hit Williamstown whence I shall call you. Linda isn’t nearly well enough either. I’m well enough.
Sam [Goldwyn] called yesterday morning at 9.30 asking me to the studio to see all of your scenes from The B’s Wife at 12.30 noon.‡ I was wakened at noon + couldn’t make it. Sam raves over your work. He always says “He’s so warm, so warm.”
At Junior Fairbanks,§ night before last, I heard Sam say to Charley Schwartz who had just arrived from N.Y. “Hello Charley. Since the last time I saw you, we’ve passed a lot of water under the bridge!” I heard this.
Goodnight, Li’l Beardy. I think of you. A kiss for Cary [Grant].
Cole
Although it was not released until 11 June 1948, The Pirate was largely finished by September 1947:
26 September 1947: Cole Porter to Arthur Freed71
Dear Arthur:
The records arrived and I thank you very much. I shall not open them until I go to New York as I am afraid that some injury might come to them before I have processed records made.
Have you previewed The Pirate yet? All my best to you, dear Arthur.
Sincerely yours,
[signed, but not in CP’s hand:] Cole
To some extent the filming was at times acrimonious. An assistant director’s report from 13 May 1947 states that Judy Garland – who took the starring role of Manuela – and Porter argued about how to pronounce the word ‘caviar’, Porter apparently wanting it as three distinct syllables. Similarly, Garland apparently did not like ‘Be A Clown’.* The movie was panned when it was released in 1948 and Porter later said that, taken together, Around the World and The Pirate were serious blows to his professional standing: ‘The failure of the travelogue idea in Eighty Days Around the World [sic] - - which closed in eighty days - - was so resounding that my own reputation took a fall. It was not improved by my down-beat score for The Pirate, a $5,000,000 motion picture that failed to get back even the cost of the emulsion for developing the negative. My agent told me: “No one wants you Cole. They think your tunes are old-fashioned.” ’72
For reasons that are not known, the subject of Born to Dance came up in Porter’s correspondence with Sam Stark, and in October 1947 Porter sent him the diary he had kept of his meetings at MGM in 1935:
16 October 1947: Cole Porter to Sam Stark73
Mr. Sam Stark
1014 N. Doheny Drive
Los Angeles, California
Dear Sam:
I am sending you under separate cover a copy of the diary I made while I was writing Born to Dance.† Every word of it is entirely true and therefore highly indiscreet, so I beg you show it to practically no one except, of course, to Allen [Walker] and Stanny [Musgrove].
Last Thursday I had Paul [Sylvain] take a bottle of toilet water called Molinard* to the drug store here to be sent to you. This is one of two bottles that [Howard] Sturges brought me from Paris and as there was so much he gave me permission to send you half of the supply. You may like it.
Love,
[signed:] Cole
About this time, Porter became involved in a charity fronted by Douglas Fairbanks Jr., ‘Share Through Care’:
GIFT TO ELIZABETH WILL HELP BRITISH. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Announces Share Through Care Project New York, Sept. 23 – The Share Through Care Committee headed by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., at a press conference today launched its initial project, the Princess Elizabeth Wedding Gift, in a country-wide campaign to aid the British people through Care’s special food
package . . . The Share Through Care committee originated, Fairbanks said, by a small group who wished to do what they could to alleviate suffering in Europe. The committee is a permanent organization to send packages to the needy in 15 European countries. The Princess Elizabeth wedding gift† is the group’s first undertaking but projects for other countries are underway, Fairbanks added.74
Porter was in touch with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. about the charity in October (and with Fairbanks’s wife, Mary Lee) and shortly afterwards apparently solicited a donation from Sam Stark.
28 October 1947: Cole Porter to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.75
Dear Junior: –
First, let me repeat my wire to you, saying how happy we were to receive your news of Melissa.*
Second, I am working hard on your SHARE THROUGH CARE and have, so far, written to 25 people asking for their help, beside helping a bit on my own.
Third, Linda and I have a request to make: The Duke and Duchess of Montoro† will arrive in Los Angeles in about ten days. Linda and I decided that the nicest people to be nice to them would be you and Mary Lee, Phyllis [Astaire] and Fred [Astaire] and Merle [Oberon] and Lucien [Ballard]. We feel very responsible for them as “Tana” is Linda’s god-child. I hope you can find time to do this for us.
You will find them everything delightful, and she is so pretty. They will be in Los Angeles about five days and, like all the rest of the world, hunger to meet film stars and see pictures being made.
I know you must be tired of these requests, but this couple is so enchanting that I know you will not feel that they are a weight on your hands.
Lots of love to Mary Lee, and again my congratulations to you both.
Your devoted
[signed:] Cole
29 October 1947: Cole Porter to Mary Lee Fairbanks76
Dear Mary Lee –
I wrote Douglas yesterday telling him that Linda was Tana de Montoro’s god-mother. I made a mistake. Linda is not her god-mother at all!
Love to you, dear Mary Lee. You were sweet to remember to wire me about Melissa.
Love + blessings
Cole
11 November 1947: Cole Porter to Sam Stark
Dear Sam: –
Thanks a lot for your SHARE THROUGH CARE cheque.
I am returning your letter from Saint-Quentin. Your whole record shows that my original name for you, “Saint Sam”, was correct.
Love from us both,
COLE
Porter had several (now lost) letters from Stark shortly afterwards and wrote back to him on 17 December and again on 30 December:
17 December 1947: Cole Porter to Sam Stark77
Dear Sam: –
A series of letters arrived from you, with clippings etc. included, for which I thank you: (1) the picture of Gene Kelly and Judy Garland dressed as clowns;* (2) the clipping about Pouilly Fuissé (misspelled by Miss Maxwell); (3) the letter from Demetrious. Never back a show. (4) The picture of the Palazzo Barbaro.† This was the first palace we had in Venice. We took it in 1923 for one season . . .
There is a sudden shaft of light from Hollywood from a man called Sperling,‡ who has a unit at Warner Bros. He wants me to do a musical and he and Lyons§ have nearly come to terms. This might work out.¶
[Howard] Sturges and I were very surprised, as we sat Sunday in front of the open fire in Williamstown, to hear Louella Parsons broadcast about my lawsuit against Bill Haines.* How Jimmy Shields must have boiled!
I shall write you at length when my news is better but, so far, it has all been bad and sad.
Love from us both,
[signed:] Cole
30 December 1947: Cole Porter to Sam Stark78
Dear Sam: –
I was outraged to receive the Concert Companion.† Of course, this is my favorite type of book, and I shall use it constantly. But you had already sent me a most beautiful Christmas present in the form of a file – so I resent this shower of gifts, in spite of the fact that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I also received the wonderful notice from Time on “It Had To Be You”. This is, by far, the funniest notice I have ever read.
Lots of love from us both, and again, my gratitude,
Your devoted
[signed:] Cole
* Herman Starr (1899–1965) was president of the Music Publishers Holding Corporation and an important figure at ASCAP; see his obituary in Billboard, 16 January 1965, 1 and 10.
† By Irving Berlin, written in 1941.
‡ For Seven Lively Arts.
* Charles Hoffman (1911–72), film and television writer and producer; his credits include the 1960s television shows Batman and The Green Hornet.
† Concerning Porter’s purchase of numerous pictures by Grandma Moses, see above pp. 219–20.
‡ The gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Elda Furry, 1885–1966), who was also famous for her elaborate hats.
§ Danton Walker (1899–1960), a writer and producer at MGM and a Broadway columnist.
* CPT, Correspondence 1945. The ‘great American’ is Mark Twain. The facts surrounding this familiar quote are more mundane. On 28 May 1897 the editors of the New York Journal wrote to their English editor, Frank Marshall White, concerning rumours that Twain was on his deathbed. White contacted Twain, who wrote to him: ‘I can understand perfectly how the report of my illness got about, I have even heard on good authority that I was dead. James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness. The report of my death was an exaggeration.’
† Jack Warner had explained in an earlier letter of 30 December 1944 that due to the war, technicolor was not always available to the studios: ‘Everything is really on the upbeat on NIGHT AND DAY. Cary Grant and Monty are all set and the balance will be an important cast. I am trying to see if we can get technicolor camera equipment on this picture. Owing to the war, technicolor equipment is quite limited, but I am doing all I can to secure it for NIGHT AND DAY.’ CPT, Correspondence 1944.
‡ Bernard (Babe) Pearce (birth and death dates unknown) was a choreographer and dancer; he had worked with Fred Astaire on the film Holiday Inn (1942). Robert Alton (1906–57), choreographer and dancer; he was later the dance director for the film The Pirate (1948), for which Porter wrote the music.
* The theatrical agent and producer Leland Hayward (1902–71) was Fred Astaire’s agent.
† Danny Kaye (1911–87) was an actor, singer and comedian; in the end, Kaye did not appear in Night and Day.
‡ Mary Martin played herself in Night and Day, singing ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’ from Porter’s Leave it to Me! (1938).
§ The actress Ann Sheridan (1915–67) had recently appeared in They Drive by Night (1942), with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart; The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis and Monty Woolley; and Kings Row (1942), with Ronald Reagan. Frances Langford (1913–2005) had appeared in Porter’s Born to Dance (1936) and with James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Eventually the part of Carol went to the actress Ginny Simms (1915–94).
¶ The actress Jane Wyman (1917–2007) played Gracie Harris in Night and Day. Because she sang ‘Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love’, she effectively filled the role of Irène Bordoni.
* Luba Malina (1909–82) was an actress. Although Porter rejected her for the part of Gabrielle (see below, letter of 28 March 1945), she nevertheless later appeared in the film version of Mexican Hayride (1948). In Night and Day, the part of Gabrielle was taken by the actress Eve Arden (1908–90).
‡ Walter Winchell (1897–72) was a gossip columnist and radio broadcaster.
* See p. 225 above.
* From Porter’s show Jubilee (1935).
† For a brief account of Porter’s time in Kalabahi, see the entry in Moss Hart’s diary, above, pp. 106–7.
* In fact, the word ‘beguine’ derives from the Latin beguina, meaning ‘a member of a women’s spiritual order professing pove
rty and self-denial, founded c.1180 in Liege in the Low Countries’. Beguine as a dance derives from the colloquial French béguin meaning ‘an infatuation’ and before that a nun’s headdress. https://www.etymonline.com/word/beguine (accessed 2 August 2018).
* For Luba Malina, see above, p. 235. The singer Irène Bordoni (1885–1953) had starred in Porter’s Paris (1928).
† Possibly the actress and singer Yvette (birth and death dates unknown), who appeared in episodes of The Morey Amsterdam Show (1948), Cavalcade of Stars (1949) and Star of the Family (1950).
‡ In the end, Bordoni was not represented in Night and Day and her best-known song, ‘Let’s Do It’, was given in the film to the fictional Gracie Harris and situated as belonging to Porter’s 1916 show, See America First.
§ Dorothy Kilgallen (1913–65) was a Broadway columnist; her ‘The Voice of Broadway’, which started in 1938, was syndicated in nearly 150 newspapers.
* Hildegarde (Hildegarde Loretta Sell, 1906–2005) was an actress and singer commonly known as ‘The Incomparable Hildegarde’. She did not appear in Night and Day.
† In March 1945 more than 10,000 members of the Conference of Studio Unions, representing the rank-and-file studio workers, including carpenters and electricians, went on strike against studio labour practices. The strike lasted thirteen months; see Brett L. Abrams, ‘The First Hollywood Blacklist: The Major Studios Deal with the Conference of Studio Unions, 1941–47’, Southern California Quarterly 77/3 (1995), 215–53.
* Sylvia Ashley was an actress and socialite; Jean Feldman (Jean Howard); the ‘wicked old baroness’ is Catherine d’Erlanger; Pat Boyer (1899–1978) was the wife of actor Charles Boyer; Annie Warner; Anita Loos; Fanny Brice; George Cukor (1899–1983) was a film director; Reggie Gardner (1903–80) was an actor; Roger Stearns; Eddie Goulding; William Haines; Howard Sturges; Jimmie Shields; Michael Chaplin; Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947), film director.
† Erich Maria Remarque’s works were banned by the Nazis in 1933; in 1939 he emigrated to the United States.
* Porter’s signing off as Albert, his middle name, is possibly a sign of his intimacy with Barclift.