The Letters of Cole Porter
Page 43
10 November 1950: Cole Porter to Sam Stark98
OPENING OF SHOW WILL BE ON THURSDAY DECEMBER 14TH INSTEAD OF THURSDAY NOVEMBER 30TH SO PLEASE MAKE YOUR TRAIN OR PLANE RESERVATION FOR TWO WEEKS LATER COMING AND GOING. COLE
Further changes were communicated to Stark via Madeline P. Smith on 16 November, who also commented: ‘The show is beautiful to look at – but they are having book and direction trouble, which they hope to iron out before getting to N.Y.’99 Linda Porter also wrote to Stark, revealing Cole’s relief that Abbott was making ‘the necessary changes . . . The score is beautiful, the deco and costumes lovely, but the book let them down.’100
As the Broadway opening itself was finally settled for 21 December, Porter wrote again to Stark, for whom he had also arranged for tickets to six other shows, including Leonard Bernstein’s Peter Pan and Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls:
22 November 1950: Cole Porter to Sam Stark101
DEAR SAM[,] EXPECT YOU WALDORF SATURDAY MORNING DECEMBER SIXTEENTH[.] YOUR ROOM IS RESERVED UNTIL FRIDAY AFTERNOON DECEMBER TWENTY SECOND[.] YOU WILL HAVE A PAIR OF SEATS FOR SIX SHOWS BEGINNING SATURDAY MATINEE DECEMBER 16[.] IN ADDITION WE EXPECT YOU TO GO WITH US TO OUT OF THIS WORLD ON THURSDAY NIGHT DECEMBER TWENTY FIRST[.] SO HAPPY THAT YOU ARE COMING[.] LOVE FROM US BOTH. COLE
By 26 November, Porter had become philosophical about the fate of Out of This World (‘be it a success or a flop’), as he revealed in his next letter to Stark. The reference to having organized tickets for Call Me Madam is of interest because although he was great friends with Berlin, he must have been jealous that the latter had another hit on his hands when Out of This World was so troubled:
26 November 1950: Cole Porter to Sam Stark102
Dear Sam: –
Mrs. Smith wrote to you about the reservations I made for you at the Waldorf. If this suits you please let me know.
Also, Linda and I expect you to go to the opening of the new show with us – be it a success or a flop.
I have applied for two seats for you for Call Me Madam for the night of November 29th. Are there other reservations for seats which you wish me to make?
We are so late in our rehearsals that I don’t see how we can ever open in Philadelphia on time. We have a benefit on Thursday night, November 2nd, and another one on Friday night, November 3rd. We open to the public on Saturday night, November 4th.
I wish Robert* would come down and see you. Why don’t you leave a message for him to ring you from 416? He is very depressed as his home life is a-shambles [sic]. I am awfully sorry for him.
Linda is back in New York and in great form. She lunches today at the Pavillon for the first time in two years.
Love from us both,
[signed:] Cole
To a good friend such as Jean Howard, Porter remained openly damning in his assessment of Out of This World, though perhaps Linda’s revived health (mentioned in the letter to Stark above) prevented the show’s fate from making him too depressed:
8 November 1950: Cole Porter to Jean Howard103
Dearest Jean: –
I received your two wild wires. I shall certainly keep two seats for you for the opening of Out of This World, which is on November 30th. But I warn you that, so far, the show is no good and that if you should, by any chance, appear in time to the seats you will be bored to death.
New York misses you.
Love to you both,
[signed:] Cole
He was a little more even (if hardly enthusiastic) in his assessment of the show to John Wharton, who had informed him of the death of the lead lawyer at the firm that represented him (Paul, Weiss, Wharton & Garrison):
25 November 1950: Cole Porter to John Wharton104
Dear John: –
Thank you very much for your letter of November 18, 1950. I send you my deep sympathy on the death of Louis Weiss. I can imagine what a great shock this has been to you.
The show hobbles along – not fast enough in its improvements, but at least George Abbott and Hugh Herbert are doing excellent work.
All my best,
[signed:] Cole
Not only was Porter concerned about the quality of the show, in Boston the censor demanded nine cuts to tone down the more suggestive elements of the book and lyrics, presenting a new problem to deal with.105 Porter’s concern continued in the next letter, written to Cloyd E. Small, a veteran teacher (1922–66) from the Worcester Academy, which had been the home of some of Porter’s most formative years as a boy:
9 December 1950: Cole Porter to Cloyd Small, Worcester Academy106
Dear Mr. Small: –
Thank you a lot for your letter of December 5, 1950. It cheered me greatly, as I am still very worried about Out of this World.
Please give my regards to Mrs. Aldrich when you see her. I remember her well, and her kindness to me.
Sincerely yours,
[signed:] Cole Porter
As the first night on Broadway approached, tickets were at a premium. After all, this was the first Porter musical to open since his greatest hit, Kiss Me, Kate, and the public’s anticipation was high. The following letter to Jack Warner, producer of Night and Day, hints at the pressure on Porter to provide tickets for his friends:
11 December 1950: Cole Porter to Jack Warner107
Dear Jack: –
Thank you for your letter of December 8th. I am still hoping that I can rescue two of the tickets which I have already given away for opening night of Out of This World for you and Ann. If I can rescue them, I prefer to hold them here until you let me know definitely whether you and Ann can use them, as I have a long waiting list of old friends.
Hoping to see you,
and with love to you both,
Sincerely
[unsigned]
Porter returned to New York from the Boston tryout of the musical on 16 December on the 1:10 plane and joined Stark and other friends at the Colony for coffee, which marked the beginning of a few days of socializing before the big night.108
Out of This World opened on Broadway on 21 December 1950. As always, Porter invited a formidable number of his friends, including the former King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, to attend:
21 December 1950: List of Cole Porter’s guests for the opening night109
Duke & Duchess of Windsor
Mrs. Wm. Randolph Hearst
Mr. & Mrs. Gilbert Miller
Mr. & Mrs. John C. Wilson
Mrs. Kate C. Porter
Mrs. Hiram Bearss
Mr. & Mrs. Lytle Hull
Miss Elsa Maxwell
Mr. Howard Sturges
Mr. Samuel Stark
Mr. Robert Bray
Miss Merle Oberon
Mrs. Jean Howard
Mr. Charles Feldman
Mr. John Royal
Mrs. Wm. Wallace
Mr. Andre Kostelanetz
Miss Lily Pons
Mr. Leonard Hanna
Mr. Main Bocher
Miss Edith Fellowes Gordon
The Duke di Verdura
Mr. John Pinto
Countess di Zoppola
Mr. & Mrs. Henry Colgate
Mr. Harry Krebs
Mr. Edward Tauch
Mrs. Wm. von Rath
Mr. & Mrs. Valentin Parera
Mr. Jules Glaenzer
As expected, the reviews were none too enthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson’s for the New York Times began with the condemnatory statement ‘Although it is difficult to make sex a tiresome subject, “Out of This World” has very nearly succeeded.’ Yet there was some acknowledgement of the quality of Porter’s work, much of which had been done before the book was written: ‘Some of Mr. Porter’s songs are among the finest he has written, and he has the singers who can do justice to them.’110
* Berlin’s wife, Mary Ellin Berlin (1903–88).
† Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun opened on 16 May 1946 and ran for 1,147 performances – by far Berlin’s biggest commercial and critical success. Many of Berlin’s other
shows were revues (Face the Music, As Thousands Cheer), but Annie was a book musical, rich with plot-led numbers.
* George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) was a prominent drama critic and the inspiration for the character Addison De Witt in All About Eve (1950).
† The producer of Kiss Me, Kate.
* The finale of the first act contained the word ‘bastard’.
† Gracie was Linda Porter’s dog.
* Margaret Egan, Porter’s West Coast secretary.
† Probably Robert Raison.
* Cole Porter Trust. The earliest of the cases was from 8 December 1930 for the opening of The New Yorkers. Porter also removed a ‘gold key ring with baubles attached’. Porter’s collection of cigarette cases was auctioned by Parke-Bernet, New York, on 17 May 1967; see Sanka Knox, ‘Cole Porter’s Cigarette Cases Draw Eager Throng to Auction’, New York Times 17 May 1967, 74.
† Linda’s dog.
* Helen Traubel (1899–1972) was an American opera singer who also appeared in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Pipe Dream (1955).
* Marcel Emile Gaston LePlat (1913–2014) was a dancer and actor, known for appearing as Daniel in MGM’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).
† Max Dreyfus (1874–1964) was president of Chappell, Porter’s publisher.
* Samuel Nathaniel Behrman (1893–1973) was a celebrated writer and journalist. He was the screenwriter of Porter’s The Pirate (1948), among many other important films and plays.
† Alfred Lunt (1892–1977) and Lynn Fontanne (1887–1983) were a beloved theatrical couple who appeared in numerous productions together.
* American writer Paul Osborn (1901–88) was a prolific playwright (The Vinegar Tree, Morning’s at Seven) and screenwriter (South Pacific, East of Eden).
† Dwight Taylor (1903–86) wrote numerous plays, films and musicals, including Porter’s Gay Divorce (1932).
‡ Porter’s lover at the time. See McBrien, Cole Porter, 154–5.
* Perhaps Robert Bray.
† Perhaps Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Mendl.
‡ The Bell Telephone Hour was broadcast on 16 May and focused on South Pacific.
§ Presumably Jean Howard, Linda’s friend.
¶ Paul Sylvain, Porter’s valet, who evidently had an ulcer.
* Berlin’s wife was called Ellin.
* Fred Astaire and his wife Phyllis.
† This was sent for the opening of Miss Liberty, which Porter could not attend. Irving Berlin Collection, Library of Congress.
* Marjorie Gateson (1891–1977) was an American actress who had appeared in Porter’s movie You’ll Never Get Rich (1941).
* Howard Sturges.
† Perhaps the actress Pat Paterson (1910–78), wife of the actor Charles Boyer.
‡ The actress Carol Channing (1921–2019) was prominent at the time as the original star of the upcoming Broadway production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949).
§ Out of This World.
¶ Probably Robert Bray.
** Allen Walker, Stark’s partner.
* Stark has added ‘ice-’ above here.
† The socialite Mona Williams (1897–1983), who was married at the time to Harrison Williams, one of the richest men in America, and later married the grandson of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
‡ Leonard Hanna, a wealthy classmate of Porter’s from his Yale days.
§ Probably Robert Bray.
¶ Matinee Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Our Theater (1949). Ward Morehouse (1895–1966) was a theatre critic and playwright, known for writing the ‘Broadway After Dark’ column for the New York Sun for twenty-five years, moving to the New York World-Telegram and Sun in 1950.
* David Wayne (1914–95) was a prolific American actor, known at that time for appearing as Og in the original Broadway production of Finian’s Rainbow (1947).
† The Sinatra recording is brief in the film and the complete version has never been commercially released.
‡ Larry Spier, Snr. (?1901–56) had founded Memory Lane Music Group, which controlled numerous song copyrights, and was General Manager of Chappell Music.
* The Damon Runyon Cancer Fund was established by Walter Winchell in 1946 in memory of his friend Runyon, who had died that year of throat cancer. Runyon’s stories were the basis of the musical Guys and Dolls (1950).
* The Women (MGM, 1939) was a highly successful comedy film directed by George Cukor.
† Porter was trying to make a booking for Linda.
‡ By ‘Ess’ and ‘Essie’, Porter probably means Sylvia Ashley.
* Perhaps Tito Reynaldo, a dancer in Porter’s Du Barry Was a Lady.
* Perhaps Robert Bray.
† F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) is best remembered for his novel The Great Gatsby (1925). He was married to the socialite Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–48), who was also a writer and artist.
* A collection of twenty-two short stories about life in America between the wars, edited by Isabel Leighton.
† The names of their dogs.
‡ Perhaps Robert Bray.
* Founded in 1930, the Vedanta Society of Southern California is a branch of the Ramakrishna Order.
† A novel by Raymond Chandler, published in September 1949 by Houghton Mifflin.
‡ Stark’s note: ‘L.A. attorney. Jefty was Bill O’Connor’s son.’
* Trans World Airlines.
† Perhaps Roger Davis, Porter’s friend. The reference later in the letter is presumably to the same person.
‡ Presumably a cookbook consisting of favourite recipes of celebrities.
§ Natalia Pavlovna Paley (1905–81) was the wife of John C. Wilson (the director of Kiss Me, Kate). A Russian aristocrat, she was the daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia and a cousin of Nicholas II. She was known as ‘Natasha’ but Porter’s handwriting makes the given spelling of ‘Nalasha’ clear, which suggests it was a nickname.
¶ Kiss Me, Kate.
* Stark’s dog.
† This appears to have been a comparatively recent treatment for lung disease: see R. T. Fisk et al., ‘The Experimental Use of Ethylene Disulfonate (Allergosil Brand) in the Prevention of Anaphylaxis in Guinea Pigs’, Journal of Allergy, 15:1, 14–17.
‡ A fairly new drug at the time, used as an antihistamine. See https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM194710022371401 for a 1947 article about its effects.
* See p. 200.
† Polly Moran (1883–1952) was, like Brice, a vaudevillian. She appeared in Adam’s Rib.
‡ See p. 335 above.
* Judy Holliday (1921–65) was an American actress, known for appearing to great acclaim in the stage and screen versions of both Born Yesterday (1946; 1950) and Bells Are Ringing (1956; 1960).
† Betty Comden (1917–2006) and Adolph Green (1914–2002) were prominent book writers, lyricists and performers. Their work included, as Porter points out, On the Town (1944), with music by Leonard Bernstein, and the recently opened MGM movie The Barkleys of Broadway (1949).
‡ Billion Dollar Baby (1945) was a modestly successful Broadway musical with music by Morton Gould.
§ Porter may mean ‘film version’; clearly he intends to distinguish between the stage (1944) and screen (1949) versions of On the Town.
* In other words, popular in style and therefore more commercial and portable to another context or project.
* Mainbocher’s was a fashion brand run by the American couturier Main Bocher (1890–1976).
† Ruth Livingston Mills (1855–1920) died in Paris.
‡ Eleanor Elkins Widener (1862–1937) was an heiress, known for establishing the Widener Library at Harvard University in memory of her son, Harry Elkins Widener, who died in the sinking of the Titanic.
§ Perhaps Robert Bray.
¶ Kate O’Brien’s That Lady opened on 22 November 1949 at the Martin Beck Theatre, New York.
* Sam Zolotow, ‘Keen Bidding Seen for Logan’s Play’, New York Times, 19 December 1949, 22.
† A column in the
New York Times also mentioned that Mitzi Gerber – who later changed her name to Mitzi Gaynor – was heading to New York to appear in Porter’s new musical, then called Heaven and Earth. Thomas F. Brady, ‘Hartman Writing Bob Hope Comedy’, New York Times, 7 December 1949, 42.
* Paul Sylvain, Porter’s valet.
† The Third Man is a British noir film starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, released in 1949. Anton Karas wrote and performed the score, all of which was played on the zither.
* The Rust Craft Greeting Card Company manufactured Christmas cards and calendars, as well as having a radio and television division known as Rust Card Broadcasting. It was founded in 1906 by Fred Winslow Rust and was sold off in 1980.
† The couturier’s.
* Possibly Lawrence Copley Thaw (1899–1965), described in an obituary as ‘a Wall Street stockbroker, world traveler, and big-game hunter’, New York Times, 28 June 1965, 29.
† Roger Peyrefitte’s novel of 1943, which won the Prix Renaudot, a prestigious French literary award.
* John Beal (1909–97) was an American actor, whose film career included The Little Minister (1934) opposite Katharine Hepburn.
* Probably James Russo (?1914–82), the stage manager of Finian’s Rainbow (1947) and the producer of The Last Dance (1948), both on Broadway.
† Robert E. Sherwood (1896–1955), playwright of Reunion in Vienna as well as Idiot’s Delight (1936), among many other successful plays.
* Luella Gear (1897–1980) was an American stage and screen actress whose appearances included a role in Porter’s Gay Divorce.
† She also responded humorously to a gift from Stark of some Louis Philippe plates that were initialled ‘L.P’ (Linda’s initials) for ‘Louis Philippe’: ‘THE PLATES ARRIVED AND ARE PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL[.] AM THRILLED AND SO HAPPY YOU DIDN’T SEND THEM TO LOUELLA[.] MUCH LOVE[.] MANY THANKS.’ The reference to ‘Louella’ is to Louella Parsons, another L.P. Stanford University, Cole Porter Collection, shelfmark FE209, Correspondence: 1950 (TLS on Waldorf stationery), 1–9.