by Cole Porter
In answer to your letter of July 3rd, regarding your bet that we would receive unanimously favorable notices for CAN-CAN. You simply use as a weapon one notice from Variety. This was made before the weekly magazines appeared with their blasts, so you will have to dine with me at Le Pavillon when I return and we shall discuss this matter in detail – over a big souffle. It does seem, however, as if the unfavorable notices have done little harm as Cy Feuer, who is here, assures me that we shall be sold out over the dog-days.
Keep this under your old Hungarian hat, but Cy came out to see me regarding doing a new show with him and Ernie [Martin], and brought along an excellent script written by George S. Kaufman and his wife.† It is based upon NINOTCHKA but it is much funnier, with an excellent love story. I have decided to do it so I go back into slavery on August 1st, scared but happy. Thank you very much for the new sheet music cover for MY HEART BELONGS TO DADDY.
Lots of love,
[signed:] Cole
Porter also mentioned the Ninotchka musical – based on the famous Greta Garbo film of 1939 – to his lawyer, John Wharton, who by now was managing all his business affairs. The show would become Silk Stockings (1955). The letter furthermore discusses a possible revival of Nymph Errant, which had been produced in London by Charles Cochran in 1933:
9 July 1953: Cole Porter to John Wharton37
Dear John:
I enclose a letter from one of my dearest friends, L. C. Hanna, Jr. He was in my class in college and he is now a very big shot in Cleveland. Will you please look into the contents of his letter and answer him direct?
I don’t see how you can possibly get all the rights to do this show,* without infinite work, and I wonder if it is worth it. As you probably remember, Charlie Cochran died about two years ago and I imagine his estate is in the hands of his wife, Evelyn, who has been drunk for years. In any case, try to answer Len Hanna as tactfully as possible.
Keep it under your hat, but it looks as if I was going to do a new show for Feuer and Martin. They have come up with an excellent script.
All my best.
Sincerely,
[signed:] Cole
Wharton replied in July to say that he believed the materials were lost.38
Also in mid-July Porter replied to Burrows’s letters from June, because he had not had the writer’s address while he was abroad. The most interesting part of his reply is his initial reaction to Kiss Me Kate on the screen (four months before its official release), with a mixture of feelings about the use of technology:
14 July 1953: Cole Porter to Abe Burrows39
Dear Abe:
I haven’t written you before because I attempted to send you a birthday cable and the news came back that you had left your Paris hotel, leaving no forwarding address. I don’t believe this.
Now that I know you are safe in New York again I want to thank you so much for the two great letters you sent me. Your paragraph in one letter, describing the show as having all the attributes of a child, is so true that I have put it in my scrapbook. In your other letter you wrote me how much you liked the painting by Vertes. I can’t tell you how happy I am that it pleased you.
I have been watching KISS ME, KATE at Metro. Unfortunately, it has been shot in that silly 3D (how I hate those glasses!) and it has also been shot in “flat”. In both versions there is a wide screen. Metro has a new color process called Ansco* which is very superior to Technicolor and the picture is extraordinarily beautiful to look at. I don’t know the pace of the picture yet as there was [sic] always long pauses between each reel. The revelation of the picture, however, is the performance of Howard Keel,† who is an excellent Petruchio. He is everything that one would NOT expect – flamboyant and romantic. Also, his diction is perhaps even better than Alfred Drake’s.
I spend a lot of time here going out in the evenings, and it is so much fun to loll in somebody’s sitting room and see an unreleased picture every night – although I still think it is unfair to the picture to be plied with Martinies and New York Cut and then have all the lights go out.
Cy and Posey [Feuer] have been here and it was a joy to see them.
Isn’t it nice that our little CAN-CAN is doing so well!
My love to you and Carin and, again, my gratitude for those two wonderful letters.
Love,
[signed:] Cole
In July, Noël Coward wrote to Porter to ask for permission to perform his own lyrics for ‘Let’s Do It’ during his cabaret residency in Las Vegas. In his response Porter mentions Linda’s health, which had only recently recovered from problems over the winter:
14 July 1953: Cole Porter to Noël Coward40
Dear Noley:
Thanks a lot for your letter of June 11th, explaining the lyrics of LET’S DO IT.
I hear nothing but great reports about your different efforts.
We are having a heat wave here and I am in a constant rage. The reason I always come to this place for the summer is to avoid the horror of our east coast.
Linda is at our house in the Berkshires and having a ball. After being seriously ill most of the winter she is entirely well again and it makes me so happy every time we talk on the telephone. Her guests now are Mainbocher* and his friend, Pollard. They stay through July and then Natascha [Wilson] and Nickie come up, so she is well taken care of while I gad about with the Goetzes.†
Love,
[signed:] Cole
At the end of June, the New York Times had revealed that Porter’s mother left $551,550 in her estate, most of it to Cole.41 It is noticeable that he complains of his finances much less often in the letters from 1953. Perhaps Porter’s recent inheritance was behind his decision to raise his secretary’s salary in July:
15 July 1953: Cole Porter to Madeline P. Smith42
Dear Mrs. Smith:
Ever since arriving here I have been conscious of doing you an injustice, as you do so much work for me while I am away. Therefore I have arranged with Ford Dixon today to send you your full salary, retrospective to the last half of May. You will be on full salary throughout the year and, if circumstances permit, we will continue this arrangement in the future but the time might arise when I could no longer afford this and would have to put you on half-salary again in my absence.
Please send the Arthur Fiedler Boston Pops record of CAN-CAN* to all the original list. Each of these records should have an adaptor placed in it’s [sic] center before sending. The company from whom you order these will understand what I mean.
Also, please send to me here one MGM album (33 speed) of THE BAND WAGON.† Send me two Jan August recordings of ALLEZ-VOUS EN.‡
Sincerely,
[signed:] Cole Porter
In the 1950s the nature of celebrity shifted with the expansion of television. At the same time, the mature Porter had started to realize, thanks to the guidance of Wharton and his colleagues, that his name was a brand that could be significantly commercialized. The next two letters show an approach, and Porter’s uncertain response to it, from Old Angus scotch, who wanted to use his name in their advertising:
21 July 1953: Lawrence Fertig & Company to Cole Porter43
Dear Mr. Porter:
It is the most difficult thing in the world, I think, to come to an artist (and a sophisticated one at that!) with anything remotely resembling a business endeavor! But come to you I must for I have the conviction that you would be perfect for the following endeavor and will not, of course, be satisfied until I learn your pleasure.
One of this advertising agency’s clients, the Old Angus scotch people, have a yearly campaign featuring four celebrities of various realms, celebrities who will have an appeal to the men who are ostensibly their audience – men who are metropolitan in ways, well-read, dignified in their behavior and who have reached a point in life where they can afford to enjoy the work of those celebrities. In the past, we have featured Bennett Cerf, Peter Arno, Ogden Nash, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Arthur Fiedler and Maurice Evans,* and I have just conclud
ed successful negotiations for S. J. Perelman for this year’s campaign. I would, of course, like to maintain this pattern, and, of course, enhance it. It is for this very reason that I come to you (as a matter of fact, it is with an enormous amount of restraint that I remain this objective – having the personal idolatry I do for your music!).
Our advertising is done almost entirely in The New Yorker, Time and Esquire magazines and we offer (other than a television set or like piece of furniture, or the client’s product or a check in the amount of $500 – really more a gratuity than an enticement!) the opportunity of a credit line (in your case, I would imagine your record albums would be your choice) which would benefit by an audience of the width and kind of this campaign.
Would you be good enough to let me know what your decision is and if you should wish any other particulars, I shall be happy to oblige. I am enclosing a tear sheet of one of the past ads for your information.
Thank you for your courtesy.
Cordially yours,
[signed]
Patricia Bunker
23 July 1953: Cole Porter to Robert Montgomery44
Dear Bob:
Will you please look into the enclosed from the Lawrence Fertig Advertising agency? If, without much trouble, I could get $500.00 for the Runyan [sic] Cancer Fund for this ad it might be wise for me to do it. On the other hand, in the past I have received much more than this for lending my name and photograph to products and maybe it would be a bad precedent to come down suddenly to $500.00. As I remember, I received either $2,500.00 or $2,000.00. Whatever you decide will be O.K. with me.
Best regards,
Sincerely,
[signed:] Cole
By early August, Porter was hard at work on the musical based on Ninotchka, which would eventually become Silk Stockings. The subject of the show had been announced in the New York Times on 26 July: ‘[The] department ferret now brings to light the fact that the musical Mr. Porter will do is “Ninotchka”. George S. Kaufman and his wife, Leueen McGrath [sic], are well along in their task of fashioning the book based on Melchior Lengyel’s* satire of Soviet life . . . Probably only the basic idea will remain and, indeed, the title is bound to go the morning someone gets an inspiration either in the shower or while shaving.’45 The following letter to Ernest Martin, co-producer of the show with Cy Feuer, suggests Porter was looking for material that he could use in the song ‘Paris Loves Lovers’:
5 August 1953: Cole Porter to Ernest Martin46
Dear Ernie:
Could you put your Research Department on the following:
Phrases, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs which are most commonly used by Soviet Russia?
The first adjective that comes to my mind is “capitalistic”. These phrases, etc., should be pro-communistic and anti-communistic.
Love to you and Pem Davenport.†
[signed:] Co e [sic]
Two weeks later, Porter had also drafted the song ‘All of You’, then titled ‘Of You’ in a letter to Cy Feuer:
21 August 1953: Cole Porter to Cy Feuer47
Dear Cy:
Please find enclosed the newest lyric to OF YOU, which I also consider the best. Please destroy the other two lyrics which you have. I have a series of substitute lines for this song which we can use in case the enclosed lyric doesn’t apply.
Tell Ernie [Martin] that his niece, Ann, came to lunch with me yesterday and has started the research on the current Russian cliches. I found her very attractive and as bright as a button. She explained that she had been employed by Ernie and you to do this work, so that I no longer felt embarrassed about asking for favors. Thank you both a lot for helping me in this research.
Haven’t you a spare script of Ninotchka around that you could send to me? Even though it is not yet correct, by reading it over and over again I could perhaps get some good ideas.
All my best.
Sincerely,
[signed:] Cole
In August, Porter wrote a typically eclectic letter to Sam Stark, though he did not mention Silk Stockings. The comments on two other famous musicals – Rodgers and Hart’s Pal Joey and Wright and Forrest’s Kismet – are intriguing:
21 August 1953: Cole Porter to Sam Stark48
Dear Sammy:
Your charming letter, full of treasure, appeared and I thank you.
As for the Boston Pops recording* – throw it in the sea!
I have examined the photographs of you in detail and I will NOT take this alibi about your fatness keeping you from coming up for lunch one Sunday. Why don’t you be honest and simply say that you don’t want to come to lunch? You write that a cousin of Harriet’s [sic] arrives on Sunday. Cousins of Harriet’s [sic] are always arriving. How many are there?
I saw KISMET† last night and a lot of it is excellent. It is corn but, after all, you prefer corn. I don’t think, however, you will like it as much as the Student Prince.‡
You cannot lure me to dine with you at Perino’s on Tuesday, September first, and go to see Pal Joey* with you. I hate dining early and I hate Pal Joey, but I would love nothing better than to have you both come up and dine with me one night, without cousins. That is, if this is not too long a trek for you, since after dinner there is no way in which I could provide a Broadway production . . .
Love to you both.
Your former friend,
[signed:] Cole
Another project that came up at this time was a request from John C. Wilson, director of the original Kiss Me, Kate in 1948, to use some of Porter’s trunk songs in a play:
13 August 1953: John C. Wilson to Cole Porter49
Dear, dear Cole --
This is again to thank you for your sweetness and hospitality to me in California but, secondarily, to bring to your attention another proposition for LIFE BY ME.
It was never my intention to make this into a musical comedy. I hoped to duplicate a sort of GAY DIVORCE without a chorus and even without (although I think they are in the script) ballet sequences. I think it ought to be a straight play as it was when it was written, with 6 or 8 or at the limit 10 interpolated numbers. I know that you are doing NINOTCHKA, but it occurred to me that you might have in the files a sufficient number of songs that you might permit me to use at my discretion, if you were not available, to integrate and interpolate into the script. There are two that I know about, for every good reason, which are naturals, and they are WE WILL NEVER BE YOUNGER and IT WAS GREAT FUN THE FIRST TIME.† There are probably a great many others in your files which you could dig up and send to me without any necessity of creating new material. Will you give this matter serious consideration.
Let me emphasize again this is not to be a musical comedy but that if you could spare a series of songs that could be suited to the story line you could do NINOTCHKA as well, and without any additional effort, provide the musical background for what I believe is an intelligent and worthwhile script.
Natasha* had a wonderful week-end with Linda – says she is in fine form and they giggled and laughed their way through the week-end with great happiness all around.
My nicest memories of Hollywood are those I spent with you and I thank you again --
[unsigned]
Porter replied politely, implying he intended to help further down the line:
18 August 1953: Cole Porter to John C. Wilson50
Dear Jack:
Thanks for your letter of August 13, 1953.
I am at present making an album of all my songs that have been thrown out of productions in the past, so when I come east in the early part of October this album will be completed. If John Wharton agrees, we can look over the whole lot and find out if anything is suitable to you, but I can’t give you the total number now as this is quite a job.
Love you to you both.
Your devoted
[signed:] Cole
Yet in a letter to John Wharton, Porter revealed that he was not at all keen on the prospect:
1 September 1953: Cole
Porter to John Wharton51
Dear John:
Thank you for your letter of August 29, 1953, enclosing a nice, big check from KISS ME, KATE performances.
Regarding Jack Wilson and his idea of using old songs of mine for his show BIOGRAPHY, I have told him that I would talk it over with him when I arrive back in New York in the first week of October, but I don’t like the idea of giving up all these old songs to him a bit, and I hope in some way you can take the rap and get me out of it. These old songs are awfully useful to keep, as now and then I should be able to throw some of them into different pictures.
It is very strange that neither Howard Seitz nor Bob Montgomery ever received my answer to your letter of July 14th, in which you made a suggestion for the re-draft of my will. I am sure I answered this letter immediately upon its receipt, asking that you not rush this re-draft but continue to clear all the difficulties before sending me out a copy to sign. I even went so far as to suggest that it be sent to Ed O’Conner, my attorney out here, and he has been waiting for it ever since.
Since you approve of the Lounsberry idea of putting my lyrics on cocktail napkins I also say ok by me.*
Irving Lazar will arrive shortly to talk to you about the new Metro contract. It looks as though it were definitely going through as even Dore Schary telephoned me a few days ago to say how enthusiastic he was about it and that he felt sure it could all be arranged financially.
I arrive in New York on the evening of Monday, October 5th. I would like to get up to Williamstown to be with Linda as quickly as possible so, unless there are very pressing matters, perhaps I could arrange to come down the following week to see you.
All my best, dear John, and I am so glad you had a good vacation.
Sincerely,
[signed:] Cole
In his reply, Wharton promised to help Porter with Wilson’s request, showing how invaluable his firm had become to managing his career at this time; a separate letter from around the same time reveals Robert Montgomery’s attempts to retrieve the script and score of Nymph Errant from Charles B. Cochran’s papers for a possible revival. Wharton’s two letters below also mention another important project of this period that almost came to pass: an MGM film using Porter’s back catalogue in the context of a new story, in the vein of Singin’ in the Rain and An American in Paris. Eventually it would be called Wonderland and was abandoned before being shot, but in the initial stages it was referred to as the ‘Porter Cavalcade’:52