The Letters of Cole Porter

by Cole Porter

  While the ‘See America First’ movement encouraged both patriotic and aesthetic values, it was also exploited, sometimes in convoluted ways, by American businesses. This may have provided Porter with what was probably his first commercial work and advertising opportunity,* a campaign by the Sherwin-Williams paint company, ‘Brighten Up America’:

  The February magazines are showing the first ads of the Sherwin-Williams Company’s “Brighten Up America” spring campaign. The company was especially fortunate in their selection of a slogan and design, which includes Uncle Sam. They could hardly have chosen an idea for their campaign which is more up-to-the-minute and timely. For many years the Sherwin-Williams Company has used the slogan “Brighten Up,” and this year simply tied it up with the word “America” in order to help in the big movement in which all the paint companies are interested to preach to the American people the gospel of the economy of painting. It has been an acknowledged fact that the American people, in spite of their prosperity and expenditure of money, are not spending it to purchase paint for their houses as much as they are for luxuries. They don’t think of paint as a necessity or an economy. The Sherwin-Williams “Brighten Up America” campaign is intended to waken the American people to the foolishness of neglecting such an important matter as house painting . . . [A] unique feature of the campaign is a song which the Sherwin-Williams Company is publishing, called “Brighten Up, America!” The music is by Cole Porter, a graduate of Yale University, who made such a name for himself in writing songs of Old Eli that he is now a professional song writer, having many songs accepted for musical comedies, and his opera, “See America First,” was produced on Broadway last winter. This song will be given out by S.-W. agents and dealers and will be featured in some of the spring campaign ads. The agents who are putting on Brighten Up parades will run lantern slides advertising the event the night before in their local movie picture houses. One of the slides will show the words of the “Brighten Up America” song in order to get the audience singing while the pianist plays the tune.30

  Porter’s song – if in fact it was written and published – is apparently lost.31

  Porter’s activities in early 1917 are not well documented, although at least one of his war-related performances was noted in the New York Times on 1 February: ‘Several Men to Have Wings in Big War Charities Entertainment. The Angel choir which is to take part in the big entertainment for Mrs. Gertrude Atherton’s and three other big war charities under the direction of Miss Elsa Maxwell* on Feb. 15 at the Century Theatre is growing . . . Miss Laurette Taylor will dance the fox trot with Preston Gibson, and Miss Mimi Scott will sing a song, “I’m Looking for You,” with Cole Porter.’32 Beyond participating in fund-raising events, however, Porter may also have been thinking about volunteering for the war effort, as did many of his Yale classmates, encouraged by an article published in the Yale Alumni Weekly the previous autumn: ‘Call for American Hospital Workers in France. The demand for workers in connection with the American Ambulance Hospital in France was never greater than at present. Drivers are needed in the Paris service, which is comparatively simple; and also for the field service, which is more serious business. Yale men who care to take on an experience of six months or more in this work may correspond directly with William R. Hereford, Headquarters, American Ambulance, 14 Wall St., New York City. There is also need for hospital orderlies. These men wait on and care for the wounded, serve their meals, lift them, help the convalescents to walk, etc. The need of such workers is so great that the New York office not only pays for board and lodging while in the service, but defrays passage money New York to Paris and return for those who cannot afford to pay their own. In the case of ambulance drivers, the applicant pays his own passage, though board and lodging are provided these when once arrived in France.’33

  Porter registered for the draft on 5 June 1917 and in July sailed for Europe on the paquebot ‘Espagne’ to work for the Duryea Relief Organization, which was founded in France in 1914 by the expatriate American writer Nina Larrey Duryea (1874–1951) to aid war survivors and refugees. A programme survives for a concert that Porter gave on board on 17 July, possibly the concert described by one of his shipmates, Albert Le Tarte, who in an article published in the Brunswick Record in August 1917 noted that ‘a composer [was] with us also, by the name of Cole Porter, who rendered several of his own compositions’.34 A few months after his arrival in France, Porter himself had an open letter describing his time there published in the Peru Republican for 5 October:

  Letter from Cole Porter at the Front.

  A very interesting letter from Cole Porter, who is personal aid to the president of the Duryea Relief party now at the battle front in France, written to his mother, Mrs. S. F. Porter, of this city, gives interesting and valuable first-hand glimpses of the war and his own work. He gives a description of the latest German infernal machine, the caterpillar, a string of burning torches shot from the ground to hit the French airplanes. We are permitted to copy parts of the letter:

  Dear Mother:

  An awfully cheery letter arrived from you today (September 4) dated August 13.

  Life here continues to offer great surprises. For instance, yesterday I went to inspect the village of Fresnoy. As I was walking along the road of the town I passed the entrance of an abri (shelter in case of air raids). But it looked so much better than most of them that I opened the door to it. I peered down the steps (they are usually about twenty feet below the surface) and there, at the bottom stood a woman of about sixty years smiling up at me. She asked me to come down, which I did, and found an immaculately clean room, a dirt floor swept to a polish, and this was her home. She told me her story – how she was all alone in the world, her husband and her son having been killed, but, until the Boches had come, she had lived in her brick house, on her farm, with thirty cows (she had prizes for cattle on her walls in the cave). Then, the invasion. She fled, but was taken prisoner, sent to Prussia to work, grew ill and was returned to France by way of Switzerland, went back to her home at Fresnoy, found it had completely disappeared, and she happened on this German abri as the only shelter she could find. Of course it was an astounding adventure she’d had, but the amazing part was her gaiety and her charm. I love this French race. They’re so attractive, so amusing, so wonderfully brave, and so simple – just like children, all of them. So, we being without a cook, and I being tired of opening canned beans, asked her if she could cook. And she said, “Oh, Monsieur of course I can cook.” So I said, “Pack up your things and jump in the motor.” So here she is, this extraordinary old sport, living in the house with us, working like a Trojan, and cooking delicious omelettes, rabbit chops and compotes. And she has forgotten her trouble and we’ve forgotten ours!

  Last night being very clear and calm, I went out to the aviation camp with the commandant of this canton, to see a glimpse, at least, of the only attractively exciting side of the whole war. I stood there and saw sixty aeroplanes rise, one by one, and make for St. Quentin. Before each aviator mounted his plane he would come up to his captain, shake his hand, and cry, “Au revoir, mon Capitaine!” and run off to his job. It was very, [sic] touching, mother, to see all this and to know that nearly every night one of these aeroplanes either never returns or else fails and kills its occupants.

  A little later we saw three German caterpillars. The caterpillar is the newest German atrocity. It consists of a string of burning torches which is shot from the ground. It rises quickly and if it hits the French aeroplane it wraps itself about it and burns the plane and the accupants [sic] in the air. The French are completely “up in the air” about it. They fear it as nothing else and they can’t understand how it is made.

  I spent today in Erchen, and tomorrow I go to Amiens. I’m gradually getting awfully well acquainted with this country in the zone-des-armees, and I’ve worked so hard over my Ford camion that it runs perfectly. I know “Sammie” will be glad to hear that I really am developing into quite a mechanic. />
  A letter from headquarters today says that the reports from the French officers here in charge were pleased with the thoroughness and the speed of my inspections. I’ve interviewed over a thousand people and on finishing up here they want me to take charge of an inspection tour in the Vosges Mountains.

  Arnold Whitridge* is a captain on Gen. Pershing’s† staff. I have seen him.

  I am so glad that your garden has been such a success. I can see you eating those delicious things now. Oh, I’d love to run out to Westleigh for about two weeks and then bring you back to France with me. I like my job and my health was never better.

  Lots of love to all of you.

  Affectionately,

  COLE.

  Roye-sur-Somme.35

  It is far from clear what action Porter saw in France, or for that matter what his duties might have been. Although he himself claimed to have been with the French Foreign Legion and to have studied at the École d’Artillerie at Fontainebleau,36 there is no concrete evidence to back up his assertion. A letter to Monty Woolley from September 1918, however, mentions gas attacks and gas masks:

  September 1918: Cole Porter to Monty Woolley37

  Mont –

  Don’t waste any time in going to the bank & trying to find out about my finances. I’m worried simply because I can’t understand it all.

  They shot gas at us this morning + I got panicky. I hate these masks.

  Forgive me for writing so often.

  Please send me some good books.

  I may die – I’m so bored. But don’t tell.

  Porter’s reputation for pranks and fabrications somewhat casts at least a shadow of doubt on whether this letter is entirely serious. According to George Eells, an authoritative biographer of Porter’s, Monty Woolley, possibly the composer’s closest friend, reportedly said that he recalled ‘Porter strutting up and down the boulevards in uniforms ranging all the way from a cadet’s to a colonel’s. Porter . . . had more changes than Maréchal Foch, and wore them with complete disregard of regulation.’ Similarly, the annual report for the Yale class of 1913 states that ‘Classmate Cole A. Porter has joined the American Aviation Forces in France although nobody seems to know in what capacity.’38 Nevertheless, Eells quotes an official war record, though without identifying his source: Porter had left the Duryea Relief Organization by January 1918 and was attached to the American Aviation Headquarters on the Avenue de Montaigne in Paris; on 20 April 1918 he enlisted in the ‘First Foreign Regiment at the Central Recruiting Office of the Seine, matriculation list no. 12651 – Detailed for pay and rations to the 32nd Field Artillery Regiment – Given the rank of Candidate as a foreigner to take his place August 22, 1918 – Detailed for pay and rations to the 15th Artillery Regiment – Arrived and enrolled in the 1st Battery on September 20, 1918 – Detailed to the Bureau of the Military Attaché of the United States on January 23, 1919 – Discharged on April 17, 1919, by the depot of the 26th Light Infantry Battalion at Vincennes – Stated, at the time, retiring to Paris, 9 Rue Gounod – Stricken from Controls on April 18, 1919.’39

  * Peru Republican, 28 June 1901, 5, and 23 August 1901, 4. Emma Bearss was a member of the prominent Bearss of Peru, a family with close ties to the Coles; her grandfather, Daniel R. Bearss, was married to Cole Porter’s maternal great-grandfather’s daughter Emma. In 1834, Daniel R. Bearss and Albert Cole were among the first to purchase property on the Peru canal, and Bearss later became a director of the Indianapolis, Peru & Chicago and Wabash Railroads.

  † See below, p. 8.

  * Daniel Webster Abercrombie took a sabbatical leave from July 1907 to June 1908. During that time Harry Ross was acting Principal of Worcester Academy.

  † Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals, a comedy of manners first performed at Covent Garden, London, on 17 January 1775.

  * Robinson also remembered a debate on 13 March 1909 at which, according to records at Worcester Academy, ‘[Porter] successfully argued the judge into believing Uncle Sam should not establish a Parcel Post System, chief point being that Uncle Sam could not compete with the Express Companies in handling big parcels.’ McBrien, Cole Porter, 27.

  † Mullin (birth and death dates unknown) was a fellow alumnus of the Worcester Academy.

  ‡ See Rev. James M. Howard, ‘An Authentic Account of the Founding of the Whiffenpoofs’ at https://web.archive.org/web/20110718040120/http://www.whiffenpoofs.com/storage/Whiffenpoofs_History.pdf. Porter also regularly attended the ‘Pundits’, a group organized by William Lyons Phelps, the Lampson Professor of English at Yale, where students were given dinner and lectures on artistic topics. See McBrien, Cole Porter, 34.

  * Kimball, The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter, 11–18. The performance of And the Villain Still Pursued Her on 24 April 1912 was noted in The Yale Literary Magazine 77 (May 1912), 319: ‘Memorabilia Yalensia . . . The Dramatic Association. On April 24th, held its annual smoker at the Lawn Club and presented a burlesque musical comedy, entitled, “And the Villain Still Pursued Her,” by T. G. Thomas, 2nd, 1913, with lyrics and music by Cole Porter, 1913.’ A later performance was given at the Yale Club in New York on 10 May 1914; see the Yale Alumni Weekly 21 (May 1914), 837.

  * Members of the Scroll and Key have included George Shiras (1832–1924, U.S. Supreme Court Justice), Cornelius Vanderbilt III (1873–1942, Brigadier General during World War I), Dean Acheson (1893–1971, Secretary of State under President Harry Truman), Dickinson W. Richards (1895–1973, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1956), Gilbert Colgate (1899–1965, chairman of what is now Colgate-Palmolive), John Hay Whitney (1904–82, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune and from 1957 to 1961 U. S. ambassador to the United Kingdom), the philanthropist Paul Mellon (1907–99), the 1972 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Sargent Shriver (1915–2011), John Lindsay (1921–2000, Mayor of New York, 1966–73), Watergate Special Prosecutor Philip B. Heymann (1932–) and A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938–89, commissioner of Major League Baseball, 1989). Many years later, in August 1964, Porter’s biographer George Eells wrote to Dean Acheson concerning Porter. Acheson, who for a time had been Porter’s room-mate, replied on 8 September: ‘I have just seen your letter of August 12 in which you ask for any recollection of Cole Porter’s musical promise while we were at Harvard Law School together. So far as I know Cole never studied law at Harvard, but music. A group of Keys men, including Cole, Laurason [sic] Riggs, and myself took a house for the 1915–1916 year at 1 Mercer Circle. Cole and Laurason were writing, “See America First,” which opened in Providence and died there.’ Yale University, Porter Collection, Box 49, Folder 301.

  * The Taft Hotel, opened in New Haven on 1 January 1912 at 265 College Street, beside the Shubert Theatre (where many musicals by Porter and others had out-of-town tryouts), was built on the site of the New Haven House, which had been demolished in 1910. Named after President William Howard Taft, the twelve-storey hotel was at the time the tallest building in the city. It survived until 1973 when it was renovated and reopened, in 1981, as the Taft Apartments. See http://www.patriquinarchitects.com/history-of-the-taft-hotel-in-new-haven-ct/ (accessed 9 August 2018). Kimball and Gill, Cole, 21 (facsimile; no source location given).

  † The Yale Literary Magazine 78 (May, 1912–1913), 377: ‘Memorabilia Yalensia. The Yale Dramatic Association . . . On April 30th, gave its annual smoker play, “The Kaleidoscope,” the music and lyrics by Cole Porter, 1913.’

  * Kimball and Gill, Cole, 27, cites an undated and unsourced letter by Riggs describing the show’s revival at a later meeting of the Associated Western Yale Clubs: ‘Apparently we were a success because a few years later the reunion was in Cleveland, and we were again asked to assemble the show . . . For this occasion Cole wrote Cleveland. He wired the words to us in New York and we learned them on the train. As I remember, there were six or eight pages to the telegram.’

  † Porter’s lifelong friend, the actor Monty Woolley (1888–1963).

  * Marbury was also the long-tim
e companion of the actress and interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe, later Lady Mendl (1865–1950), who was to become one of Cole and Linda Porter’s closest friends.

  * Joseph Weber (1867–1942) and Lew Fields (Moses Schoenfeld, 1867–1941) were a popular vaudevillian duo who appeared in numerous Broadway theatres. Fields was the father of Dorothy and Herbert Fields, who together wrote the books for Porter’s later musicals Let’s Face It, Something for the Boys and Mexican Hayride.

  † It is unclear which songs Porter refers to here. The actor and producer Lew Fields later worked with Porter on the Greenwich Village Follies of 1924.

  * Oliver Morosco (1875–1945), theatrical producer and director.

  * Further, see below, pp. 445, 456–7, 482.

  * Elsa Maxwell (1883–1963) was a professional hostess, gossip columnist and radio host who, to some extent, hitched her star to Porter and to her friendship with him and his wife Linda. In 1957 she published How to Do It, or The Lively Art of Entertaining, the title of which is a play on Porter’s ‘Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love’.

  * Arnold Whitridge (1892–1998) was a fellow student of Porter’s at Yale and later a professor of history there; see his obituary in the New York Times for 2 February 1989 (https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/02/obituaries/arnold-whitridge-ex-professor-at-yale-and-an-author-97.html).