by Cole Porter
I saw Duncan Milne + he talks to the Ritz Bar about you. And to so many people!
But much – all the same – I’d like to see your great towering frame crowding a small apartment.
Write to me, Big Boy. Just a Christmas letter, that’s all. And tell me all about the way you fellows live, over there.
I miss you a great deal + I beg you to fix your uncle + spend next summer with My Blue-Grass Girl And Me* in Ole’ Venezia. Goodbye + forgive if I go away. It’s midnight + high time for all good little boys to go up to that wicked hill called Montmartre.
Wednesday
Colole [sic]
[n.d.] Cole Porter to Charles Green Shaw29
March
Big Boy –
Write to me. But write to me, Big Boy. I miss you so much. And its [sic] been so long. Wont [sic] you write to me? Wont [sic] you write to me, Big Boy?
inConsOLablE
[n.d.] Cole Porter to Charles Green Shaw30
But it doesn’t write to me, the Big Boy. And I’m so sad. And I walk along the streets of Paris + people stop + Look at me, simply because I’m muttering “The Big Boy doesn’t write to me, The Big Boy doesn’t write. The Big Boy doesn’t. The Big Boy. doesn---------------‘------------t ----------- wri------------------------te-----------------to------------me-------------.
Policemen have to be called.
C.
12 February [no year]: Cole Porter to Charles Green Shaw
IMMENSE MAN,
ONE OF THOSE THINGS HAPPENED TONIGHT THAT COULDN’T POSSIBLY HAPPEN IN NEW YORK. BILL REARDON AND I STARTED FOR THE HILL* AT MIDNIGHT AND AFTER DOING ALL THE OBVIOUS BOITES, LANDED IN A LITTLE SPANISH PLACE WHERE THERE WAS A WOMAN. BUT A WOMAN, CHARLES. SHE WAS FAT AND SIXTY AND AWFUL. BUT OH MY GOD HOW SHE COULD SING A SONG. AND WE SAT THERE FOR HOURS AND DIED OF JOY. BECAUSE SHE WAS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT ARRIVE IN ONE’S LIFE EVERY FEW YEARS AND NEVER OFTENER. AND ITS [sic] NOW EXACTLY SIX A.M. AND I HAVE ENGAGED HER TO COME TO THE HOUSE TOMORROW, WHICH IS SUNDAY, AND BRING HER OLD GUITARIST AND HER SON WHO CLAPS HANDS AND SINGS ALL AFTERNOON. AND I’M SIMPLY TRYING TO FILL IN AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE, UNTIL SHE COMES BACK INTO MY LIFE.
OUR TRIP TO TIMBUCTOO FELL THROUGH BECAUSE IT IS NOT ALLOWED. SO WE ARE GOING TO VERSAILLES FOR THE WEEK-END [sic] INSTEAD. AND ITS [sic] MUCH EASIER. AND THEN [HOWARD] STURGES AND I LEAVE FOR ROME ON SATURDAY NEXT TO GO TO A FUNNY PARTY AND AFTERWARDS MOTOR ABOUT SOME OF THE SILLIER HILL TOWNS. THEN LINDA AND I LEAVE FOR SPAIN IN A NEW MOTOR, WHICH IS A RELIEF AS THE OLD MOTOR HAS BEEN COPIED SO OFTEN AND ITS [sic] GOING TO BE GREAT FUN, SPRINGING A NEW BODY ON A LOT OF ANDALUSIANS. ON MAY FIRST, WE START AGAIN FOR A TRIP TO MIDDLE EUROPE, IN A PRIVATE CAR PAID FOR BY A PRIVATE FRIEND OF OURS, IN ORDER TO ENGAGE A TZIGANE ORCHESTRA FOR THE LAST TWO WEEKS OF AUGUST FOR VENICE. AND AFTER ALL THIS IS OVER, WE RETURN TO PARIS TO BUY IMPORTANT PYJAMAS FOR THE LIDO. OTHERWISE, OUR LIFE IS MERE PLEASURE.
YOURS WAS ONE OF THE BEST SHOCKS OF MY LIFE, AND I BEG YOU TO REST UP A WHILE AND DO IT AGAIN. I SUPPOSE YOU HAVEN’T WRITTEN A LETTER LIKE THAT FOR YEARS. AND I SHALL SAVE IT AND PRESENT IT AFTER YOUR DEATH TO GIVE THE WORLD AN EXAMPLE OF MERE STYLE.
GOODBYE, CHARLES, AND BLESS YOU FOR NOT FORGETTING THE FACT THAT WE MEN MUST STICK TOGETHER. I DON’T KNOW WHETHER I SENT YOU A CHECK TO HUSH THE RAQUET CLUB OR NOT, BUT I SHALL LOOK IT UP, ONE DAY SOON AND SEND IT TO YOU IN CASE I HAVE BEEN NEGLIGENT ABOUT MONEY MATTERS.
GIVE MY LOVE TO LA DOOMPA* AND HERMIE AND CORTNEY [sic] BURR† AND MONTY [WOOLLEY] AND COVVARUBIAS.‡ AND WANGLE NEXT SUMMER, BECAUSE YOU WOULD LIKE IT IN SPITE OF ALL THE RUMORS. BESIDES WHICH, WE HAVE A LOT OF HIGH CEILINGS.
ITS [sic] SEVEN A.M. AND BED-TIMES [sic].
[handwritten:] Feb. 12 Cole
[n.d.] Cole Porter to Charles Green Shaw, with a postscript by Monty Woolley
BIG BOY !
Monty [Woolley] and [Howard] Sturge[s] and I are all lying here together in my lit d’amour. And in spite of the fact that it is very hot and crowded I miss that great giant body of the boy I love.
Cole
Now that is the letter that Cole just dictated to me for you. Is it by any stretch of the imagination a decent letter? Or isn’t that sort of thing prohibited by law from being carried in the mails?
Come over here at once. Don’t lag around. Get on a boat immediately and rush over here. You’d love it. Hermie and La Doompa are here and in grand form. Hermie hates everything and everybody. La Doompa is having a marvelous time. I am planning to come back with them, sailing Aug. 11th. Saw a lot of Courtney in Paris, and he may come back with us. MAY. HE MAY COME BACK WITH US, you notice – it is not safe to say anything like that for certain. But it is just possible. Why don’t you jump over hr here [sic] for a few weeks and come back with all of us? Is it impossible? We’d all love to have you here so much.
Love to Braddie Norman,
MONT
Address:
Cole Porter
Palazzo Rezzonico
Venice.
[n.d.] Cole Porter to Charles Green Shaw
Big Boy –
Linda + I came back via Lyons simply to lunch again at this restaurant. The extraordinary thing is that it has only one menu the whole year round, + you will notice that the lunch menu is practically the same as the dinner menu.
In spite of this, it is always packed because it is inspired food + the Poulet demi-deuil is something we could die for.
Goodbye, Infinite Dimensions – Cole.
1928 or 1929: Cole Porter to Charles Green Shaw31
Why?
Porter’s last known letter to Shaw was written from his suite at the Waldorf, New York, in May 1959:
19 May 1959: Cole Porter to Charles Green Shaw32
Dear Charlie: –
Thank you so much for sending me “Into the Light”,* with its frontispiece. It was most thoughtful of you, and I do appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Cole
If you are free on Wednesday, June 3rd, can you dine with me?
On 1 August 1925, while the Porters were in Venice, Cole placed an advertisement in the classified section of the New York Herald Tribune (European Edition). Although obscure, it would seem to be an attempt to arrange a clandestine liaison: ‘PERSONAL. WILL SLEEPY HALL please wire his address to Cole Porter, Palazzo Papadopoli, Venice.’ The advertisement was repeated in the 2 and 3 August editions of the newspaper.33 This was during one of several summers in the 1920s when Cole and Linda Porter regularly rented properties in Venice, including the Palazzo Papadopoli in 1924, and the Ca’ Rezzonico, fronting on the Grand Canal, from 1925 to 1927. It is not out of the question that it was addressed to Boris Kochno, the amanuensis and lover of the ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev (1872–1929).
According to one source, in 1924, Diaghilev and Kochno ‘arranged a stage in their garden, backing on to the Grand Canal, making, as a background, three arches covered with greenery, which framed statues borrowed from a museum. The programme consisted of two male variations from Les Matelots, the tarantella from Cimarosiana and Sokolova’s solo, the Rag Mazurka, from Les Biches. Boris had to hum Les Matelots to Cole Porter, so that he should be able to play it on the piano, for there was no score available.’34 Porter had almost certainly met Diaghilev, and Kochno as well, by 1923 at the latest, about the time of Within the Quota.* Whether they met again in 1924, as Richard Buckle (relying in part on Kochno, see below) states, is otherwise unsubstantiated. In 1925, however, possibly about the time of Porter’s 1 August 1925 advertisement in the New York Herald Tribune, Kochno became his lover, and a significant, if one-sided, correspondence with Kochno from the autumn of 1925 documents the course of their affair. Although Porter’s handwritten letters are mostly undated, their chronology can be reconstructed based on an itinerary of Porter’s travels that he sent to Kochno and internal references in the letters themselves:*
[?6 September 1925]: Cole Porter to Boris Kochno†
Dimanche matin
/> 2 hres
Boris –
Tu a fait une grande amie aujourdhui – c’etait Linda. Apres que tout la monde etait parti, elle est veneue a ma chamber, me voir – Et elle ne parlait que de Toi – disant que tu avais été charmant, qu’elle te trouvant tres gentile, et que vous aviez rié beaucoup ensemble cet apres midi.
Je mets la troisieme phrase a la fin de la causerie, parce que je crois que ça soit la plus importante, bien que tres peu de gens l’amusent, et que je ne sais pas te dire combine je suis reconnaissant – tu l’as fait. Et cela rend tout tellement plus facile.
Quant a ton depart, j’essaie de me consoler en pensant de ton retour, mais c’est assez difficile. Et la seule chose que je veux vraiment faire, c’est de monter sur la Campanile et announcer a la piazza que je suis amoureux a mourir de quelq’un qui a pris le train de ce soir pour Naples et que je vais le suivre.
Mais, tu sais, Boris, je suis sûr de toi, et. . . C’etait tellement penible de te voir toujours parmi d’autres personnes, que, peutetre, que nous sommes, un peu plus tranquils ensembles en etant separes pour le moment sachant que, une fois, arrive a Paris, ca va etre si facil de te voir.
Oh, il n’ya pas a dire, Boris, je t’adore a un tel point que je ne pense qu’a toi – je ne vois que toi + je ne reve qu’an moment ou nous serons reunis. Goodnight, darling.
C.
[Sunday morning
2 o’clock
Boris –
You made a great friend today – Linda. After everyone had left, she came to my room to see me and spoke to me only about you – she said you had been charming, that she found you very kind, and that you had laughed a great deal together this afternoon.
I put the third phrase at the end of the list because I believe it is the most important as she finds very few people amuse her and, I do not know how to tell you how grateful I am – you did it. And that makes everything so much easier.
Now that you’ve left, I’m trying to console myself by thinking of your return, but it’s quite difficult. And the only thing that I really want to do, is to climb to the top of the Campanile and announce to the piazza that I’m in love to the point of dying with someone who has taken this evening’s train to Naples and that I’m going to follow him.
But you know, Boris, that I am sure about you, and . . . It was hard watching you always among others and perhaps, if we had a little more peaceful time together, this momentary separation [word unreadable]. When I’m back in Paris it will be so easy to see you.
Oh there’s nothing to say, Boris, I love you so much that I think only of you – I see only you and I dream only of the moment when we’ll be reunited. Goodnight, darling.
C.]
[11 September 1925]: Cole Porter to Boris Kochno
Vendredi soir.
Boris –
On arrive a la fin. Et c’est bien triste.
L’amirail de la flotte americaine qui vient d’arriver m’a telephoné aujourd hui, disant qu’il voudrait bien donner son jazz-band si je voulais arranger une soirée pour les officiers. Mais quant on a asseyé de faire une liste, on a trouvé que toute la jeunesse était partie et qu’il ne restaient que les vielles Mocenigos + Morosinis. Et on a refusé.
Apres quatre jours de sight-seeing a Venice, je vais demain, pour la derniere fois au Lido, pour dire au revoir a la Casa di Sole + au bagnino.
Mon auto est arrivée, ce soir + nous quittons le Paradis mercredi matin pour Ravenne. Mais quand est-ce que je vais te retrouver? Il n’y a pas assez de lettres. Ça je dis froidément. Je suis allé ce soir au Grand Hotel – Niente! Et depuis que tu es parti, il y a six jours, je n’ai q’une seule lettre. Ce n’est pas la peine de me dire que tu n’avais pas le temps, car je sais trop bien que si tu voulais, rien ne serait plus facile. Et je veux souligner le faite que j’en deviens un peu furieux. Tu me manques tellement que je suis un personne tout a fait ratée + si ça continue – ce grand silence – je n’ose pas penser a ce que je pourrais faire. Ah, Boris, ecris moi + dis moi que tu m’aimes comme je t’aime. Tu ne peux pas le dire trop souvent, car tu es tellement loin de moi + j’en suis si malhereux.
C.
[Friday evening.
Boris –
We finally arrived. And it’s very sad.
The admiral of the American fleet, who just arrived, telephoned me today and said that he would like his jazz band to play if I wanted to arrange a soiree for the officers. But when we sat down to make a list, we found that all the young people had left and only the old Mocenigos + Morosinis remained. And we refused.
After four days sight-seeing in Venice, I’m going tomorrow to the Lido for the last time, to say goodbye to the Casa di Sole + to the beach.
My car arrived this evening and we are leaving the Paradis on Wednesday morning for Ravenna. But when will I find you again? There are not enough letters. I say that coldly. I went this evening to the Grand Hotel – Niente! And since you left, six days ago, I’ve had only one letter. Don’t bother telling me that you haven’t had time, because I know perfectly well that if you wanted to, nothing would be easier. And I want to underline the fact that I’m becoming a bit furious about it. I miss you so much that I am falling apart + if this continues – this utter silence – I don’t dare think what I could do. Oh, Boris, write me and tell me that you love me as much as I love you. You can’t say it too often, because you are so far from me and it makes me so miserable.
C.]
14 [September 1925]: Cole Porter to Boris Kochno
Lundi – 14
Cher Boris –
Mais c’est l’hiver ici, Venice se gele. La piazza est vide. Le Canal’ grande n’a plus de chansons. Tout le monde cherche des fourrures + des grogs. Et nous nous regardons un peu confus, sachant bien que nous avons fait une chose très bête – nous sommes resté trop long temps a Venise!
Tante Winne a donné une soirée charmante ce soir – une vieille chanteuse qui a choisi toutes les chansons les plus tristes du monde – Madam Freund. Et Arthur Rubinstein, qui comme toujours a joué assez bien avant le souper, + merveilleusement apres. Mais on sentait que tous les gens pensait [sic] a la fin de leurs vacances + l’atmosphere etait surtout melancolique.
Nous partons – La Princesse Jane, Lady Abdy, Murietta, le gros, Linda + moi, mercredi, pour Ravenne. Murietta a sa voiture + moi, j’ai la mienne. . . Nous allons tacher a aller a Florence apres quelques jours mais La Princesse tient a arriver a Milan, le 22, alors c’est un peu difficile de savoir comment. Mais Berners sera la a Florence, + je ne sais pas qui d’autre.
Linda a reçu une lettre de Missia, aujourd’hui, disant quelle ne d’embarquait pas, + nous esperons bien qu’on pourra la voir a Florence dans le cas ou nous pourrons y aller.
En tous cas, je vous verrai a Paris vers le premier Octobre. Prevenez moi aussitot que vous arrivez au 13 rue Monsieur.
Au revoir + envoyez moi un mot si vous le temps chez Cook a Florence. Et amitiés a Diagileff + Lifar.
Cole.*
[Monday – 14
Dear Boris –
But it’s winter here, Venice is freezing. The piazza is empty. The Grand Canal has no more songs. Everyone is looking for furs and grogs. And we look at each other a little confused, knowing that we did a stupid thing – we stayed too long in Venice!
Aunt Winnie gave a charming soirée this evening – an old singer who chose all the saddest songs in the world – Madam Freund. And Arthur Rubinstein who, as always, played well enough before supper + marvelously afterwards. But we sensed that everyone was thinking about the end of their holidays + the atmosphere was particularly melancholic.
We are leaving – Princess Jane, Lady Abby, Murietta, the big one, Linda + me, Wednesday for Ravenna. Murietta has her car + me, I have mine. We will try to get to Florence after a couple of days but the Princess wants to arrive at Milan the 22nd, so it’s hard to know how. But Berners will be at Florence + I don’t know who else.
Linda received a letter from Missia [sic] today, saying that she di
dn’t board + we hope we’ll be able to see her in Florence if we’re able to go there.
In any case, I will see you in Paris about the first of October. Let me know as soon as you arrive at 13 rue Monsieur.
Goodby [sic] + if you have the time send me a note through Cook in Florence. And regards to Diaghilev and Lifar.
Cole.]
[before 16 September 1925]: Cole Porter to Boris Kochno
Boris –
Voila notre programme.
Ravenne – 16
Rimini – 17 Grand Hotel
Perugia – 18 Hotel Brufani
Florence – 20 Hotel d’Italie
Milan – 22?
Paris – 25
On se verra a Florence!
[Boris –
Here’s our itinerary.
Ravenna – 16
Rimini – 17 Grand Hotel
Perugia – 18 Hotel Brufani
Florence – 20 Hotel d’Italie
Milan – 22 ?
Paris – 25
We’ll see each other in Florence!]
[16 September 1925]: Cole Porter to Boris Kochno
Boris – Nous sommes arrivee, ce soir, apres Padova + Ferrara, pour voir ces trésors de Ravenna. Si tu ne les connais pas peut être que nous pourrions y venir, l’éte prochain les reparder ensembles. Car, aussitot que je revoyait Sant Apollinaie [sic] Nuovo – (j’étais la il y a deux ans) je me suis demandé mais pourquoi est-ce, que, au lieu de voir ça avec tous ces gens, il n’est pas ici, seul avec moi? Ce’st une ville tout a fait arrangée pour donner des joies? Anoubliables a nous deux. Et, en plus, il faut, tu sais, que ça soit fait notre sejour a Ravenna.
J’ai envoyé Chrichon une lettre a la poste mais il n’y avait rien. Sans doute, tu n’as pas reçu mon programme a temps. Mais j’attends la prochaine avec grand impatience.
Heureusement que j’ai combiné pour etre a Florence, le 20 + 21 – peut etre, le 22. Je suis sûr qu’il sera très difficile de te voir, mais en tout cas, j’aurai le grand luxe de reparder[?] ces beaux yeux dont je rêve, nuit + jour, mon Boris. / Goodnight + n’oublies pas pour un instant que je t’aime.
