Cole Porter

Cole Porter had composed his first song, "Song of the Birds," by the age of ten. A few years later, his mother had his piece, "The Bobolink Waltz," published. A few years later, his parents decided to send him to a private boarding school called Worcester Academy, in Massachusetts, which was said to have a strong music department. He entered Yale a few years later. The large size of the university allowed him to find many musical opportunities, from writing two of Yale's best known football songs ("Bull Dog" and "Bingo Eh Yale") to accompanying vocal groups and musical productions. Porter graduated with a "Most Entertaining" award. During his junior year of college, Cole Porter created his first show, SEE AMERICA FIRST. Unfortunately, it was not very well-received by audiences, and as a result, ran for only 115 performances before closing. However, many say that had Porter not had this initial set-back, he would not have had the motivation to push forward and make one of the smartest moves of his life - he moved to France. While in France, Porter had an opportunity to practice song-writing, and wrote songs such as "An Old-Fashioned Garden," which was his first popular hit, for a 1919 show titled HITCHY KOO. In 1923, Porter wrote the score for WITHIN THE QUOTA, a jazz ballet written by Gerald Murphy. Late in the 1920's, Cole Porter and his wife decided that the place to go, if Porter was going to make a name for himself, was Broadway. And so he did. In 1928, Porter introduced his first Broadway show, PARIS, which featured songs such as "Let's Do It, Let's Fall In Love," which is now considered a timeless, sophisticated piece. The next year, Porter created FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN featuring "You Do Something To Me" and "You've Got That Thing." Although the 1920's were important years in Porter's life, nothing could compare to the 1930's. Among his hit shows were THE NEW YORKERS, GAY DIVORCE, JUBILEE, DUBARRY WAS A LADY, and RED HOT AND BLUE. In addition, Porter wrote the score for many Hollywood musicals (including “Born to Dance” and “Rosalie”). In the early 1940's, Porter created a few shows, including PANAMA HATTIE, LET'S FACE IT, and SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS. These were not well-received, and many thought he had lost his gift. However, as proven earlier, Porter was very motivated by failure, and he thus proceeded to create the shows which would be the biggest successes of his career. In 1948, Porter wrote KISS ME KATE. It ran for over 1,000 performances. The next year, he came out with ANYTHING GOES, which almost paralleled KISS ME KATE'S success. He had shown them all that there was still something left in him However, after proving his point, Porter's motivation began to die down, and although he did create a few more shows, among them CAN-CAN, SILK STOCKINGS, and HIGH SOCIETY, Porter's last years were far from wonderful. In 1960, he was honored with an honorary doctorate from Yale. It let him know that no one would forget him, and that all his talent was understood and appreciated. Porter died four years later.