Porter, Cole

Porter, Cole (1891–1964), American composer and lyricist. From a wealthy background, he was intended for the law, but soon turned to music. His first complete score was the shortlived See America First (1916), but his heyday did not arrive until the 1930s, with Gay Divorce (1932; London, 1933), featuring the classic ‘Night and Day’, and Anything Goes (1934; London, 1935). After successful but lesser shows such as Leave it to Me (1938), Du Barry was a Lady (1939; London, 1942), Panama Hattie (1940; London, 1943), and Something for the Boys (1943; London, 1944), he wrote a superb score for Kiss Me, Kate (1948; London, 1951) about feuding husband-and-wife thespians, based on The Taming of the Shrew. His last two shows, Can-Can (1953; London, 1954) and Silk Stockings (1955), based on Garbo's film Ninotchka, were set in Paris. His stylish and sophisticated output ranged from love songs such as ‘In the Still of the Night’ to the witty sexual cynicism of ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’, the extended similes of ‘You're the Top’ and ‘Let's Do It’, and the Latin American ‘Begin the Beguine’.

The lead in Kiss Me, Kate was played by Alfred Drake [ Alfredo Capurro] (1914– ), who was later to play ‘straight’ Shakespeare: Othello and Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing at Stratford, Conn., and Claudius to Richard Burton's Hamlet (1964). Among other musical successes were Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1943), which brought him to stardom, and Kismet (1953; London, 1955), based on Knoblock's play and using Borodin's music.