Cole porter gay

William McBrien, author of “Cole Porter: A Biography” (Knopf, , and to be released in paperback by Vintage next month), makes a compelling argument that the composer’s homosexual love. The truth was, Cole Porter was very much gay but he still began a relationship with her. After all, besides Thomas's mountains of money and social class, Porter also needed her to cover up his scandalous preferences from the prejudiced world.

De-Lovely allows that Cole Porter was gay, but doesn’t tell the whole story. Irwin Winkler’s film De-Lovely, in which Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd portray songwriter Cole Porter and his. During his years in Paris, he married Linda Lee Thomas, a socialite and Porter’s confidante who did not mind that her husband was gay.

Nor did she mind his weekend all-male parties and string of intense love affairs, as long as he was discrete. But Porter was the subject of two movies, including one, “ Night and Day ” (), made in his lifetime and with his reluctant collaboration, despite the unsayable but far from secret truth that. Cole Porter, one of the great songwriters of the s and s and a key figure in the American Songbook, moved into the Waldorf Towers in and lived here, in two different apartments, until his death in Cole Porter at his piano, probably photographed in his Waldorf Towers apartment, n.

cole porter movie

Photographer and source unknown. Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and Towers, c. Collection of Andrew S. Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and Towers, Photo by Irving Underhill. Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York. The work of songwriter Cole Porter evokes an era of romantic glamor both on Broadway and in Hollywood in the s and s. Porter was born into a wealthy family in Peru, Indiana.

After college, Porter spent much of his time in Paris and Venice or traveling in Europe with a new set of wealthy, often titled, friends. In , he met the well-heeled and glamorous Linda Thomas in Paris and they soon married. Thomas had been in an abusive relationship and was happy with her sexless marriage with Porter. She accepted his homosexuality so long as it was not public and they developed a close and affectionate relationship.

After writing forgettable songs for several Broadway reviews and shows as early as , Porter decided to take songwriting seriously. Beginning with Paris in and Fifty Million Frenchmen in , he wrote the music and lyrics for a series of successful Depression-era Broadway shows, most notably The New Yorkers , Gay Divorce , and, especially, Anything Goes In early , Variety enthused:.

This is the Cole Porter year. Almost every platter, chatter and radio gives out something by Porter. Porter generally waited for the book for a show to be written and then wrote songs that fit with the story. He wrote many sexually suggestive and highly erotic lyrics. Since it was not possible to write songs that were overtly homoerotic, given the era, his songs have coded language with subtle references to gay love that would have been recognized by gay audiences at the time of their premieres.

In , Porter moved into a suite on the 41st floor of the Waldorf Towers, the apartment hotel that occupied the upper floors of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue and had its own entrance on 50th Street. His close friend Elsa Maxwell already lived in this luxurious building. He furnished his suite in a lavish manner, including two grand pianos, placed back-to-back, one of which was a gift from the hotel and will be on view in the lobby when the Waldorf reopens in Thomas had a separate apartment across the hall.

Porter wrote many of his most famous songs in these apartments. In , Porter started spending time in Hollywood writing songs for movies. In Hollywood, he embraced his homosexuality far more than in New York and his Sunday, all-male pool parties came to rival those of director George Cukor for popularity and notoriety.

This more open gay life created an estrangement with Thomas. She is said to have been seeking a divorce at the time Porter suffered a catastrophic accident — a horse threw him and rolled over on his legs crushing them and leading to multiple operations and excruciating pain for the rest of his life. Thomas returned to care for him.