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Silverfoxesclub-digest In this issue:
-"One of Our Boys": Cole Porter (4)
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Many of his songs are so full of references to passing fads and forgotten celebrities that they seem almost to have been designed to go out of fashion. But one of these, ''You're the Top,'' is hardly less popular now than when it was written in 1934, even though it includes rhymes like this: ''You're the boy who dares / Challenge Mrs. Baer's son Max, / You're a Russian ballet, / You're Rudy Vallee, / You're Phenolax!'' John Updike has written that each time we hear the words of ''You're the Top,'' ''something tender, solemn, nonsensical and absolute seems to be being said,'' and he is right. While Cole Porter's life was riddled with hypocrisy and deceit, his songs have the ring of truth about them. Porter once said that he couldn't analyze his own work but that he could characterize others': ''The word for Dick Rodgers's melodies, I think, is holy. For Jerome Kern, sentimental. For Irving Berlin, simplicity. For my own, I don't know.'' But we know. For all his breezy cosmopolitanism, insistent name-dropping and devilishly clever rhymes, his songs come from the heart. In 1943, Irving Berlin proposed to Jack Warner that a film should be made of Porter's life, arguing that his heroism after both his legs were crushed in a riding accident in 1937 would be an inspiration to wounded American servicemen. But the various screenwriters commissioned to produce a script complained about the lack of ''struggle'' in his life. ''What will they use for a climax?'' Orson Welles wondered. ''The only suspense is -- will he or won't he accumulate $10 million?'' It was the case that Porter's life had produced little drama except in his obsessive romances with other men. But his homosexuality was obviously a taboo subject. When he approved the final script, Porter said contentedly, ''None of it's true.'' The beautiful Linda Lee Porter, with whom he shared an affectionate marriage of convenience for 35 years, was no doubt pleased that the script was misleading, for she had always been desperately keen that his homosexuality remain hidden.
Cole had already started playing around with the truth when, at the age of 14, he went from his home in Peru, Indiana, to boarding school at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts. With the connivance of his mother, Katie Cole Porter, he registered himself as two years younger than he actually was. He had shown musical talent as a child -- on the piano and the violin and at composing tunes -- and his mother, who was very ambitious for him, probably wanted him to be thought a prodigy. On three of his passports in later life he gave different years of birth -- 1891, 1892 and 1893 (1891 being the correct one). He went east against the express wishes of his maternal grandfather, J. O. Cole, who had amassed a great fortune in California during the gold rush and planned for his grandson to stay in Indiana and train to take over his various businesses. The old tyrant was so angry with his daughter, Katie, for sending Cole to Worcester that he didn't speak to her for two years. As for Cole's father, Sam Porter, he was a remarkably passive man who ran a successful drugstore in Peru and seems to have played no part in the argument at all. Cole was later to dismiss him snobbishly as ''a parvenu druggist.'' At Yale, where he owed his social success largely to his gift for writing and performing amusing songs, Cole was sometimes regarded as a bit of a parvenu himself. A friend there, Gerald Murphy, heir to the Mark Cross fortune, later described him as ''a little boy from Peru, Indiana, in a checkered suit and a salmon tie, with his hair parted in the middle and slicked down, looking just like a Westerner dressed up for the East.'' After Yale and a subsequent unsuccessful spell at Harvard Law School, where he shared a residence with Dean Acheson, he abandoned all other ambitions to become a songwriter. In 1915, with his Yale friend T. Lawrason Riggs, he wrote his first professional musical, ''See America First,'' which opened in New York in March 1916 to rotten notices and closed after 15 performances. It was patriotic in a slightly mocking way and included a song advising against travel to ''European lands effete.'' Mortified by the show's failure, Porter left the following year for Paris, claiming later to have joined the French Foreign Legion there, though the precise nature of his war service remains mysterious. But he was to stay in ''European lands effete'' for many years, enthusiastically assimilating their effeteness. In 1919, he married Linda Lee Thomas, a wealthy Southern belle and divorcee who was 15 years older than he. Together in Paris, Venice and the French Riviera, they shone in smart expatriate society, until he moved to New York in the 1930's and finally achieved the recognition he deserved. Despite the many accounts of their hectic social life, the glittering openings, and after-theater parties, underlying all was Porter's gloom -- his fear of boredom and his cultivation of aristocratic languor as a cover for frustrated ambition. It was largely Porter's fault that he was always being described as ''sophisticated,'' but he hated it all the same. The real feeling in so many Porter songs is too often overlooked because of his efforts always to appear urbane. He was a distinctly homosexual man with a ferocious sexual appetite that he sought to assuage in casual encounters with sailors, truck drivers and male prostitutes by the score, but he also formed passionate, enduring attachments that inspired some of his most poignant songs about the fragility of love. ''You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To,'' which so touched Americans in the war that it knocked Irving Berlin's ''White Christmas'' off the hit parade in 1942, was referred to by the choreographer Nelson Barclift as ''our song.'' There is sweet irony in knowing that many of the "love" songs cherished by heterosexuals for themselves were written by a gay man for other men. They owe us so much, do the straights, that they will simply never know! I retain one indelible memory of Cole Porter myself. I was living in Manhattan, stuyding for an operatic and theatrical career which would never materialize, when I got an invitation to an "after-theater" party at the penthouse apartment of a silverfox friend of mine who wrote some of the most famous lyrics in American pop music, many of them for crooner Bing Crosby. I was thrilled because I was told Der Bingle would be there. I arrived ahead of the crowd, and my silverfox and I did our usual quick and private little thing. He liked the tittilation of having a blowjob just before donning evening clothes and then opening the door to greet his guests -- the shining stars of Broadway. I was licking his sweet juice from my lips and adjusting my tuxedo tie when he told me yet another surprise was in store that evening -- as if meeting Bing Crosby weren't enough! Later, when the party was well underway and Der Bingle was mingling with the admiring crowd, the doorman called up to announce another guest. My silverfox asked me to accompany him to the elevator to meet the new arrival. When the elevator door opened, I saw a spiffily dressed, small, older man in a wheelchair pushed by a rakishly handsome, quite debonair younger man, also beauifully dressed. As the doors slid apart, I noticed that the younger man was lifting his head away from the older's as if he had leaned down to give him a kiss. The older man was Cole Porter, swathed in a soft beige vicuna overcoat and a wide navy silk scarf. A hat lay in his lap. There was no time for introducitons. Porter was babbling apologies for being late, and said: "I had to get it done! I just had to! I promised Bing. It was the least I could do." Mystified, I trailed them into the apartment and lingered on the side as one celebrity after another fussed over Porter, showering him with kisses cheek to cheek, and recaling bits from his shows in which several of them had starred. Bing was delighted to see him, and I saw them confabbing together in a corner, passing sheets of music back and forth to each other and whispering. Bing seemed very pleased, humming and shaking his finger in rhythmic time. Finally, "Let's do it!" he said!" Porter's young man wheeled him over to the piano and placed a folder of sheet music on the rack. Bing took up a place opposite the piano, and my silverfox called for silence. Raising his hands like a conductor he said, "Tonight you are guests for the world premiere of a Cole Porter song written for Der Bingle's new film with Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra."
Bing chimed in next, saying: "Gracie and I are scheduled to record this song in a couple of weeks. This is the first time I've seen it. Coley brought it to me tonight." He waved his sheaf of papers in the air and turned toward Porter who sat with fingers upraised at the piano. Porter's young man, hovering over him, turned the first page. Porter began to play, and then Bing began to sing, reading the lyrics as he went along. It was a beautiful song, and when he came to a reprise of these words, sentimental tears were running down every famous face in the room:
"For you and I "True Love" became a big hit later that year -- 22 weeks on the Hit Parade -- and went gold with the album of the film in which they sang it, "High Society," a musical remake of "The Philadelphia Story." Before the party broke up that night, my silverfox had introduced me to Cole Porter as "one of ours." Porter grinned and gave me a conspiratorial wink. "I guess you have to be in love to write a song like that," I remarked. He smiled. "I always am, but never more than when I dashed off that number today." His hand rose to the fingers of his young man who stood behind the wheelchair with his hand resting on Porter's shoulder. The fingers moved forward. Porter turned his head and kissed them.
That gesture left no doubt that "True Love," even now celebrated as a song for hetroid honeymooners, was written by a Cole Porter in celebration of his homosexual love for "one of our boys." It is one of the pieces in the medley of Cole Porter songs this week at the Snooker Bar and Piano Cafe. Ben, I thoroughly enjoyed the article about Cole Porter. I did not know he had been in an accident; was he able to walk at all? Bob and Harley
NOTE from Ben Boxer:
Cole Porter was the first to put real zing into Broadway lyrics, and whil=
e I love each and everyone of his songs, but will have to say that two I =
love the most are Down in the Depths on the Ninieth Floor, and Miss Otis
Regrets. Have an old LP with Morgana King singing Down in the Depths, and I almost cream my jeans each time I listen to it. Ben, fascinating! Was Bing Crosby gay? If I were to guess, I'd say no. I love the way Ella FitzGerald sang Cole Porter's songs. Especially Anything Goes. Did you ever meet her? Didn't she also have to lose a leg late in life? I once met George Shearing, and played a Bach Two Part Invention for him. He talked a lot to my mother who took me and said that the hardest thing about being a blind performer was the touring. He used to play with Mel Torme a lot. Bob and Harley
NOTE from Ben Boxer: Yes, Ella lost BOTH legs to diabetes in 1993, about three years before she died at the age of 78. She was under attack from diabetes for many years, an illness which ended her career ten years before, but thanks to the recording industry, we have a wide range of her work still to enjoy. They called her "the First Lady of Song." That would be arguable even in the world of jazz because of the great Sarah Vaughan, but Ella was certainly "the Queen of Scat," and I don't mean shit! I am not your classic jazz man, as my tastes in music run in other direction, so it's difficult for me to equate Ella with Maria Callas or Kirsten Flagstad or Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, but measured in terms of individually memorable performances, there are few moments greater in the entire vocabulary of music than "Ella in Berlin" doing her improvised version of "Mack the Knife"! I'm a Kurt Weill nut anyway, so anybody who does his stuff on any level is primo in my book. I still think the greatest silverfoxy love song of all time is Walter Huston's rendition of Weill's "September Song" (lyrics by Maxwell Anderson) in 1938's "Knickerbocker Holiday" on Broadway. Years ago in San Francisco, there used to be a silverfox bar in North Beach (Little Italy) whose jukebox wore out endless copies of Walter Huston's "September Song" and Jeanette MacDonald's "San Francisco." My tastes in music are eclectic, to say the least. I carried a box of 78 RPM records with songs from the Indian film classic, "Mother India," with me once when traveling around the world. I fell in love with the movie (and one of its stars) in India and never could get it out of my system. A part of me has always responded to musicians like Ella and the Duke, et al., and just last night I put on my ear phones and grooved to Earl Bostic, of all people. Yes, I did like Mel Torme, too! And your George Shearing! Lucky you! I never heard a whisper about Bing Crosby's being gay, but that doesn't me!
an a thing. He was surrounded by gays in the music, vaudeville, theater and movie industries, and had an accommodating personality in his early days. Who's to say some hot stagehand didn't do him in the wings on a slow night in Syracuse? Ben, you are right! Sara Vaughn had a beautiful voice, and Ella was the queen of scat, and you made me laugh at the double entendre! Jeanette MacDonald had a beautiful voice. Who was the lead in the show Showboat? Was that Jeanette MacDonald, or was it Katherine Gracen? A beautiful voice in that song Only make believe I love you, only make believe that you love me. That brings a tear to my eyes! I am ashamed to say I never heard of Walter Houston.
Hugs,
Kathryn Grayson did the movie"Showboat" which is what I believe you're talking about. Someone else did it on the stage. As for stage and film stat Walter Huston, he was the daddy of the great movie director John Huston ("Stagecoach." "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," etc.), and therefore the grandpa of the current fine actress Anjelica Huston (who was Jack Nicholson's squeeze for ten years till she married somebody else). John directed his dad in an Academy-Award-winning perfromance as Best Supporting Actor in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Walter was also a great Abraham Lincoln on the stage and in a film version in 1930. His recording of "September Song" is a classic, as is his recording of "Lost in the Stars," the title song from a musical by Kurt Weill based on Alan Paton's South African classic anti-apartheid novel "Cry the Beloved Country." Huston was a lean, ruggedly handsome old silverfox who had such pathos in his throaty, unprofessional singing voice that he could make you cry a bucket of tears.
Headlines from these articles from DataLounge:
Text: The historic meeting, which began (last) Monday, started out with bitter arguments over the inclusion of a gay rights group at a UN roundtable. Later, the mention of gay men and prostitutes as being particularly prone to HIV infection was opposed. The gay rights group was eventually allowed to participate, but mention of men who have sex with men and other at risk groups was deleted from the UN's final declaration. We have several observations: That an argument over the mere mention of gay men and sex-workers could be given play in a health crisis that threatens the future of whole continents is frankly incomprehensible -- and nothing if not a permanent stain on the integrity of the world body; That a small group of nations, blinded by cultural and religious bigotry, would willfully excise from recognition millions of human beings -- who suffer largely as a result of that ignorance and state-sponsored bias -- is a grim reminder of our place in too many parts of the world; That the United States signed on to a document that expressly ignores the plight of her least powerful -- young, gay African-Americans who are seven times more likely to be infected than the rest of their fellow citizens -- is an indictment against our government, something that only compounds our sense of sadness and frustration at the events of the past week. All we are left with is a determination to right this wrong and an attempt to take some solace in noting that confrontations on this scale sometimes do serve a larger purpose. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday, "Some painful differences have been brought into the open, but that is the best place for them. Like AIDS itself, these differences need to be confronted head-on, not swept under the rug." 2) Surgeon General Issues Controversial Sex Report WASHINGTON -- U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher urged parents, schools and community leaders to put the health of the nation's children ahead of their discomfort in addressing sexual issues with teens so the country can do a better job preventing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. In a comprehensive report focusing on the need to educate children about sex and sexuality, Satcher also said that homosexuality is not a reversible lifestyle choice and that committed, "mutually monogamous" relationships are an acceptable alternative to marriage. Satcher said he was releasing the document because the nation faced what he called "a conspiracy of silence when it comes to sexuality," and that this silence only aggravated an array of public health problems related to sex, such as unintended pregnancies, anti-gay violence and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS. The Surgeon General, braving angry conservative reaction, said an aggressive government response was needed to combat a sea of silence and misinformation. "It's talked about in the wrong places in the wrong ways," he said. The 30-page report called "Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior" was two years in the making and begins by detailing the gravity of the problem in the U.S.: Twelve million Americans infected by sexually transmitted diseases each year, with some 40,000 new HIV infections; more than 100,000 children victimized by sexual abuse annually; and nearly 1.4 million abortions each year, with nearly half of all pregnancies unwanted; nearly 900,000 Americans now living with HIV. During the report's preparation, Satcher came under intense pressure from the White House and other conservative Republicans who were pressing "abstinence only" programs. Groups on the other side of the debate, says the Washington Post, wanted endorsement of explicit, detailed, safe-sex information. The White House signaled President Bush's frustration, distancing him from the report and from Satcher. "The president understands the report was issued by a surgeon general that he did not appoint, a surgeon general who was appointed by the previous administration," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday. "The president continues to believe that abstinence and abstinence education is the most effective way to prevent AIDS, to prevent unwanted pregnancy." To the relief and satisfaction of lesbian and gay civil rights groups, Satcher's report also touched on some of the most contentious sexual issues, calling on Americans to respect "the diversity of sexual values within any community." The report states explicitly that there is no valid scientific evidence that one's sexual orientation can be changed. But the report says there is extensive proof about the dire consequences of harassment on the mental health of gays and lesbians. "We have a responsibility to be more supportive and proactive than judgmental," Satcher said. "We're certainly not trying to get anyone in any religious group to change their views. We're just saying these are people, these are human beings." 3) Formal Charges Made Against Jailed Egyptians CAIRO, Egypt -- Fifty-two predominantly gay men detained last May following a police raid on a nightclub on the Nile have been charged with sodomy and religious crimes, an Egyptian state prosecutor said on Thursday. "The cases of the 52 men have been transferred to a state security court in connection with charges of abusing religion to spread extremist ideas verbally and in writing... and engaging in sodomy," Prosecutor General Maher Abdel Wahid told reporters. Police said "the group" had been under surveillance for some time and that authorities had "compiled a file on their practices" before the pre-dawn raid on the Queen Boat, once known as a popular gay venue. The defendants were also charged with "distorting the Koran, causing offense to monotheistic faiths, immoral practices and praying in a manner which contradicts proper practice," Abdel-Wahid said. Amnesty International released a statement earlier this month saying it is "gravely concerned" over the detention of the men and that the organization believes all of the men are being held solely on the grounds of their sexual orientation. "If people are detained solely on account of their sexual orientation, Amnesty International would consider them prisoners of conscience and call for their immediate and unconditional release," read a statement issued by the organization. Amnesty said the men were subjected to "examinations" to determine if they had engaged in sodomy, and that they showed signs of having been tortured since their detention on May 11. Egyptian law does not specifically prohibit homosexuality, but the charges of contempt of religion and immoral behavior are "very broad," and carry sentences of up to five years imprisonment. Two of the men were additionally charged with being "ringleaders and masterminds" of the group, Abdel-Wahid added. The Egyptian ambassador in Dublin, Ashraf Rashed, told the Irish Times last week that the men were being treated well and that all their human rights were being respected. He said that it was wrong to suggest that the arrests were part of a witch hunt against gay people. Egyptian officials had hinted to concerned European officials that all but two of the "ringleaders" would be released soon, hopes that were dashed with the formal announcement of charges on Thursday. 4) Serb Nationalists Attack Gay Pride Parade BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- A mob of young men attacked activists staging what was believed to be the first gay rights march in Yugoslavia's capital on Saturday, circling them one by one and beating them until police intervened, the Reuters news agency reports. Dozens of parade participants were reportedly injured, including a half dozen police officers deployed to the capital's main square. Hospital officials said none of the injuries were life-threatening. The melee began even before the scheduled start of the gay gathering, as dozens of soccer hooligans and members of a nationalist group appeared at the Republic Square to prevent the march from taking place. One of the attackers told B92 Radio in Belgrade that "we are here to prevent immorality in Serbia," while others shouted "Serbia is not a gay country." Later the mob smashed the front door window of the offices of a moderate political party which is supportive of gay rights. Belgrade police chief Bosko Buha said in a statement to the radio station he had not expected a mob that size and the 50 or so policemen assigned to keep peace were overwhelmed. Some witnesses said shots were fired into the air to disperse the crowd. Buha said about one dozen attackers were detained by mid-afternoon. Police were chasing them throughout Belgrade and were expecting more arrests. "We estimated there wouldn't be that many lunatics, it is obvious that we, as a community, have not matured enough for such an expression of queerness, so to speak..." Buha said. The gay pride event is just one of several marches being held throughout Europe this month to draw attention to bias against gay men and lesbians and to build public support for gay civil equality. One woman participant in the march told B92 Radio, "We will not give up our rights and our struggle to introduce democracy in Serbia. I am sure there are still people who promote hatred."
The total number of pro- and anti-gay demonstrators was said to be in the hundreds, with nationalists loyal to Slobodan Milosevic among those inciting violence. End of silverfoxesclub-digest V1 #296
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The film ''Night and Day,'' starring Alexis Smith as Linda and (absurdly) Cary Grant as Cole, was completed in November 1945; and, as the reviewers did not hesitate to point out, it was exceptionally false even by ''biopic'' standards. But it reflected a trait that its real-life heroes had in common -- an urge to subordinate truth to their joint purpose of presenting a smooth and glossy front to the world. 