Cole Porter

Singer Susannah McCorkle once said “Cole Porter was the sexiest songwriter. And his songs are infused with this sexual passion and longing that no other great songwriter captured, which is one reason he’s very close to my heart. It’s like having a new love affair all over again to sing a Cole Porter song.” I couldn’t agree more.

Cole promoted the legend that he fought in World War I, however, there seems to be a lot of speculation about what Cole did during these years. It is fairly certain that he served as a part time volunteer behind the lines.  shortly thereafter, he met wealthy American socialite Linda Lee Thomas. The survivor of a physically abusive first marriage, Linda was happy to overlook Porter’s sexuality in exchange for his witty companionship and a share in his glamorous life. He in turn found in Linda the sophisticated, protective life partner he needed, with a personal fortune even greater than his own. The Porters married in 1919, maintaining a joint social calendar but separate bedrooms. Although their union had its rocky moments and occasional break-ups, Cole and Linda remained, in their own way, devoted to each other. Linda’s patience was extraordinary, and Cole knew how put that patience to the test.

After a brief, frustrating affair with ballet star Boris Kochno in 1925, Porter limited his sex life to emotionless encounters with sailors and prostitutes. He found that sex, like other pleasures, could be far less complicated when it was purchased. Porter’s old friend Monty Woolley often joined him to cruise New York City’s waterfront bars and bordellos. The male prostitutes and lower-class tricks they picked up in these places were not likely to talk and would not be believed if they did. The two friends were usually successful in their quests for fresh diversion, at least in part because of their boldness. One night, a young sailor they drove up to on the street asked outright, “Are you two c**ksuckers?” Wooley smiled and said, “Now that the preliminaries are over, why don’t you get in and we can discuss the details?”

After Cole discovered the hedonistic lifestyle of Hollywood, his pool parties and gay escapades became so outrageous that Linda left him for several years. She returned when a horse riding accident shattered Cole’s legs. In his later years, Porter had several relationships with handsome younger men, but none of these ever eclipsed his relationship with Linda. He limited his sexual encounters to young men who accepted payment in return for their silence. If they spiced things up with a little verbal abuse, Porter found it all the more diverting.

Porter became a center of the social whirl wherever he went, particularly among the homosexual elite. He was the only person who ever threatened director George Cukor’s pre-eminence in Hollywood’s gay circles. In George Cukor: A Double Life (St. Martin’s: NY, 1991 and is currently being reissued on March 22, 2013), biographer Patrick McGilligan writes that these competing world-class egos were called “the rival Queens of Hollywood,” but concedes that “Porter’s was perhaps the more privileged invitation.”

While Cole kept his sex life a private matter, he had no qualms about using homosexual references in his work. But, as with almost everything else, he did it with singular style.