Porteriana

Speranza

Just one month after the premiere of FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN CAN'T BE WRONG, an English show, WAKE UP AND DREAM! opened with Jessie Matthews.

Porter was responsible for the dark, brooding, "What is this thing called love?", which was based on a native chant he had first heard in Marrakech, Morocco.

He also contributed with "Looking at you".

THE NEW YORKERS of 1930 was another Porter musical written by Herbert Fields for E. Ray Goetz.

Monty Woolley directed again.

Porter songs included the rather heavy ballad, "Where have you been?" and the dolorous saga of a street walker, "Love for sale".

Porter's skills at combining opposites within a single song was strikingly demonstrated in NIGHT AND DAY, which was first sung by Fred Astaire in GAY DIVORCE.

The song was an example of a carnal approach to love.

ANYTHING GOES contained the blase but sincere "I get a kick out of you" and the classic of catalogued superlatives set to music, "You're the top".

For JUBILEE, he wrote "Begin the beguine". The melody came to him as he was listening to native music on the island of Kalabahi, in the Dutch East Indies.

"Just one of those things" conveys a disillusioned, though realistic, acceptance of a passing affair.

RED, HOT, and BLUE! was not a success.

The chief fault was the book.

Porter's contributions included "Down in the depths of the 90th floor", and the exultant "Ridin' high".

There was the cleverly intricate "It's De-lovely".

In the summer of 1937, while Porter was horseback riding on the Piping Club in Locust Valley in Long Island, with two members of the Italian nobility, his horse suddenly slipped, threw him, and then fell on top of him.

Both his legs were broken, and extreme damage was done to his nervous system.

After subtmitting to thirty-one operations over a period of about 20 years to save his legs, Porter eventually had to have his right leg amputated in 1958.