William mcbrien cole porter biography david

William McBrien. Knopf Publishing Group, $30 (480pp) ISBN 978-0-394-58235-1

The wit, sophistication and often-surprising depth of feeling in justness music and lyrics of Colewort Porter are at last marvelously realized in this latest donation the songwriter's many biographies.

Foundation illuminating use of previously secret material at Yale and go rotten the Cole Porter Trust, McBrien (Stevie: A Biography of Stevie Smith) weaves a complex coupled with groundbreaking portrait of Porter, interspersed with lyrics and 72 illustrations, recounting his affluent upbringing shore Peru, Ind., and his ebb in the 1930s as rendering musical theater's reigning sophisticate.

Out delicious chapter on the manufacture of Kiss Me Kate greet 1948 demonstrates what sharp talons were needed to create first-class hit. But McBrien's most staggering scholarship is on the angle of Porter's homosexuality. Although Porter's marriage remained sexless, he extra his wife Linda were nobility most intimate of soulmates, says McBrien.

He traces the indeed years of their marriage mass the expatriate Europe of nobility 1920s--during which time Linda would meet and approve Porter's human race lovers--through their older years flowerbed postwar Broadway and Hollywood, in the way that Linda's respiratory illnesses and Porter's paralyzed legs racked their chintzy but not their spirits.

Never-before-seen letters shine light into Porter's ongoing relationships with Ballets Russes star Boris Kochno, architect Slighter Tauch, choreographer Nelson Barclift, principal John Wilson, and longtime keep a note of Ray Kelly, whose children tranquil receive half of the ertile Porter's copyrights. In previous biographies by George Eells and Physicist Schwartz, these men are temporary references; here, they are persuasive figures, as McBrien locates dignity psychological roots of Porter's fondness songs in his unrequited devotion for the men he could have but not forever.

Hassle the tradition of Anthony Heilbut's Thomas Mann: Eros and Culture and Patrick McGilligan's A Understudy Life: George Cukor, this deceitful biography will help to initiate a standard-setting portrait of Concierge as a homosexual artist beckon a heterosexual world. (Oct.)

Details

Reviewed on: 09/28/1998

Genre: Nonfiction