Cole Porter

Cole Porter entered Yale in 1913, joined the glee club and composed fight songs, some of which are still sung at Yale today. Porter's attempt to make it through Harvard Law School proved disappointing, and in 1916 he moved to New York.

After many disappointing attempts to start a Broadway career, Cole Porter move to Paris in 1917, and lived there for much of the 1920s. Iin 1919 Porter married, and in 1923 composed his ballet Within the Quota. In Paris, Porter met songwriter and producer E. Ray Goetz, brother-in-law of Irving Berlin. The first show they wrote together, Paris, provided him with his first hit song, "(Let's Do It) Let's Fall in Love." Porter's next production, Fifty Million Frenchman, was a smash and established his reputation. For this show Porter provided both lyrics and music, which would remain his working method for the rest of his career.

Throughout the 1930s Porter maintained a steady stream of Broadway successes, including The Gay Divorce (1932), Anything Goes (1934), Jubilee (1935), and Red, Hot and Blue (1936). In 1937 Porter was injured in a riding accident, which resulted in the loss of a leg. For Porter this was a devastating setback and it resulted in his withdrawal from the active social life he had previously known. Nonetheless, Porter enjoyed his greatest Broadway successes afterward, with Du Barry Was a Lady (1939), Panama Hattie (1942), and Kiss Me, Kate (1948), which broke all standing box-office records with an unheard of 1,077 performances.

With the death of his wife in 1954 Porter began to slow down, and when he lost his other leg in 1958 Porter stopped writing altogether, living out his remaining years in seclusion. Cole Porter's songbook contains well over 800 works.