Cole Porter

Cole Porter was born in Peru, Indiana in 1891. He attended Yale, where his football songs are still popular. After the failure of his first Broadway show, he lived in Europe where he met and married legendary beauty Linda Thomas. Returning to NY in the late 1920s, he gained renown for composing many of the greatest songs for stage and screen, among them “Night and Day”, “You’re the Top”, “Begin the Beguine” and “I Get a Kick Out of You”. His 1930s were highlighted by such Broadway offerings as Anything Goes, Gay Divorce, and Jubilee. A crippling riding accident in 1937 left him in constant pain, yet he continued to write memorable scores, among them Can Can, Silk Stockings, High Society and his masterpiece, Kiss Me Kate. He died in California in 1964.