"I've been out of work a few times in my career, and I've not always been heralded with great acclaim," said Short, a three-time Grammy nominee, most recently for You're the Top: Love Songs of
Cole Porter in 2000.
Well
Cole Porter was just like that, only American.
In the early 1920s,
Cole Porter (Kevin Kline) was the darling of the Parisian party circuit - and this film slickly glosses through his Broadway shows (Kiss me Kate, Anything Goes) before he ultimately ends up writing for movies in Hollywood.
Cole Porter is back in favour in a big way as the creator of musicals - his Anything Goes just opened in London's West End.
The party aimed to recreate the sophisticated elegance of
Cole Porter's High Society, and the 370 guests co-chairs Scott George and Susan Buck greeted looked elegant indeed, right down to Scott's evening slippers, which he'd embellished with petit-point tigers (he does needlework on airplanes).
Cole Porter's Annie Get Your Gun introduced a vast number of mid-20th century Americans to the vibrant personality of Annie Oakley.
The pianist plays tunes by
Cole Porter and Irving Berlin on the grand piano.
He offers deft interpretations of songs from the canons of
Cole Porter, Joni Mitchell, Irving Berlin, and Bob Dylan.
As the audience departed, a sextet of jazz musicians extemporized riffs on
Cole Porter's song, `What is this thing called love?' And, as every night, a handful of patrons steadfastly refused to yield to the night air until they had drained their last drop of musical pleasure.
"Too darn hot." The title of a
Cole Porter tune sums up why an astronomer has now retracted her 1998 claim that the faint object her team imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope is most likely a planet.
KISS ME, KATE, 1999 Broadway Cast Recording, music and lyrics by
Cole Porter, DRG Records.