Books: One-Man Industry

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From the mid-'20s to the mid-'50s, Cole Porter was a one-man industry, both on Broadway and in Hollywood. His songs have long since become a lasting, universal language, from the flashy I Get a Kick out of You and Blow, Gabriel, Blow to the romantic experimental ballads Night and Day and Begin the Beguine. His polished lyrics have rarely been equaled—some scarcely need melody to support them: "Is it an earthquake/ or simply a shock?/ Is it the good turtle soup/ or merely the mock? . . . is it Granada I see/ or only Asbury Park?"

The joy he conveyed in life is more ironic than his lyrics; Porter's last 27 years were filled with pain. A horse fell on him in 1937, badly breaking both legs. Instead of having them amputated, as physicians recommended, he tried to save them by operation after operation. The results were never fully satisfactory, and in 1958 he lost his right leg. Only toward the very end of his life, with Linda dead and his health beyond repair, did he seem to despair, giving in more and more to pills and alcohol. Death, in 1964, was probably welcomed.

Porter deserves a biography as witty and entertaining as he was. Given the complexity of his work, he will no doubt get one some day. Brendan Gill did not write it, nor has Charles Schwartz, a professor of music at Manhattan's Hunter College. Though Schwartz gives the facts of Porter's life, he has forgotten too much of the fun. His book truly comes to life only when he quotes his subject's lyrics. The difference between stolid narration and bright rhymes is the difference, in Cole Porter's words, between the good turtle soup and merely the mock—or for that matter, night and day.

Gerald Clarke