Making Over The Porters

KEVIN KLINE had no trouble getting COLE PORTER under his skin for this summer's De-Lovely, a movie musical about the master tunesmith's complex relationship with his wife, muse and taskmistress, LINDA LEE PORTER, played by ASHLEY JUDD. Kline--who has experience with sexually ambiguous characters from 1997's In & Out--portrays the composer as a "lover of wine, men and song," he says. He sang 95% of his tunes in the film live rather than lip-synching over a score. "These songs are part of our musical collective unconscious," Kline says. "Or our Muzakal unconscious; we hear them in malls now." With artists like Alanis Morissette, Robbie Williams and Elvis Costello in the film, we may hear them on pop radio too.