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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now, the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. This is the second of a three-part series featuring noted musical theater historian Robert Kimball discussing Cole Porter's work in the 1930s.

[0:23] Paul Lazarus: This program originally aired in 1983 and featured many Porter shows, including The New Yorkers, You Never Know, and this podcast namesake, Anything Goes. Porter's next show in the 30s was Nympherant, which up until very recently never had an American production. It was only done in London as a vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence, and until Equity Library Theater revived it, I guess a year ago, two years ago, it had never been seen in America. It's amazing to me. What do you think is the reason that that never made it over?

[1:01] Robert Kimball: Well, there are two factors that I know of, maybe three. The first is the Depression. Second was that Gertrude Lawrence was supposed to star in it, and she had one of her periodic financial problems at that point in her life and was unable to come over with it. Then the rights were bought by 20th Century Fox for a movie version, and they held the rights to it for so many years. And then for a long period of time, it just didn't go. Nothing happened. I mean, Gertrude couldn't do it, obviously, and then nothing really took place, and it was really very exciting to finally have a chance to hear this complete score, which we only knew from the Gertrude Lawrence recordings.

[1:43] Paul Lazarus: Right. This song that we're going to play, The Physician, is a wonderful example of a Porter-Liss song. Very few people could maintain interest in something like this, and yet he does by sheer audacious cleverness, I guess, because it's one body part after another, in a way, but he maintains interest.

[2:03] Robert Kimball: That's right. It was originally written for the New Yorkers under the title, But He Never Says He Loves Me, and it was dropped out of town. Three years later, he was able to find another title for it, and it became, it is, I think, one of his most virtuosic lyric performances. This is The Physician from Mint Ferret.

[2:24] ♪ Musical number: "The Physician" — performed by Robert Kimball ♪

[5:36] Paul Lazarus: Anything Goes in 1934, whereby we derive the name of this program, and my guest today is Robert Kimball, noted musical theatre historian, and whose book The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter just came out, published by Alfred Knopf, and that's why we're taking a look at Porter in the 30s today. Bob, Anything Goes, it seems to be where it all came together for Porter. Why is that, do you think?

[6:03] Robert Kimball: Well, I think he was trying to find some way of bridging the gap between ultra-sophistication and exuberance, and I think part of it may have been his finding the perfect interpreter of his music, Ethel Merman, and being able to write for her.

[6:17] Paul Lazarus: That's right, it's her first Porter show, isn't it?

[6:19] Robert Kimball: First of five, a ten-year collaboration that included five Broadway shows, and this was the beginning, and I think maybe from the very opening number, when she came out in the Waylon Caprice Bar and sang I Get a Kick Out of You, the score seems to be one great song after another.

[6:36] Paul Lazarus: And let's play two of those truly terrific songs, Ethel Merman singing I Get a Kick Out of You, followed by Porter himself performing You're the Top.

[6:46] ♪ Musical number: "I Get a Kick Out of You" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[9:52] ♪ Musical number: "You're the Top" — performed by Cole Porter ♪

[10:21] ♪ Musical number: "You're the Top" — performed by Cole Porter ♪

[13:10] Robert Kimball: Cole Porter's own version of his classic from *Anything Goes*, "You're the Top," and Bob included in the complete lyrics of Cole Porter this parody version of "You're the Top" that's been attributed to Porter. I'm going to read it. It's "You're the Top." You're Miss Pinkham's tonic. You're the top. You're a high colonic. You're the burning heat of a bridal suite in use. You're the breasts of Venus. You're King Kong's penis. You're self-abuse. You're an arch in the Rome collection. You're the starch in a groom's erection. I'm a eunuch who has just been through an op, but if baby I'm the bottom, you're the top. I think that's true. You were saying that he received countless parody versions in the mail.

This song was a rage all over the country. It had to be performed in the White House. People wrote additional refrains, sent them to Porter's file. They're still filled with many of them, some of them interesting, some of them rather banal. But this particular version in various forms, it's not the only version of it. You hear different variants on some of the lines. Apparently, it's been around for a very long time, and a number of performers claimed that they learned it directly from Porter and to perform his audition material. He was kind of tired of hearing his own song sung straight. Now, it's possible that he did write this parody. It's also equally possible that one of his many friends did it.

This is the second of a three-part series featuring noted musical theater historian Robert Kimball discussing Cole Porter's work in the 1930s. To answer your question about the show, one of the things as I was listening to this song that strikes me is the way in which he brought together things that were part of everybody's experience today in the days of 1934, like Pepsodent and the pants of the Roxy Usher. People just howled at that because that was so very contemporary, and yet he put it in such an incredible historical context. These really extraordinarily great parts of our civilization were being juxtaposed with these up-to-date... Cellophane, yeah. Exactly. It's wonderful. It does, I think, give people a sense that they're part of something larger.

The great success of *Anything Goes*, and it was a tremendous landmark show. It may be the quintessential 1930s musical, I think. It was the biggest hit by far of 1934. It gave Porter and Mosshart inspiration to try something much more ambitious in *Jubilee*, 1935. Wonderful way to write a show. They sat down and had lunch together and decided to take a world cruise, and they were gone for about four months. They were sailing the seas, and some of the most famous Porter songs were written for this score. One of them was written apparently on the cruise, another not long afterwards. It is a show that has not, I think, gotten the fair recognition its great score deserves. I think this is a very, very extraordinary score that I hope will be rediscovered someday.

I think it's a little bit comparable in that sense to *Out of This World*, a score that followed *Kiss Me, Kate*, which of course didn't have the book, but it's a fabulous score, as we know. This one, I think, is also quite a remarkable score. Very, very ambitious. It's interesting because both *Jubilee* and *Out of This World* have been mentioned for possible revival. You hear buzz, buzz, buzz every now and then that *Jubilee* is going to be done, because I remember a theater did it off-Broadway, and there was talk about it being done. There still is. I hope it's done. I think it's really an operetta. It's really the tradition of Gilbert and Sullivan. I think it should be done by a company with strong, legitimate voices, as well as people who can dance.

Uniquely, this is the one score that Porter recorded several of his own songs from. Yes, he did. Those that have survived, yes, he recorded quite a number of them. I think there's a lot about this score that meant a great deal to Porter, because he never, again, until the late 40s, it took him almost 15 years before he would once again write as ambitious a score as this. It meant a great deal to him, surely. We're going to play two of the more well-known songs from *Jubilee*, to say the least. Two flop songs. They were in this way, actually. Originally, yes. "Begin the Beguine," and this is Artie Shaw and his orchestra, and following that, Mabel Mercer singing just one of those things.

[20:42] Robert Kimball: We started painting the town, we'd have been aware that our love affair was too hot not to cool down. So goodbye, dear, and amen. Here's hoping we meet now and then. It was great fun, but it was just one of those things. It was just one of those things. Just one of those crazy flings. One of those bells that now and then rings. One of those things. It was just one of those nights. Just one of those fabulous flights. Trip to the moon on gossamer wings. One of those things. If we'd thought a bit of the end of it, when we started painting the town, we'd have been aware that our love affair was too hot not to cool down. So goodbye, dear, and amen. Here's hoping we meet now and then. It was great fun, but it was just one of those things.

Two songs from Jubilee, "Just One of Those Things" and "Begin the Beguine." Next show was Red Hot and Blue in 1936. Well, I mean, with all the things in between that we're skipping over, unfortunately, because of time. This has so many stories associated with it, Bob. I mean, just the billing of Merman and Durante, all of that stuff. It's hard to imagine a more chaotic show at all points from the construction of it to the out-of-town tryouts to the run itself with battles going on among the stars. When you read the accounts of how the show got put together, you have to say to yourself, is this the way shows are written? Practically everybody who was involved in the theater and movies was considered for this show at one point or another before they finally came up with Merman, Durante, and Hope, which sounds so logical to us now.

It's almost inevitable that the show was written for the three of them, but practically everyone else was involved. There are two crazy stories, one really, really loony, and the other one showing something of Porter's state of mind, which I'd like to mention briefly. One, after they changed the title to Butt Millions, and then after it became Butt Millions with the dollar sign, after it became Wait for Baby, before it became Red Hot and Blue. I guess they found that once Porter had written a title song they liked, that was good enough for the title. But there's an article about George Hale, a dance director, and he was auditioning people for the show, and they have him quoted at a press conference and saying, no bad-looking babies were wanted.

Watch me come up with swell-looking bimbos. The hard type is out, so is the languid type. Men like fresh, sweet girls, peppy, talented, and untheatrical. Hale asked the girls he was auditioning to sing, is it true what they say about Dixie? Hard to imagine that happening today, but perhaps it's some way of getting the show on. The interesting thing, too, is Porter's own way of working. He began to become quite aware in the middle of the 30s that writing for a sophisticated audience had its limitations. You couldn't get a sophisticated audience in the theater. It's very true today on Broadway, maybe even truer. He said that sophisticated illusions are good for about six weeks. As he said, futile as presenting Sophocles in the original Greek.

Audience reaction to Lady Mendel lasted about eight weeks. Sophisticated lyrics are more fun, but only for myself and about 18 other people, all of whom were first-nighters anyway. Polished urbane and adult playwriting in the musical field is strictly a creative luxury. That was Cole Porter in 1936, still true. And as a result of that, Porter began to tailor his material more toward the audiences and toward the performers and away from what he would do for himself. And it took him a long time to get back. There are more songs of the "Let's Be Buddies," true love variety in Porter's work, which he never was particularly fond of writing, but he found that people liked them and they were popular. At any rate, this show has one of Porter's greatest ballads. Right. This is "Down in the Depths," of course, on the 90th floor, and this is Ethel Merman.

[27:07] ♪ Musical number: "Down in the Depths" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[29:42] Robert Kimball: Well, he hasn't quite shifted out of the sophistication at this point, anyway. Not entirely. There's a song that tells you exactly what Porter was getting across, the message. He's making a satirical treatment of it, but the people who live in great penthouses can have a miserable time. Yeah. Well, I suppose underneath all of that gaiety and gossamer wings, there's always that tone.