559

Cole Porter

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:36,000.00 - 40,000.00 USD
Cole Porter

Bidding Over

The auction is over for this lot.
The auctioneer wasn't accepting online bids for this lot.

Contact the auctioneer for information on the auction results.

Search for other lots to bid on...
Auction Date:2017 May 10 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Exceptional archive consisting of a few musical manuscripts, letters, and handwritten lyrics by Cole Porter, including:

ALS signed “Cole,” two pages both sides, Carlton Hotel, Lyon letterhead, postmarked June 16, 1928. A letter to actor Clifton Webb, in part: “I am sending you the refrain of your song. You should have a copy made by Olivier, chez Durand, music shop, Place de la Madeleine. He is the head copyist there. Keep one copy for rehearsal & give the other to Tom Waring & pet him into doing it for his band. I will send the verse & the lyric as soon as finished. Also tell Leteutre, Sayag's secretary, to put this on the program—this title Maid of Mystery. And when you have done all these things take your finger and stick it up your ass. My address is Chateau de Gourdon, Gourdon-par-le-Bar, Alpes Maritines. Goodbye & love to all my playthings.”

Handwritten musical manuscript for “Maid of Mystery,” two pages, one 10.5 x 13.75 and the other 10.5 x 8.75, circa 1928. The apparently unpublished manuscript features a total of 48 bars of musical notation in Porter’s hand. The first page is headed “Maid of Mystery” and “Introduction,” and features a note at the bottom: “Tom—Please get an oriental effect in this verse. Also, in refrain, in measures 1, 5, 17, and 21, dot the second note of the melody as indicated.” The second page is headed “Refrain Maid of Mystery.” Also includes a telegram from Porter to Webb, offering further clues to the lyrics of ‘Maid of Mystery.’ It reads, in part: “Oh Maid of Mystery, let me guard your secret oh Maid of Mystery tell me who you are neath your incognito are you someone I know, or some princess from lands afar are you Proserpiny from the realms infernal or are you Venus dear and a star divine just remove your disguise, let me gaze in your eyes, oh mysterious maid be mine.”

A page of handwritten lyrics for “Looking at You” in pencil on the reverse of a 5.75 x 10.75 blank telegram sheet, containing more than 25 lines, in part: “Looking at you while troubles are fleeing, / I'm admiring the view 'cause it's you I'm seeing, / And the sweet honey-dew of well-being / settles upon me.”

TLS signed “Cole,” one page, 8.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, December 15, 1934. A letter to actor Clifton Webb, in part: “I can imagine nothing more awful than writing songs for you for your next picture. Moss Hart and I are leaving on a beautiful boat called the ‘Franconia,’ January 12th, and are going around this funny world of ours. I am very sorry to hear that your health is not so good, but I believe that when you get out in the high spots of the M-G-M studio, everything will be well. It seems to be that it is pretty affected of you not being in New York. The parties are great and they need you…the Maxwell party in honor of none other than myself, it made history…George Kauffman’s…was one of the greatest parties I have been to for years. But everybody cried in the corners because you were not there. I hope you will be great in pictures. I arrive back in New York at the end of May and then make for Hollywood for three months to be with Walter Wanger. If things don't work out, I shall be in New York. Blessings on you my boy, and please don't marry Gloria Swanson.”

Also includes an undated ANS, signed “Cole,” on Waldorf-Astoria letterhead, in full: “Dear Bob—Don't lose this. It is the only copy. The damn harmonics continue until chords indicate new ones.”

Last is an apparently unpublished handwritten musical manuscript headed “Transition from Maria vocal to dance,” one page, no date.

In overall very good to fine condition. A good friend of Porter's for decades, Clifton Webb worked mostly on Broadway in the 1920s and 1930s before his film career blossomed in such movies as Laura (1944), The Razor's Edge (1946), and Sitting Pretty (1948). In 1928, Webb and Dorothy Dickson joined the cast of Porter’s La Revue des Ambassadeurs show in Paris; they are believed to have inspired the lyrics to “Looking at You.” An altogether remarkable lot that holds great relevance to both Porter’s career and his personal life.