American composer and songwriter Cole Porter was BOTD in 1891. Born in Peru, Indiana to a wealthy middle-class family, he showed musical talent as a child, but was groomed for a career in law. He studied at Yale College, where he wrote over 300 songs, immersing himself in the musical and sexual nightlife of nearby New York City. Quietly switching his studies to music, he had his first song performed on Broadway in 1915. After the failure of his first full-length musical, he travelled to Europe, settling in Paris and marrying the heiress Linda Lee Thomas. The marriage was loving, if sexless, with Thomas condoning Porter’s homosexuality. Together they lived lavishly, hosting sex-and-drug filled parties at their home in Paris and rented palazzos in Venice. He had his first Broadway hit with the 1928 musical Paris, featuring one of his best-known songs Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love. His song Love For Sale, from the 1930 musical The New Yorkers, was considered too racy for the stage but became a huge radio hit. He had his first Hollywood success with The Gay Divorcee starring Fred Astaire, starting a long and profitable career as a Hollywood songwriter. His 1934 musical Anything Goes, written for Ethel Merman, became a Broadway sensation, with a hit title song and the numbers I Get a Kick Out of You, All Through the Night and You’re the Top. Porter relocated to Hollywood in 1935, where his increasingly indiscreet pursuit of gay sex caused a rift in their marriage. He is thought to have had affairs with writer Boris Kochno, socialite Howard Sturges, architect Ed Tauch, choreographer Nelson Barclift, director John Wilson and his lifelong friend Ray Kelly. In 1937, Porter suffered a riding accident which left him disabled and in constant pain. Undeterred, he continued writing musicals, running foul of censors with the risqué Du Barry Was a Lady and overseeing the sanitised musical biopic Night and Day, starring Cary Grant as a robustly heterosexual Porter. He had a major comeback in 1948 with Kiss Me Kate, an effervescent musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. A critical and commercial hit, it won the first Tony Award for Best Musical, and was successfully filmed in 1953. His last major work, the musical film High Society, was released in 1956. After Linda’s death in 1954 and the amputation of his leg, Porter retired from writing and became a recluse. In his 2012 memoir, Hollywood hustler Scotty Bowers described Porter as one of his regular clients, hiring him for orgiastic parties which Porter would watch via a peephole. Porter died in 1964 aged 73. Now recognised as one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century, his work has been recorded by singers including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Rufus Wainwright, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. He is credited with establishing the musical comedy as a prominent art form, inspiring generations of composers including Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, John Kander, Fred Ebb and Stephen Sondheim. The tribute album Red Hot + Blue, released in 1991 for the centenary of Porter’s birth, highlighted the queer resonance of his lyrics, featuring recordings by Sinéad O’Connor, Annie Lennox, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, k.d. lang, Erasure, Jimmy Somerville and U2. Porter was portrayed onscreen by Kevin Kline in the (terrible) biopic De-Lovely and by Yves Heck in Midnight in Paris.