PORTER, Cole (1891-1964).

Carbon-copy typed document signed by Cole Porter,1 September 1939, Porter’s agreement with Loew’s Incorporated for the use of the song Begin the Beguine in the MGM production Broadway Melody of 1940, noting that ‘there will be a continuous production use of the music involving singers and dancers, with Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell featured.’

One page of onion-skin paper, 280 x 216 mm, with Porter’s signature at lower right, countersigned by Max Gordon on behalf of Loew’s Incorporated; accompanied by a later 8x10in. production still of Astaire and Powell performing Begin the Beguine on the famous mirrored set of Broadway Melody of 1940.

[With:] an early watercolour portrait of Cole Porter performing at the piano on 23 April 1912, executed in miniature on a postcard embossed with the Yale University seal and crest, annotated in black ink with a calligraphic hand with Porter’s name, birth year, the performance date and Porter’s graduation year, additionally signed in pencil by fourteen of Porter’s Yale classmates to recto and verso, including W. Averell Harriman, 87 x 140 mm. Provenance: Madeline P. Smith (Porter’s secretary).