De-Lovely: A Movie Meditation

by Diane S. Frank

We settle down as man and wife
To solve the riddle called "married life,"
It’s delightful, it’s delicious it’s de-lovely.

We’re on the crest, we have no cares,
We’re just a couple of honey bears
It’s delightful, it’s delicious it’s de-lovely.

And then come the famous two questions that wives ask when they belatedly learn that their husband is a crossdresser:

* Does he really want to have sex with men?
* Does he really want to be a woman?

The second of these two questions was addressed by the Jessica Lange vehicle "Normal" (Not to be confused with the Amy Bloom book by the same name). In Normal, after much grief Jessica Lange’s character chooses to stand by her man, er woman as love triumphs over all.

"De-Lovely", the movie/musical biography of Cole Porter plays a similar tune. Linda Thompson, a divorcé in 1920’s Paris had, it turns out, no illusions about her husband to be, the soon to be famous composer of popular song and ballad, Cole Porter. Cole Porter’s affairs with men were well known in the Gay Paree of the day. In these days of liberation Linda’s choice may seem odd. We learn she left an abusive marriage, and chose an apparently near sexless marriage, a marriage in which her husband was allowed his affairs with men so long as he was discreet about it. It is a decision that we might marvel about today, except for the fact that women seem to continue to make this sort of choice.

Cole Porter

Linda Thompson

According to both Helen Boyd ("My Husband Betty") and Amy Bloom, many crossdresser’s wives do not have sexually fulfilling marriages. Yet, after all, women chose to remain married crossdressing husbands who do not fulfill them in the bedroom. How different is it when a husband’s eros is inaccessible in some fantasy of personal femininity, vs actually having sex outside a marriage with a woman or a man? Infidelity of all sorts motivates our literature, and statistics claim it happens all the time. To what extent do we or can we separate the hot sweaty bit of love tied up with sexuality, and the love that reflects the genuine and maybe eternal appreciation for and connection and joining with another soul?

As usual I can’t help making another connection. We’ve all seen it, a woman leaving a seemingly good marriage and setting off on her own in late life, leaving a confused, stunned and staggered ex-husband coping with the mundane chores of daily life he used to take for granted. Jane Gross wrote about it in the July 22nd issue of the New York Times

This is perhaps where I take a more optimistic note than you might expect. Couples that face the issue of crossdressing in their marriage cannot take their marriage for granted. Regardless of whether it is an issue of no great importance, with easy acceptance or whether it is a perfect storm of a crisis, I cannot help thinking that anyone who gets to the other side will never, ever take their relationship for granted, no matter what means they use to work out their issues.

In "De-Lovely", Linda does leave Cole for a while…when his partying makes her feel taken for granted. That situation didn’t last, and they were reunited. Linda found her satisfaction in being Porter’s muse, his manager, his biggest fan and promoter. She arranged the circumstances that led to his first Broadway show and his moves in and out of Hollywood. She gave him the spine to survive his crippling horseback riding injuries. She suffered a miscarriage as well. And two and a half hankies later, and after some wonderfully executed renditions of Porter’s best tunes by some suprising cameo performers (Elvis Costello sings "Let’s Misbehave" for example) at the end, the movie shows Cole and Linda reunited in some after life, as he plays his haunting ballad about of love’s insecurity, "In the still of the night".

In the still of the Night
As I gaze from my window
At the moon in its flight,
My thoughts all stray to you.

In the still of the night,
While the world is in slumber,
Oh, the times without number,
Darling, when I say to you,

"Do you love me as I love you?
Are you my life-to-be, my dream come true?

Or will this dream of mine
Fade out of sight
Like the moon
Growing dim
On the rim
Of the hill
In the chill,
Still
Of the night?