Genius and Lust: The Creativity and Sexuality of Cole Porter and Noel Coward [Hardcover]

Joe Morella (Author), George Mazzei (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1995

The private lives of Cole Porter and Noel Coward are as fascinating and as revealing about social mores as their public careers were glittering and defining of popular entertainment. This book combines revealing biographical portraits of Porter and Coward with an absorbing account of the homosexual world that shaped their creative work. Illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This breezy dual biography of two of this century's most gifted theater artists will disappoint those hoping for 261 pages of tabloid-style muck-wallowing. Despite an overheated introduction that discusses, a bit shamelessly, Porter's and Coward's sexual habits (Coward liked "urbane young men," Porter preferred rougher trade), the book provides a remarkably open, mature, gay-positive reading of their lives that redeems what is otherwise just another recitation of two well-known careers. How wonderful to see Noel and Cole discussed as full, living, desiring human beings and not as immensely clever but essentially sexless creatures. Still, Morella and Mazzei skimp Porter, spilling so much ink about Coward that you might forget the book isn't exclusively about the Brit with the "talent to amuse," and they could have used better editing, for although much of the prose has the absorbing, breathless quality of good journalism, certain sections of the book are repetitious and overwritten. Jack Helbig

Product Details

• Hardcover: 276 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub; 1st edition (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786702370
• ISBN-13: 978-0786702374
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,526,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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