De-Lovely is a musical film about Cole Porter – his life in public, his life in secret, and the great music he made from both.

Much of De-Lovely is true, some of it is imagined, but all of it is faithful to the spirit of Cole Porter.
We’ve used the broad outline and certain details of Porter’s life – especially his long, strong marriage to Linda Lee – to weave an impressionistic musical biography. The historical facts of Porter’s life are put together like notes in a melody, to try and give a truer, deeper picture of the man, his work, and, most importantly, his heart.
The songs aren’t always chronologically presented or typically interpreted – we’ve let the music lead them. Some of the best American music ever written is by Cole Porter, and we’ve tried to do what we believe Porter himself did: just let the song carry everything along.
Down through the decades, Porter’s songs have been interpreted innumerable times by a multitude of artists in countless ways. But the songs are inexhaustible, and they seem always to be of the moment. So with new times and new moments come new interpretations; there are times when a Porter classic seemed to rise out of or speak to a different dramatic mode or serve a new purpose – we, again, have followed feeling, not history.
The broad outlines of Porter’s life are here, but placed within the framework of imagination, not scholarship. No footnotes required.
A love story needs no footnotes. The power of music needs no explanation.
This is a musical love story.


Irwin Winkler