Cole Porter Centennial Just One of Those Things

To paraphrase Cole Porter: ABC, with its “Red, Hot + Blue” show last year; the French tribute “Fifty Million Frenchmen” in the Big Apple; the Pasadena Playhouse revival of Porter’s “You Never Know”; Cafe Largo’s performances of David Koslow’s Porter revue, and now Sylvie Drake, in “Summer Splash III” (May 26), all do it .

All praise Porter, but as usual only the French got it right. They offered a tribute, period, in New York, while all the others claim today to be the centennial of his birth.

Having grown up not far from Peru, Ind., where Porter grew up, I can tell you that he was born in 1893, as verified in Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia or the World Almanac.

As welcome as all this current attention is, I hope they’ll be willing to do it again in 1993 when his centennial will have arrived.

BILL POWELL

Toluca Lake

Groups involved in the Porter celebrations have acknowledged the discrepancy in dates listed by different reference works. One such group, Cathedral Arts Inc. of Indianapolis, reports that birth records kept by Porter’s family show that he was indeed born June 9, 1891.