June 9th

06-09-1891 – 10-15-1964 Cole Porter – Born in Peru, Indiana. One of the greatest American composers and songwriters. He was the only child of a wealthy family. Although classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics as well as the music for his songs. After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 30s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate. It won the first Tony Award for Best Musical. In 1917, when the United States entered WWI, Porter moved to Paris to work with the Duryea Relief organization. Porter maintained a luxury apartment in Paris, where he entertained lavishly. His parties were extravagant and scandalous, with “much gay and bisexual activity, Italian nobility, cross-dressing, international musicians, and a large surplus of recreational drugs.” In 1918, he met Linda Lee Thomas, a rich, Louisville, Kentucky-born divorcée eight years his senior. The couple married the following year. She knew Porter was gay and is thought to have had affairs with both men and women. They were devoted to each other and remained married until her death in 1954. Porter died of kidney failure on October 15, 1964, in Santa Monica, California. Many artists have recorded Porter songs, including Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Dionne Warwick, U2, Annie Lennox and Shane MacGowan. Notable songs: Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love, What is This Thing Called Love?, You Do Something to Me, Night and Day, Anything Goes, I Get a Kick Out of You, Don’t Fence Me In, Begin the Beguine, Just One of Those Things, You’d Be So Easy to Love, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, Be a Clown, Another Op’nin, Another Show, So in Love, Too Darn Hot, and I Love Paris.

06-09-1938 Charles Wuorinen – Born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City. He is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1970. His catalog of more than 260 compositions includes works for orchestra, opera, and chamber music, as well as solo instrumental and vocal works. Between 2008 and 2012, Wuorinen composed the opera Brokeback Mountain, based on Annie Proulx’s short story of the same name and with a libretto adapted by Proulx. The piece premiered on January 28, 2014, at the Teatro Real in Madrid to mixed reviews. Wuorinen resides in New York City and Long Valley, New Jersey. He is married to his longtime partner and manager, Howard Stokar.

06-09-1956 Patricia Cornwell – Born Patricia Carroll Daniels in Miami, Florida. She is a contemporary American crime writer. Cornwell is widely known for writing a popular series of novels featuring the heroine Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a medical examiner. Her books have sold more than 100 million copies. In 1980 she married one of her English professors, Charles L. Cornwell, who was 17 years her senior. In 1989 the couple separated, with Patricia retaining her married name after the divorce. From 1991 to 1992, Cornwell was involved in an affair with Margo Bennett, a married FBI agent, after meeting her at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, where Cornwell was doing research for her Scarpetta novels. In 1996, the affair came to light after Margo Bennett’s estranged husband, FBI agent Gene Bennett, was arrested for, and later convicted of, the attempted murder of his wife and the abduction of Margo’s church pastor. In 2005, Cornwell married Staci Ann Gruber, an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard University. She did not disclose her marriage until 2007. She later stated that turning 50 made her see the importance of speaking out for equal rights and spoke how Billie Jean King had helped her come to terms with talking about her sexuality publicly. She lives with Gruber in Massachusetts.

06-09-1960 Eva Dahlgren – Born in Umeå, Sweden. She is a Swedish pop musician. In 1996 she made headlines in the Swedish press when she came out as a lesbian through her civil union with Efva Attling.

06-09-1978 Tal Rosner – Born in Jerusalem, Israel. He is a London-based Israeli filmmaker and video artist. His experimental film Without You (2008), earned Rosner screenings at film-festivals worldwide. Openly gay, Rosner was in a civil partnership with British composer Thomas Adès.

06-09-1986 Adamo Ruggiero – Born in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. He is a Canadian actor best known or his role of Marco Del Rossi in Degrassi: The Next Generation. Ruggiero came out in January 2008, saying “I come from a traditional Italian family but they aren’t so traditional that my being gay was a deal breaker.” He was also on the cover of the January 23 – February 5, 2008 issue of fab magazine.