Night and Day
Director: Michael Curtiz | Studio: Warner Bros.
Year: 1946
Category: Classic Hollywood Biopics
Trailer
This Technicolor fictionalized biography of composer Cole Porter starred Cary Grant as Porter and Alexis Smith as his wife Linda Lee Thomas. Warner Brothers paid $300,000 for the rights to Porter's best-known songs. The film was a heavily sanitized version of Porter's life that completely obscured his homosexuality and presented his marriage to Linda as a conventional romantic love story—the exact opposite of the truth.
In reality, Porter's marriage to Linda Lee Thomas (whom he met in 1918 and married in 1919) was widely considered a lavender marriage, with Linda fully aware of his homosexuality and his numerous relationships with men. Their marriage was based on mutual affection and protection rather than romance. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music—Scoring of a Musical Picture (music by Ray Heindorf and Max Steiner), though it did not win. This represents how Hollywood sanitized its own history of lavender marriages even while many were still ongoing.
Other Films
De-Lovely (2004)
Director: Irwin Winkler
A more honest portrayal of Cole Porter's life came nearly 60 years later with De-Lovely, directed by Irwin Winkler and starring Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as Linda Lee Thomas. This film openly addressed Porter's homosexuality and depicted his lavender marriage more accurately.
Badhaai Do (2022)
Director: Harshavardhan Kulkarni
This Indian Hindi-language film starring Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar directly depicts a lavender marriage in contemporary India. The story follows Shardul, a gay policeman, and Sumi, a lesbian physical education teacher, who marry each other to satisfy family expectations and societal pressure.
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Judy Garland, this classic MGM musical brought together two talents who would marry in 1945. Their marriage is now widely recognized as one of Hollywood's most notable lavender marriages, with Minnelli rumored to be gay and Garland fully aware of his sexuality. They divorced in 1951.
Queen Christina (1933)
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
This pre-Code MGM film starring Greta Garbo featured bold queer themes that would have been censored after the Hays Code was enforced. Released before the code stipulated that "sex perversion [homosexuality] or any inference to it is forbidden," the film depicts Queen Christina in masculine attire throughout, shows her kissing her lady-in-waiting Ebba Larsdotter (played by Elizabeth Young) on the lips twice—not chaste pecks but full, tender kisses grasping her face—and portrays her resistance to marriage.