by Gary Giddins
Yet for all his rough edges, Everett proved an effective deal-maker as the Crosby phenomenon billowed. Young Gary Stevens helped the process along by convincing CBS’s three vocal stars — Kate Smith, Morton Downey, and Bing — to pose for a picture he placed in the New York World-Telegram; it was quickly picked up by the Associated Press. Bing refused to wear his hairpiece for the picture, the last time that would happen in a publicity shot.
In January Mack Sennett asked Bing to complete a biographical card for his public-relations office. Everett filled it out, creating bits of the Crosby myth that persisted from one press release to another, from one screen-idol magazine to the next. He got little right beyond eyes (blue), hair (light), pastimes (golf and swordfishing), and current address (the Essex House). But he did create Bing’s official birth date of May 2, 1904. Though he shaved only a year from Bing’s real age, Everett thought he was being canny; he figured Bing had to be thirty-one or thirty-two and that he was doing him a favor keeping him in his twenties in what promised to be his breakthrough year in movies. He declined to fill in height and weight, identified his first Sennett film as One More Chance (it was I Surrender Dear), and traced his nickname to his childhood affection for popguns. Unable to resist adding a little more color, he appended a few Whiteman tales and the comment: “claims his watch has been in every pawnshop across country” 55
Everett could afford to make the pawnshop crack, because those days were behind Bing. With Dixie on furlough from Fox, she made the rounds with him. They enjoyed their relative prosperity, his increased renown, New York, and each other. Bing focused intently on singing and rarely turned down an opportunity to work. He sang so often, it’s a wonder his node didn’t cause greater affliction. On a Saturday evening in February, toward the end of the Paramount engagement, Bing moonlighted at New Jersey’s Newark Armory at a Radio Artists Ball, where a dollar ticket rewarded fans with Crosby, the Mills Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, Nick Lucas (“Tip Toe Through the Tulips with Me”), and Bennie Krueger’s orchestra. Five evenings later he hightailed it from his last show at the Paramount to the Columbia studio where Duke Ellington was setting up. Between midnight and one, they recorded two Ellington arrangements of W. C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues.” Although they admired and liked each other (Duke created his concerto version of “Frankie and Johnny” for Bing’s radio show in 1941; the last recording Bing made in the United States was for a memorial tribute to Duke in 1977), this was the only time Bing formally recorded as a soloist with Ellington and one of the few times he recorded the blues. 56 A pity on both counts, for the result is a gem — or, more precisely, two gems.
The second (B) take was initially released and remains the best known of the two, beginning with a slap-tongue introduction by baritone saxophonist Harry Carney and proceeding with glowing choruses by trumpeter Cootie Williams and trombonist Joe Nanton. After a short piano transition, Bing sings two twelve-bar choruses, backed by a covey of clarinetist Barney Bigard, Carney, and guitarist Fred Guy, whose dynamic strumming suggests a banjo. Bing continues with the two sixteen-bar refrains (Ellington dispenses with the tango rhythm of the original), backed at first by Nanton and then by the previously noted trio. He coolly improvises phrases with such authority that when he forgets the lyric, he is able to unhesitatingly fake — in true blues tradition — a closing refrain. At which point the tempo is doubled as the great alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges wails a chorus, setting up a stirring passage by Bing, one of the finest examples of scat singing in that era. He concludes at half tempo with the beautifully modulated line “And I love my baby [critic J. T. H. Mize astutely singled out the “slow and deliberate tilt on baby”] 57 till the day I die.”
That closing phrase probably clinched the choice of take B, but the verdict was actually settled on a question of gender; in Bing’s first try, the St. Louis woman pulled “that gal around,” instead of the man she was supposed to be pulling. The A take has rewards of its own, beginning with an orchestral introduction and a ferocious Cootie Williams solo that establishes a far earthier mood, peaking with one of Bing’s headiest jazz moments on record. Before Hodges completes his double-time chorus, Bing — Louislike — leaps in and commands the saxophonist’s last four bars as a scat runway for his own elated chorus. In neither version does Bing make an effort to mimic expressive blues techniques. He enjoyed, as did Ellington, the contrast between his level tones and the band’s idiosyncratic timbres. The record was reviewed later that year in Britain’s Gramophone: “After the ballad performances to which Bing has been devoting most of his time lately the brilliance of his rhythmic style will be surprising, even to those who remember the days when, with Harry Barris and Al Rinker [he] created quite a sensation as a hot singer.” 58
Bing played it both ways, hot and cool, all season. If the material was uninspired, as it often was, he managed to wring something personal from it anyway, for example, “Starlight,” a poised though raspy-voiced reading of an undistinguished ballad that shows how comfortable he had become as a stylist, no longer trying so hard to turn or sigh a note. Jack Kapp’s persistence in getting him to simplify his attack paid off without diminishing Bing’s gift for drama. He gives full measure to the bygone lament “My Woman,” transforming an awkward song into a charmer with mild echoes of jazz and tango. 59 Eddie Lang was invariably at his side, a kind of jazz conscience. In arranging “Paradise,” Victor Young allowed Bing and Lang to waltz the last sixteen bars largely on their own, and on “You’re Still in My Heart,” he had Lang double-time the second chorus.
The most popular Crosby recording that month was a stunning reunion with the Mills Brothers on “Shine.” A minstrel song fashioned for a revue in 1909 by two black songwriters (Ford Dabney and the influential lyricist-publisher Cecil Mack), “Shine” did not achieve success until the 1920s, by which time its self-pity and ethnic cliches (“Just because my hair is curly / Just because my teeth are pearly”) were more likely to invite parody than outrage. In 1931 Louis Armstrong had made the song an exuberant virtuoso showcase, practically transforming the epithet “Shine” into a badge of honor. In their 1932 version, the Mills Brothers politely phrase the outmoded lyric. Then Bing jumps in, imbuing every word with swing, rhythmically and sonorously overwhelming the trite caricature. When the Millses reprise the chorus, Bing interpolates spoken responses that suggest a benign carny barker (“man’s got curly hair!” “also got pearly teeth!”) and adds an Armstrongian “ohhh, keep on smiling.” Bing’s scat solo on “Shine” was his most inventive to date, surpassing “Dinah” in its rhythmic variety and assurance.
He fared less successfully on Victor Young’s “Lawd, You Made the Night Too Long,” an incongruously heavy-handed record with Don Redman’s elegant orchestra and the Boswell Sisters, with whom he does not interact. Sadly, that was the last time he appeared on record with the Boswells, though they worked together on radio numerous times. It was also the last time he recorded in New York before embarking — that very afternoon (April 13) — on the tour that brought him back to Hollywood.
Bing’s departure from New York had been hastened in part by Cremo’s surprise decision, in February, not to renew his radio contract. George Washington Hill saw no need to explain why. According to one observer, the clean-cigar company was shocked to discover, after four months, that women who faithfully listened to Bing did not smoke cigars. Another traced the rupture to one of Hill’s advertising boasts, “There is no spit in Cremo.” Bing’s show had become notorious for its distasteful commercials, shudderingly recited by announcer David Ross (“Spit,” he would begin, “is a horrid word”), concerning the dreadful effects of saliva. 60 The story went that one of Hill’s lieutenants manufactured a private run of hand-rolled (and tongue-sealed) cigars and distributed them with the Cremo label. Hill was allegedly mortified to realize that those Cremos did undoubtedly contain spit and withdrew all sponsorship for the product.
Bing and Everett were not overly worried at first. CBS had every intention of kee
ping Bing on the air until a new sponsor could be found. Yet the network forbade him from including Dixie in the show, perhaps fearing that a wifely presence would undermine his potency as a heartthrob balladeer. Bing was sufficiently concerned about his future in radio to accept the injunction, which hammered home the career reversals that had taken place in the seventeen months since they were married. Cremo’s retreat was not untimely. Bing had failed to give his voice the prescribed rest, so Dr. Ruskin sent him to another specialist, Chevalier Jackson, who apparently frightened him into a brief repose. As Bing related to biographer Charles Thompson, Jackson warned him that surgery might turn him into “a boy soprano” and advised, “If you rest and don’t even answer the phone — don’t talk, don’t do anything — [the nodes will] recede.” 61 Bing took ten days off before resuming broadcasts, again with Fred Rich’s band, but only three times a week. Cremo’s layoff also made it easier for him to return to California to shoot the two remaining shorts on his Sennett contract. While Bing continued working the Paramount, Everett was less preoccupied with finding him a new sponsor than with lining up a feature film to make the trip worthwhile.
Meanwhile, Bing’s standing in show business reached a new plateau. During the week of his last Cremo appearance (February 27), Bing was honored with a midnight dinner at the Friars Club — “a particularly funny night,” according to the club’s chronicler, Joey Adams, and the first time the industry paid him tribute. 62 The speakers included Jack Benny, George Burns, Irving Berlin, Rudy Vallee, William Paley, George Jessel, Walter Donaldson, and Damon Runyon. At the end of the evening, George M. Cohan presented Bing with a lifetime membership card made of gold. In March the public joined in a roast of the whole crooning triad, stimulated by a song, “Crosby, Columbo and Vallee” (“Who do husbands hate their wives to listen to? / Crosby, Columbo and Vallee!”). Vallee sued to have his picture removed from the sheet music but could do nothing when Merrie Melodies lampooned him and Bing in a cartoon of the same name.
(Over the next decade Bing would be caricatured visually, vocally, or both in numerous animations, not always kindly. In depicting him as a cad, the parodies echoed the plots of the Sennett shorts in which he abducts women from their suitors. In a May 1936 cartoon, Let It Be Me, Mr. Bingo is a spats-wearing cock of the walk, who croons for PBC [the Poultry Broadcasting Company] and seduces and abandons an innocent hen in favor of a curvaceous French capon. The hen’s dumb-cluck boyfriend avenges her by smashing a radio and punching Mr. Bingo before marrying the hen. They have five chicks, one of whom chirps bu-bu-bu-boo. Merrie Melodies quickly followed it with Bingo Crosbyana, this time prompting a suit in which Bing’s attorney, John O’Melveny, argued that the title character was depicted as a “vainglorious coward.” The complaint had no motive beyond harassment. Warners cartoonists gave Bing a wide berth for a couple of years, during which his representatives developed a better sense of humor. Bing was back on the drawing board by 1938, albeit less derisively.)
A blanket skewering of radio itself provided Bing with his opportunity to return to Hollywood in style. The talk of Broadway in early 1932 was William Ford Manley’s play Wild Waves, which satirically traced the rise of a broadcast star. One of its producers, D. A. Doran, was affiliated with the story department at Paramount Pictures and persuaded the studio to purchase the film rights. By February Paramount let it be known it was considering Bing for the lead role. A New York Daily News columnist cheered, “Should be Bing’s meat!” 63 Paramount negotiated with Sennett and Everett to obtain Bing’s participation and signed him to a one-picture deal — a deal that would have Bing working his way west in just about every Paramount-Publix theater en route.
* * *
As his star rose during the first six months of 1932, Bing began to extricate himself from a surfeit of agents. Early in the year, Ev was taking 10 percent of his income while Marchetti was taking another 20 percent. Bing was obliged to the lawyer for getting him out of the mess at the Grove and vetting his CBS contract, but he now rankled at paying him a fifth of his earnings when they were on opposite coasts and Marchetti no longer did much, if anything, for him. Having organized Bing Crosby, Ltd., with himself, Bing, and Barris as equal partners, Marchetti demanded $100,000 for his third. Bing wired another Los Angeles attorney, John O’Melveny, to handle the situation. O’Melveny represented Sue Carol and once helped Dixie with her Fox contract; he had seen Bing at the Grove and was later introduced to him by Sue at a party she gave for Bing and Dixie when they were married. His negotiations with Marchetti resulted in the astonishingly low settlement of $15,000 and established O’Melveny as a permanent member of the Crosby organization, representing Bing in all legal matters for the rest of their lives.
Edward Small presented more of a problem. Bing had stopped paying him his 10 percent, claiming that Small verbally released him from their 1930 contract on the condition that Bing settle with him upon his return to Los Angeles. Small denied ever relieving Bing of his obligations. When the Paramount deal was rumored, he sued for $20,000, based on his estimate of Bing’s two-year earnings as $200,000 (“I wish that were true,” Bing told a reporter); 64 when the movie deal was confirmed, he enlarged his demand by an additional $85,000. Newspaper accounts feigned surprise that such sums could be earned from crooning, and Bing bristled at having his finances publicized. After one of his Paramount salary checks was attached by the sheriff, Bing settled out of court.
Bing needed a publicist. His brother Ted (third-oldest of the siblings, after Larry and Everett) had made a game try in December 1931 from his home in Spokane, pitching Bing’s story to Time. Ted received a smug response from a member of the editorial department with the improbable name Eleanor Hard: “I am afraid the Bing Crosby suggestion won’t be suitable for FORTUNE. Thanks for your suggestion, however.” 65 Fortune”? He wrote back that he had meant Time, which recently ran a story on Alice Joy, “The Dream Singer,” a vaudevillian who did a daily fifteen-minute show. “The incidents in her rise to fame are not nearly so startling as those to be found in a history of Bing’s,” he argued: “[Bing] heads the list of radio singers — he is in his third month at the New York Paramount — his motion picture ‘shorts’ are breaking records — his records are best sellers — and his latest success is in song writing.” 66 Though Ted harbored aspirations as a manager and writer, he was disinclined to leave Washington. Brother Larry, on the other hand, was raring to go, and Bing gave him the job of redefining his reputation as one of professionalism and sobriety. The FDR era was about to commence. Within a year Prohibition would be repealed. There was no reason to drink anymore — except maybe the Depression.
Doreen Wilde (above) appeared with dancer Bobby Thompson in the same vaudeville show (Syncopation Ideas) that introduced Crosby and Rinker to California audiences, 1925. Alison McMahan Collection
On January 1, 1926, the Spokane Chronicle reported on Al and Bing’s first variety tour. Bing Crosby Collection, FoleyCenter, Gonzaga University
The Rhythm Boys at play: Al Rinker at the piano, Harry Barris on the ground, Bing with cymbal and baton. Mickey Kapp Collection
Paul Whiteman’s photograph helped sell the sheet music for the Rhythm Boys’ biggest hit, “Mississippi Mud,” 1927. Gary Giddins Collection
“Am I too suave or sveldt… Brush by Fuller.” Bing, mustachioed and natty, had this picture taken in New York and inscribed it to his brother Ted. Howard Crosby Collection
Gus Arnheim led the famous orchestra at the Cocoanut Grove. Elsie Perry Collection
A publicity photo of Bing and Eddie Lang, the highest-paid sideman in the country before his untimely death.
Gary Giddins Collection
Six scenes from the short subjects Bing made for Mack Sennett. In Dream House, he gets black housepaint on his face, leading a black casting director to hire him as a black actor; in Billboard Girl, the swishy brother of Bing’s paramour pretends to be her and Bing can’t tell the difference. Note that he almost always wore a hat to avoid the dreaded
“scalp doily.” Jon Pro tas
Larry Crosby was brought on board to handle Bing’s publicity and collaborated with brother Ted on a fictionalized biography. Bing Crosby Collection, Foley Center, Gonzaga University
Jack Kapp revolutionized the recording industry and chose many of Bing’s songs between 1931 and 1949. Elsie Perry Collection
Three Crosby brothers, top to bottom: bandleader Bob, Bing, and manager Everett (“the wrong Crosby”).
Ron Bosley Collection
The October 1934 issue of RadioStars celebrated the crooner who helped place radios in millions of homes. Gary Giddins Collection
Bing’s ambivalence about tobacco sponsorship was evident in a 1944 print campaign in which he allowed himself to be quoted only on the matter of friendship.
Eric Anderson Collection
In the weeks before his 1931 network radio debut, Bing auditioned a couple of songs as his theme before settling on “Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)”-a perfect choice. Gary Giddins Collection
When Rudy Vallee first heard Bing, he observed, “My time is short.” Bing thumbs through Radio Mirror with Rudy on the cover, 1933. Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences