by Gary Giddins
The Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company had introduced the Kraft Music Revue in 1933, for the express purpose of promoting a faux-mayonnaise concoction called Miracle Whip. Doubling as sandwich spread and salad dressing, the new product appealed to Depression purses and deficient palates and received a dynamic send-off with a program that starred Al Jolson, music commentator Deems Taylor, and Paul Whiteman, whose Rhythm Boys then included Johnny Mercer. An immediate success, that show, like all network shows, was created by the sponsor’s advertising agency — in this instance, the powerful J. Walter Thompson, specifically Thompson’s visionary chief of broadcast production, John Reber. Writer Carroll Carroll, who played a decisive role in unleashing Bing’s radio id, wrote of the man who put him on the agency’s payroll: “The fact that I met the unbelievable Reber, one of the most inspired and inspiring showmen of the Golden Age of Radio, while he was clad in Chinese red pajamas is the only thing that kept me from being scared to death of him.” 7 Reber, a tall, gaunt man, had launched hit programs for Rudy Vallée, Burns and Allen, Eddie Cantor, and Edgar Bergen, among others. Carroll contributed to most of those shows but came into his own as sole writer of the New York—based Kraft Music Revue.
When Jolson took sabbaticals to work in California, as he often did, Reber — knowing that radio waves were especially responsive to deeper voices — sought personable baritones to fill in. He employed a few unknowns who remained unknown, compensating for their mediocrity with an impressive rotation of celebrated guests from Broadway, jazz, and opera. When Jolson left for good, Reber renamed the hour Kraft Music Hall and promoted Whiteman to host. White man, typically, presided over a showcase for his musicians and band, contrary to Reber’s desire for a more diverse variety program. To Reber’s relief, Whiteman refused to change his modus operandi, freeing J. Walter Thompson to pursue — now that Woodbury proved Bing had the makings of a radio personality — the hottest baritone of all. Whiteman, in turn, was picked up by Woodbury.
During his fruitful August trip to Saratoga, the day after the recording session with the Dorsey Brothers, Bing appeared as Paul’s radio guest for what the cheese company regarded as a de facto audition. He also sang that evening at Whiteman’s opening night at the Riviera Club. Four months later, in December, the KMH baton officially passed from the bandleader to his erstwhile crooner — a formality spread over four Thursday-night shows, for which Whiteman served as host in New York while Bing was wired in from Hollywood, taking his cues on the telephone. The audio engineer responsible for this sleight of hand was a young wizard named Murdo MacKenzie, who went on to record and eventually transcribe and produce Bing’s radio ventures for three decades.
Bing was paid $3,000 for each of those four performances, a series that began shakily despite long rehearsals. Following the “Miracle Fanfare,” announcer Ford Bond introduced Whiteman, who explained that the featured guest was not in the Music Hall, but in Hollywood with Jimmy Dorsey’s “swell” orchestra. This was to be a big night, Whiteman continued, because “Bing is not only a swell singer and a swell guy, but he happens to be one of the best friends I’ve got in all the world. So naturally, I’m mighty happy to have him with us.” 8 As a token of his esteem, Whiteman offered a medley of Crosby hits, from “Mississippi Mud” to “I Wish I Were Aladdin.” Then the microphone passed to Bing.
The verdict at Thompson was divided, but the enthusiasm of director Cal Kuhl carried the day; he was placed in charge of the show. Kuhl wrote in his program report, “[Dorsey] still nervous at playing for Bing. It’ll wear off shortly.” 9 He also noted the more pressing problem of Bing’s tendency to stand too close to the mike. For the third show, a lectern was placed in front of Bing to force him to keep his distance. On the last of the four dual broadcasts with Whiteman, a comic named Bob Burns came into his own. A vaudevillian from Van Buren, Arkansas, billed as the Arkansas Traveler, Burns had appeared occasionally with Whiteman and Rudy Vallée, to little response. He personified the kind of rube humor that amused Bing back in his “Bingville Bugle” days and would now thrive as Bing’s sidekick on KMH and in two films. KMH even signed him as Bing’s summer replacement, and Paramount starred him in his own low-budget films.
On January 2, 1936, broadcasting over station KFI at 7:00 P.M. Pacific time from NBC’s Studio B, a temporary setup on the back lot at RKO, Bing finally presided as sole host of the Kraft Music Hall, his radio home for the next decade. From the beginning, KMH juggled classics and pop, the concert stage and Hollywood. On the first show, teenage violinist Ruggiero Ricci played a classical number and director Cecil B. De Mille participated in a scripted interview. Don Wilson announced, Jimmy Dorsey’s band underscored Bing’s rhythmic zing, and Burns demonstrated a musical instrument of his own invention: a brass contraption made of sliding pipes with a funnel at one end, resembling a kitchen-sink trombone but sounding more like a jug. He called it a bazooka, after the sound it made, and his featured numbers became so popular that the name was later appropriated by the army for short-range rocket launchers.
Burns’s job included welcoming the audience (the studio accommodated 400) and asking it to withhold what other stars craved. He appeared just before airtime, introduced himself and the host (“that fella back there in the corner is Bing Crosby”), 10 and said:
The Kraft people welcome you all here and ask you not to applaud, but if you find something funny, feel free to laugh. Now, when the green light turns to red, we will be on the air. And then, when the red light goes off and the green light comes on again, if you feel like applauding, please do. 11
In his program report for the first show, Kuhl complained about Bing’s stubborn hugging of the mike and worried, “Show may need a bit of working over to find correct formula to the Crosby style and personality.” 12 Improvement was immediate. Following the second installment, Kuhl exulted, “Crosby in fine fettle. Show changed from opening program and now is more in the Crosby style, which is distinctive and different.” 13 He found it well engineered and fast moving, especially praising contributions by classical pianist Mischa Levitski and commentator Rupert Hughes. Bing even held back on the mike. The jazz and humor quotient were raised by old friend Joe Venuti, whose impertinent, monosyllabic wit invariably made Bing laugh and who, in the argot of musicians, could swing you into bad health. 14 On the next few shows, guests included John Barrymore (who arrived in his cups yet, steadied by Bing, flawlessly rendered Hamlet’s soliloquy), Percy Grainger, Joe E. Brown, Leopold Stokowski, and Marina Schubert, a minor actress whose singing made her an early KMH favorite.
The February 6 show was memorable. Walter Huston’s dramatic reading fell flat, but he enchanted listeners by reminiscing about his years in vaudeville and movingly croaking a song — in effect, a prelude to his triumph in the 1938 musical Knickerbocker Holiday and his renowned recording of the score’s only hit, “September Song.” Elusive Russian pianist Josef Lhevinne, however, showed a slackening in his fabled technique; “the mike is cruel,” Kuhl wrote. 15 Most important, that night marked the KMH debut of Bing’s new announcer, Ken Carpenter.
Don Wilson was well known as Jack Benny’s corpulent foil, and KMH wanted a fresh personality to serve as Bing’s man. Ken Carpenter was made to order. Mildly stentorian and quick on his feet, he was a sincere, gentle, and never unctuous pitchman. Like Benny’s Wilson, Carpenter became an essential part of the show, an agile straight man who relished every opportunity for clowning. Bing called him “a genuine professional radioman. He made me look good every time. He could do a lot of things with that big voice of his. He’d kinda surprise you. He could break you up putting on some kind of character — a rube or something like that.” 16
Carpenter was born in Illinois in 1900 and, after relocating to Los Angeles, was hired to emcee the Cocoanut Grove broadcasts featuring the Rhythm Boys. At the time Bing took over KMH, he was reminded of Ken’s abilities listening to him announce the Rose Bowl. The chemistry between the two men was evident: they both loathed pomposity. Carpenter was even willi
ng to accept the task of manually ringing the NBC chimes — the network’s famous three-note trademark — before it became a push-button job. Their association was all business but engendered mutual loyalty. Ken announced other programs (including The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show, One Man’s Family, and The Lux Radio Theater) but was known chiefly for his long association with Crosby. Like Murdo MacKenzie, he worked with Bing after the war and remained with him through his last radio series, in 1962. In 1976 Ken presented Bing with the Armstrong Award in recognition of his pioneering work in the medium.
KMH, an instant success, would ultimately reach a weekly audience of some 50 million, a Thursday-night ritual across the country. Riotous laughter and roof-raising musical numbers were not the goal; the idea was to engage the listener’s smile and sense of involvement, as if KMH were a family circle that just happened to comprise superb musical entertainers. An open-house feeling was underscored by the diversity of Bing’s guest list, which has never been equaled. Suddenly radio was an eminent address — not just an obligatory promotional stop. For a while the movie studios held out, restricting their biggest stars and imposing arbitrary conditions on those they let appear; players contracted to 20th Century-Fox, for example, were required to mention studio chief Darryl Zanuck. B-list players appreciated the exposure as well as the work; concert artists relished the chance to be heard by millions. No other program in broadcast history did as much to introduce Americans to classical music and its stars, whom Bing chaperoned with casual respect, presenting their talents as a non-medicinal contrast to the pop tunes handled by himself and Jimmy Dorsey’s twelve-piece band.
In his first year alone, Bing’s KMH visitors included Spencer Tracy, Alice Faye, Andres Segovia, Charlie Ruggles, Leonard Pennario, Dorothy Wade, Lotte Lehmann, Ann Sothern, Bronislaw Hubermann (who insisted the piano be retuned to European pitch while the show was on the air), Patsy Kelly, Emanuel Feuermann, Lyda Roberti, Virginia Bruce, Grete Stuckgold, Edward Everett Horton, Albert Spalding, Binnie Barnes, Rudolph Ganz, Joan Crawford, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Efrem Zimbalist, ZaSu Pitts, Fritz Leiber, the California Society of Ancient Instruments, Louis Prima, Rose Bampton, the Avalon Boys, Frank Morgan, Bette Davis, Fyodor Chaliapin (who slowed the show by ad-libbing but utterly enchanted Bing), George Jessel, Norma Talmadge, Edith Fellows, Pat O’Brien, Toscha Seidel, Martha Raye, Frances Farmer, Norman Taurog, Jean Arthur, Bert Wheeler, Robert Taylor, Robert Young, Dolores Costello, Louis Armstrong, Alison Skipworth, Elizabeth Rethberg, Dorothy Lamour, Joan Bennett, Ruth Chatterton, Slip Madigan (the football coach), Josephine Hutchinson, Warren William, Iona’s Hawaiians, Cary Grant, Elissa Landi, Adolphe Menjou, Gladys George, Mary Astor, Gene Raymond, Rochelle Hudson, Bruce Cabot, James Gleason, Gregor Piatigorsky, Anita Louise, Jose Iturbi, and Art Tatum, some of them appearing two or three times or more, plus those previously mentioned, as well as regulars (notably the Paul Taylor Choristers), sketch actors, and many others — all during 1936. As Barry Ulanov wrote, “The longhairs were shortened; the crew-cuts were lengthened.” 17 The result was unprecedented cultural democratization.
The most important figure on the program, beyond Bing, was the writer who serendipitously became his collaborator in creating Bing’s KMH self: the talented, elfin, and cheerfully sardonic Carroll Carroll. When Bing was hired, Thompson initially assigned him a writer in its West Coast office, Sam Moore. But two months after Bing took over, Moore left the agency. Rather than bring in an outsider, Reber asked Carroll to head west and take his place. Moore had spent the month before Bing’s first KMH show trailing after him like a puppy, trying to learn the Crosby lingo, an effort that Carroll redoubled. He knew better than to create a character for Bing. Although radio was a medium of pioneering intimacy, its first dictum was to fake sincerity. But Crosby, Carroll acknowledged, had little capacity for fakery. He could not play a fictional character like Jack Benny’s vain skinflint, nor could he assume the role of humanitarian or spokesman as Eddie Cantor had. Bing could only be himself — modest, playful, intelligent, and appealingly aloof. Carroll’s challenge was to allow Bing to be Bing, only more so.
Though in later years he published an important memoir of his radio years, None of Your Business, Carroll was sparing with details about his background. He was born Carroll Weinschenk in New York in 1902 and dropped out of high school to write. He traveled for a while, working briefly as a farmhand, and when he returned to New York, his stories and poems began to appear regularly in humor magazines as well as the Saturday Evening Post, Life, and The New Yorker; he wrote a radio column for the New York Sunday World. Sixty years later announcer Ken Roberts remembered his poems as “brilliant.” 18 But they did not pay the rent, so Carroll began taking public-relations assignments, which led him to John Reber and his Chinese pajamas. Bespectacled and short and pleasantly owlish, he was soon recognized as one of the best comedy writers in radio. Actor Eddie Bracken described him as “a little unassuming guy who loved good comedy in a serious way, a pleasure to be with, just a regular old shoe, you know? You couldn’t find anybody more natural or wonderful than Carroll Carroll.” 19
Bing was somewhat less enthralled and, to the writer’s annoyance, kept Carroll at a distance. Their first meeting was a chance encounter outside Studio B, after a rehearsal. “Glad to know you,” Bing said as Kuhl introduced them. But when he learned that Carroll was the new writer from New York, Bing said merely, “Ohhhhh? Lots of luck,” and strode off. 20 Carroll had already sized up the man, observing him during the rehearsal: “Bing, wearing a porkpie hat, a dark blue outboard shirt, henna slacks, and black and white golf shoes, was smoking a pipe, doping a race, and running through a new tune, with Jimmy Dorsey reminding him of it on the saxophone. Nothing could have been more typical.” 21
Bing’s clashing clothes, which reflected the fact that he was colorblind, became a running gag, as much a part of the Crosby persona as Jack Benny’s cheapness — though, in this instance, grounded in reality. Bing could not tell red from green; he was able to drive because traffic lights were all the same to him — red on top, green on bottom. Carroll recalled once pointing out to Bing that he was wearing different socks, black and red. Bing looked down and replied, “That’s funny. They both fit.” Asked on another occasion if he knew the color of his socks, Bing answered, “Dark?” 22 Lines like that are found treasure for a comedy writer, but not necessarily usable. Color-blindness is no joke. The trick was to make fun of the Hawaiian shirts and array of hats (Bing never wore his rug on the air), the motley of plaids and stripes, without suggesting a disability.
As they began to work together, Carroll realized that he and Bing shared a fascination with language and a mutual love of show-business eccentrics. (Bracken recalled their hilariously trading stories about actor Charlie Butterworth.) Carroll played on those interests to flesh out Bing’s radio character. For a while Bing resisted speaking more than was necessary; as late as 1946 he argued that listeners wanted to hear him sing, not talk, and he had a habit of severely pruning his dialogue. But as Joe Bigelow — formerly Bige of Variety and by 1946 the Thompson account executive in charge of KMH — noted, for all his protests Bing actually liked talking once he got going, especially trading lines with fast comics. 23 Carroll understood that. He began jotting down the odd words and bizarre slang that peppered Bing’s conversation and put them into the scripts.
“That ain’t English,” Bob Burns observed, “that’s a language called Crosby.” 24 A 1938 issue of the sponsor’s house magazine, Cheesekraft, published a Bing Crosby glossary: “the full treatment” (a good job), “prayer bones” (knees), “I pass” (I give up), “snozzy little ketch” (a yacht), “I seem to be playing infield” (I’m all confused), “let’s have a recount” (I’m still confused), “go in there and pitch” (give them a good show), “a dinger” (a honey), “a whingdinger” (superlative), “fret-tin’ cuticle” (worrying), “zingy” (quick), “in the groove” (down the alley), “shooting gallery” (movie theater), 25 and dozens more,
some borrowed from vaudeville and jazz, others of unknown origin, like the one that tickled Miriam Hopkins about dropping a load of pumpkins, or Carroll’s favorite among Bing’s on-air quips, spoken to trumpeter Wingy Manone after a solo: “Man, that was dirtier than a Russian horse-doctor’s valise.” 26
Carroll’s routine was straightforward and full-time. He spent the weekend interviewing upcoming guests to get a feel for the way they spoke, looking for any quirks that could be written into the patter. He explained, “The policy was to talk to highbrows as if they were athletes and athletes as if they were highbrows.” 27 On Monday and Tuesday he wrote the script, delivering complete copies to Bing and Burns, and applicable sections to the guests. The next day he collected okays and suggestions from the guests. Not until Thursday morning did he receive Bing’s edits, which Carroll was free to incorporate or ignore. Thursday’s rehearsal was conducted in segments, each timed, but usually not in order. There was never a complete run-through, so only Bing knew how the entire show would play. Carroll emphasized one reason the show seemed so informal: what other programs considered dress rehearsal, KMH presented as the actual program, aired live Thursday evening at seven.
For Bing, of course, KMH was anything but full-time. He was also making three movies and recording, on average, forty records a year. All of which he seemed, at times, to treat as necessary intrusions on his primary interests, those of a gentleman sportsman. In that capacity, too, he made history. The year before he took charge of KMH, Bing purchased his first racehorse, Zombie, who placed and showed in two races at Santa Anita, representing Bing’s colors of blue and gold. At the same time, he hired as his trainer Albert Johnson, a Spokane boy who left a few years before Bing to make his name as a top jockey, winning the Kentucky Derby in 1922. Bing built stables and an exercise track at Rancho Santa Fe, and before the year was out he had fifteen horses, and soon after that twenty-one. He was betting and losing heavily, and his compulsion would worsen before he had it under control. But he earned respect for his serious love of the turf. Trainer Noble Threewitt recalled him arriving at 4-4:30 A.M., an hour before the track opened, to pad around the stables, schmooze with the trainers, and read the papers. 28