Bing Crosby

by Gary Giddins

  Thus, Bing was the obvious person to approach when William A. Quigley, a former football star, successful stockbroker, and occasional racing official, got the idea of establishing a track at Del Mar, not far from Bing’s Rancho Santa Fe getaway. Bing loved the idea, and the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club was incorporated May 5, 1936. This was to be largely a Hollywood project, financed and promoted by film stars, whose regular presence at the track would heighten its appeal for the general public. Bing, the primary stockholder, called for a board meeting the day after incorporation, at Warner Bros.’ studio. Executives were elected: Bing president, actor Pat O’Brien (the second-largest stockholder) vice president, Everett Crosby secretary-treasurer, and Oliver Hardy and director Lloyd Bacon officers. The other film people appointed to the executive committee were Gary Cooper, Joe E. Brown, David Butler, William LeBaron, and Leo McCarey, who soon dropped out, to be replaced by Clark Gable and George Raft. Remaining directors, drawn from the business world, included millionaire Charles Howard and his son Lindsay Howard. Quigley was named general manager. When the stock offering failed to take off, Bing and O’Brien borrowed on life-insurance policies to complete construction of the track. They filed an application with the California Horse Racing Board for a twenty-five-day meet, beginning July 3, 1937. On the day the world first learned of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, Bing, in a loose shirt and yachting cap, personally opened the gates and — as newsreel cameras turned — welcomed customers and collected their tickets. His horse, High Strike, won the first race.

  At the same time, Bing pursued his primary love, golf. In 1936 he won the Lakeside Golf Championship, the first of several such victories. Though he didn’t play on a professional level, he was widely conceded to be one of the best in Hollywood, his low handicap (two) occasionally contested by those who claimed he was a scratch player; twenty years after Bing’s death, Bob Hope could be heard complaining that without the handicap they would have been more evenly matched. 29 On one occasion, Bing qualified for the national amateur golf championship. Golf expert Toney Penna noted, “If he could have hit the ball twenty to thirty yards farther, he could have been one of the country’s top amateurs.” 30

  Bing’s main contribution to the game was as a popularizer and organizer. Penna (who scored fourth in the 1938 U.S. Open) put it into his head to create a pro-amateur invitational. Bing was intrigued by the idea of a competition in which Lakeside members and other low-handicap amateurs could team up with pros. The obvious place to hold it was the course near his home at Rancho Santa Fe. In February 1937, seven months before Del Mar opened, the Rancho Santa Fe Amateur-Pro — later known throughout the sporting world as the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am Tournament — made its debut. It was a triumph despite rains that washed out the first day’s play as well as the bridge leading to a green; firemen and policemen in hip boots piggybacked the players across the water. Sam Snead won $500 carding a 68. Bing came in with an 87. The Crosby, the first and longest-running celebrity golf tournament, allocated all proceeds to charities.

  All this was grist for Carroll Carroll’s mill, albeit with alterations. Winning ponies, of which Bing had quite a few, were not as funny as losers, so Bing’s limping nags became a running joke. His obsessive golfing, in Carroll’s hand, was just another indication of Bing’s laid-back, even lazy, approach to life. Obviously, Bing was never lazy, just relaxed. Fans, who confused the two, did not get many glimpses of the iron discipline that kept him on track and on time. His punctuality never wavered; the old days of sheepish arrivals were long past. Film, recording, and radio directors grew accustomed to arriving in the studio or on the set to find Bing already there. For Bing, a 5:30 A.M. call did not mean 5:40, and though he apparently never upbraided those who wandered in late, the sight of the leading man alone on an empty set, reading the newspaper or a racing form, humbled many of his coworkers into tightening their own schedules.

  Conversely, Bing left promptly at the designated time, no matter what, even in the middle of a scene. “Tell him exactly when you wanted him and he’d be there,” Carroll wrote, but the minute the session was over, he was “like a school kid who knew the bell ought to ring.” 31 Bing considered punctuality a matter of courtesy. If he was on call to the studio from 6:00 to 4:00 and had another appointment at 4:30, he figured he ought to be prompt for both. The devil might tempt him with pleasures of the flesh, but never with idleness. That such exactitude could coexist with the insouciance and imperturbability for which he was renowned dumbfounded coworkers, especially those leading ladies who felt neglected because he was always pushing off to another appointment. Even fooling around had its place and time. By categorically following the clock, Bing was never rushed, never harried.

  As Carroll fed Bing’s own speech patterns back to him, Bing began to relish the tongue twisters that emerged from the dependable rhetorical device of mixing highfalutin words with slang. A few weeks into the job, Carroll wrote openings for Bing that even friends thought were impromptu. For example, the May 7 show:

  Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Bing Crosby welcoming you to another of our regular Thursday-evening soirees in the Kraft Music Hall. And we hope you’re all comfortably settled by your “soiradios” — the Bob Burns influence. At any rate, in addition to the insidious Burns, Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra, and the Paul Taylor Choristers, we have with us in the Hall this evening my friend George Raft. We thought maybe the Raft wouldn’t get back from location to be with us tonight, but I’m glad to report that the smooth and sinister yet romantic Georgie made it. Mr. Toscha Seidel, one of the greatest violinists in the world, is also with us this evening, I’m proud to say. And Miss Una Merkel, MGM’s very popular and extremely busy young commediene. 32

  This was followed by patter between Bing and Merkel, with exchanges like:

  Bing: How long ago was that?

  Una: Goodness, no southern gentleman asks a girl to name dates.

  Bing: I’m from Spokane.

  Una: That’s far enough south of Alaska to make you a southern gentleman.

  And:

  Bing: Do you really think it’s wise for a girl to give up school to go on the stager?

  Una: What’s the difference? It’s an education. One way, you get smart by degrees. The other way, by stages.

  Bing: I wonder what a southern gentleman would say to that?

  Una: What do you say to it? Do you think a boy who wants to should go on the stage or stay in school?

  Bing: What’s the difference? It’s an education. One way, you get smart by degrees. The other way, by stages.

  Una: I just said that.

  Bing: I know. I wanted you to hear how it sounded.

  And for a closer to the five-minute “interview”:

  Una: By the way, now that you know all about me, how did you happen to get into show business?

  Bing: Well, you see I was…

  Una: Thank you. What was your first big dramatic part?

  Bing: Miss Una Merkel, ladies and gentlemen…

  Una: Do you think crooning is here to stay?

  Bing: Miss Merkel will…

  Una: Do the other two Rhythm Boys miss you much?

  Bing: Jimmy, Una’s on…

  Bing was twenty-seven and Dixie was eighteen when they married, on September 29, 1930, at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Hollywood. She was far more famous than he was, and the wedding photo was widely published. Susan Crosby Collection

  In 1934, shortly before the birth of the twins, Bing and Dixie bought a sixty-five acre property in Rancho Santa Fe. Bing hired Lillian J. Rice to restore the nineteenth-century Spanish style, but added modern improvements, including a tennis court. Susan Crosby Collection

  Bing, his mother, and James Cagney celebrate the christening of Bing’s first son, Gary, on October 8, 1933. Ron Bosley Collection

  In 1936 Bing and Dixie built their beloved mansion on six acres at 10500 Camarillo Street in the Toluca Lake section of North Hollywood. It would be destroyed by fire in
January 1943. Architectural Digest

  Dixie with her fourth son, Linnie, 1938. She was a dedicated tennis player until a kidney infection forced her to quit. Rory Burke Collection

  Top: Bing was a voracious reader, even when he wasn’t posing for publicity shots in his Camarillo Street home. Architectural Digest

  Bottom: On the set of Anything Goes, Bing posed with his costar Ethel Merman and two Paramount players who dropped by, Fred MacMurray and Bing’s old friend Gary Cooper.

  Ron Bosley Collection

  At a 1953 party Errol Flynn demonstrated his admiration for Bing’s refusal to wear a toupee when he wasn’t working. Linnie is seated on Bing’s left. Susan Crosby Collection

  Bing named a horse Decca Joe, after Joe Perry, the prolific producer who recorded many celebrated hits in the thirties and forties. Elsie Perry Collection

  A frequent guest on Bing’s Kraft Music Hall was Lucille Ball, shown here with Bing and an unidentified friend. Gary Giddins Collection

  Harry Crosby visited Bing on the set of Were Not Dressing, 1934.

  Elsie Perry Collection

  Bing and Dixie on the lawn of their home with, left to right, Phillip, Gary, Linnie, and Dennie, 1940.

  Susan Crosby Collection

  Bing looked forward to working with Louis in Doctor Rhythm, a picture plagued with mishaps; to Bing’s chagrin, the Armstrong footage was cut and apparently lost, November 1937.

  Gary Giddins Collection

  Jack Kapp, Joe Perry, and an engineer listen from the recording booth as Frances Langford, Bing, and Louis Armstrong record the Pennies from Heaven medley, August 17, 1936.

  Elsie Perry Collection

  The Boswell Sisters alternated with the Mills Brothers as regulars on Bing’s Woodbury radio show. Bing later recorded famous duets with Connie Boswell, center.

  Ron Bosley Collection

  ABOVE: The Crosbys’ Westwood Marching and Chowder Club minstrel shows were major Hollywood social events in the late 1930s. Bing poses with (left to right) Bessie Burke, Midge and Herb Polesie, Dixie, and Johnny Burke. BELOW: Seated with an unidentified blackface actor, Pat O’Brien, and Jerry Colonna, Bing enjoys Bessie Burke’s backless chaps.

  Rory Burke Collection

  Bing takes the baton from bandleader and songwriter Harry Owens, after “Sweet Leilani” became the surprise hit of 1937 and helped turn Los Angeles into a Hawaiian theme park.

  Len Weissman/Elsie Perry Collection

  At which point the band struck up a loud and hasty introduction for her song.

  Bing kept clear of the commercials, segueing with a line like “And here is Ken Carpenter to say a word on behalf of the management.” Then he sang his first song, backed by Dorsey’s “swanky swingsters.” No matter what the song, Bing sang with his accustomed rhythmic lilt when Jimmy or his sub, Joe Venuti, led the band. Then he would trade a few lines with Bob Burns, whom Bing usually called by his given name, Robin. Burns would do seven or eight minutes about his relatives — the drunk uncle, the shrewish sister-in-law — and close with a bazooka solo. Frequently the patter with Burns or another guest would produce an uncommon word, like bauxite, that recurred as a comic motif throughout the show. One Crosby segment created a tradition, imitated on radio and TV: he would offer a few clues to a bygone day and give the audience the space of a station break to guess the correct year. Then he sang a representative song. On this show the year was 1928, and the song “June Night.”

  Time now for the second guest, George Raft, who spoke of his big break in Scarface, plugged the picture he was currently filming, and talked baseball — all very informal, very scripted, with a few inside curves:

  Raft: Who’s taking care of the store now?

  Bing: You mean the studio? Paramount?

  Raft: Yes. Any changes made since I’ve been away?

  Bing: Oh, A. Zukor’s back in charge.

  Raft: You mean that racehorse, Azucar?

  Bing: No, no — Adolph Zukor, the little giant. He’s running things now.

  Raft: Oh, I see. Say, what’s this gag about bauxite? All I’ve heard since I’ve been here this evening is bauxite. What is the stuff?

  Bing: I’ll tell you, George. I’m going on location Saturday and you’re going tonight. When I come back and you come back, there may be some report from the research committee. I’ll tell you then.

  Then Bing sang, sometimes a medley and sometimes one of his current records, but often not. The few surviving recordings of the 1930s Kraft shows are treasured not least because he never formally recorded more than half the songs featured on the air, including dozens of good ones, like Berlin’s “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket” and Ellington’s “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart.”

  Next came the longhair spot. Bing introduced Seidel with straightforward biographical remarks, noting his Oslo debut, his first American visit, and his 1,100 recitals, winding up with a peculiarly Crosbyan verbal turn, starting high and landing low: “Mr. Seidel favors us this evening with the scherzando movement from Lalo’s violin concerto Symphonie Espagnole, and when you hear Mr. Seidel play it, if you don’t think it’s swell music, then you can’t pick tunes for me.” After the number, they talked a minute. Seidel was eager to get back East for the fights:

  Seidel: But before I leave for New York, I’d like to know what bauxite is.

  Bing: I’d be glad to tell you, but later. I don’t want Burns to hear.

  Seidel: Well, I’ll wait around then.

  Bing: And while he’s waiting around, ladies and gentlemen, Toscha Seidel plays as an encore a composition by one of his colleagues, Fritz Kreisler’s very lovely “Schôn Rosmarin.”

  That number was followed by a combo from the Dorsey outfit playing an original jazz riff, “Coolin’ Off.” The show was winding down. After the third and final commercial, Burns explained to Bing that bauxite is “a ferruginous aluminum hydroxide,” spelling the chemical equation. Bing, in what was often the hour’s high point, settled into a ballad — tonight, “The Touch of Your Lips.” He then named the guests for the next week’s show as “Where the Blue of the Night” swelled behind him.

  The show’s most caustic critic was invariably the director. Kuhl described the May 7 program as “O.K.,” before laying on his comments. Bing was on top of the mike again: “An elephant never forgets and a Crosby never remembers,” he wrote in his report. The show suffered from “spring fever” and lacked “the usual pep, pace, and vivacity.” Merkel was good, but she “should learn to play comedy.” Raft had no material. Kuhl worried that Bing came across as “disrespectful of Seidel, a la Jolson” and thought he had trouble with the key on one number. He considered only Burns to be “very good.” Even a cheese promo left a bad taste: “Kraft couples carry on the silliest conversations.” 33 Kuhl’s reservations were shared by few listeners.

  * * *

  Friends noticed that real Bing and radio Bing were sounding more and more alike, the former catching up with the latter. It was as if the object of Carroll’s study had been liberated by the resulting caricature. Predilections stressed in his scripts were embraced by Bing, and he became indistinguishable from Carroll’s takeoff. Put another way, Bing got a better sense of who he was from the role he played. In publicist Gary Stevens’s analysis, “Carroll gave Bing the suavity, savoir-faire, the throwaway personality that Bing never had, and Bing lived that part for the rest of his life.” 34 To Eddie Bracken, “Carroll’s wonderful fey way of writing just fit Bing beautifully and literally made Bing a better actor. Carroll gave him a type of characterization different than anything else on radio and also different for Bing.” 35 To Bing, Carroll’s influence was comparable to that of Jack Kapp: “He’d send a script around to my home and I’d try to rewrite the speeches he’d written for me so as to make them sound even more like me. And I’d try to put in little jokes if I could think of any. Most of them were clumsy and pointless, but once in a while I hit something mildly amusing and Carroll wouldn’t delete it if he thought it ha
d a chance of getting a laugh. The way we worked together resulted in the next best thing to ad-libbing.” 36

  But the next best thing was not good enough. To keep things lively, Carroll encouraged Bing to ad-lib a little, even if just an impromptu laugh — an infectious burbling that audiences loved. Observing how verbally dexterous Bing could be with his friends, Carroll was confident of Bing’s ability to stand his ground and quip with the best. At first, with Kuhl’s support, Carroll encouraged safe ad-libbing, the kind that takes place in rehearsal; if Bing (or a guest) came up with a zinger, it was written into the script. Carroll soon devised the subterfuge of handing Bing a slightly different script than that of his guests. The first time he tried it, he simply had a guest inquire about Bing’s latest golf score. The studio went dead for a moment as Bing paled before finally responding, “Why, about eighty-two.” When the guest asked another surprise question, Bing said, “Let’s get back to the script here.” 37 He had a fit when the show ended, threatening to quit when Kuhl told him to expect more of the same. He got used to it, however; his nervousness abated, and he began to sound more like himself. When Mischa Levitski made his third KMH appearance, the repartee began with Levitski remarking that he played better in the Music Hall than anywhere else because he could dress informally.