Bing Crosby

by Gary Giddins

  Worse, the script somehow devolved from the story of Edwards to the story of Bing. By the time it was ready to shoot, The Star Maker so little resembled Edwards and his career that the name of the protagonist was changed to Larry Earl and history was mooted with the attribution “suggested by the career of Gus Edwards.” That did not restrain Paramount from promoting “the heart-happy story of America’s greatest showman, Gus Edwards.” 4 The fictional plot concerned a conflict involving a children’s welfare organization that bans the hero’s shows and forces the hero to pioneer a newfangled invention. “It’s what they call radio or something,” one character remarks, allowing Bing/Larry/Gus to predict: “In a few years — remember this now — that little gimmick will have every star in show business singing and acting over it.” Every star but Gus Edwards, whose sole connection to radio was a local amateur talent program in Los Angeles for a couple of seasons in the mid-thirties, shortly before his retirement.

  That was not the only instance of Bing’s story subsuming Edwards’s. In the tradition of Kraft Music Hall, The Star Maker offered seventy-seven-year-old Walter Damrosch his cinema debut, playing himself, as well as accompanying and avowing the greatness of Linda Ware. What Damrosch, who had convinced Andrew Carnegie to build a concert hall on New York’s Fifty-seventh Street and Tchaikovsky to conduct its opening night, thought of her number — Tchaikovsky’s “Valse des Fleurs” with words by Frank Loesser —is anyone’s guess, as no journalist is known to have asked him. Ware is less annoying as a trilling soprano than as a barrelhouse interpreter of “The Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” to which she brings the very mannerisms Bing parodied a few years later in Going My Way. The public did not encourage her career, but several reviewers kvelled: “a brilliant coloratura, a winning personality and a pleasing countenance” (Variety). 5

  The drearily familiar Crosby character as personified by Larry Earl may be summed up by the titles of two of the songs he sings: Edwards’s “If I Was a Millionaire” (1910) and Burke and Monaco’s “A Man and His Dream.” Once again, he is the stubborn dreamer who cannot abide conventional jobs and seizes the day. What makes the picture different is that Earl acquires a wife. The preeminent stars of the Hollywood musical, like those of horror films, were rarely depicted with spouses, except in biopics. “Can you pay the grocer off with dreams?” asks Larry’s fiancée, Mary (a poorly written role played by a redheaded Mary Martin lookalike, Louise Campbell). “Sure, if you’ll just say yes,” Larry tells her, and in contrast to all his previous movies and most of those to follow, Bing marries.

  The Star Maker is, in fact, the only picture Bing ever made playing a happily married man. He was on the brink of divorce in Mack Sennett’s One More Chance and would marry and divorce in Blue Skies. He would be bitterly divorced in Man on Fire, philosophically divorced in High Society, widowed in Just for You, and in deep marital trouble in The Country Girl. He was on the prowl or celibate in everything else.

  It is not far-fetched to surmise that, in part, Bing plays a composite of his younger self and his father: the irresponsible husband who will not allow his wife to work yet cannot hold down respectable jobs that interfere with his joie de vivre. When he proposes to Mary, Larry promises her furs, diamonds, servants; eighteen months later we see her ironing in a cold-water flat as Larry spends their savings on a piano — not unlike Harry Crosby bringing home the phonograph and theater tickets while Kate despaired of paying the grocery bill. Like Kate and Dixie, Mary takes steps to ensure Larry’s success, sneaking into the car of impresario F. F. Proctor and charming him into seeing her tactless husband. Proctor installs Larry on the bottom of a bill that lists several of Bing’s favorite vaudeville artists, notably Eddie Leonard, Julian Eltinge, Van and Schenck, and Blanche Ring, most of whom he and David Butler would soon contrive to present in If I Had My Way.

  The first half of The Star Maker has many pleasantries, not least a re-creation of the Newsboys (Larry is too old to be in the act, so the picture has him discovering them on a street corner, dancing to a hurdy-gurdy). Bing enjoyed the seven newsboys, among them Darryl Hickman, whom the Crosby talent agency signed and placed in The Grapes of Wrath, a prelude to his dozens of film roles in the forties and fifties; Danny Daniels, who did much of the solo tap dancing in the picture and went on to a long career as a choreographer on stage and screen; and Dante DiPaolo, who was a specialty dancer in movies, a dance director in Las Vegas, and an actor in Italian epics and giallos. “I auditioned five times,” DiPaolo remembered. “Bing was only at the final audition. That’s when Le Roy Prinz, our dance director, told me not to change a thing, because I was singing ‘Star Dust,’ and he told me, Do it exactly that way because Bing really likes ‘Star Dust.’There must have been six, seven hundred kids from Hollywood auditioning, not just for the seven newsboys, but all the kids in ‘School Days,’ tons of auditions.” 6

  June Kuhn was a Sarah Lawrence student when she met Bob Crosby on her Easter break. Their marriage got off to a rocky start but lasted fifty-four years. This picture was taken in October 1938, about the time of the “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” session.

  Rory Burke Collection

  Harry and Kate Crosby loved the Hollywood life. Bing claimed his father used to buttonhole strangers to show them his (Bing’s) press clippings; his more forbidding mother became a habitué at the racetrack. Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

  Several members of the Crosby circle were united when the twin daughters, Rory and Regan, of Bing’s friend and lyricist Johnny Burke were baptized. Shown on the steps of Saint Ambrose Church on Fairfax Avenue, January 11, 1942, are (left to right) Sammy Cahn, Jack Mass, Barney Dean, John Scott Trotter, Phil Silvers, Bing (Rory’s godfather), Dixie (holding Rory), Bob Hope, Delores Hope (holding Regan), Skitch Henderson, Pat O’Brien, Bessie Burke (in front), David Butler (Regan’s godfather), Georgie Hardwicke, Johnny Burke, Elsie Butler, Jean Stevens, and Dr. Arnold Stevens.

  Quinn Burke Collection

  Bing volunteered for military service and was asked to entertain servicemen. During a break on the sixty-five-city Victory Caravan in 1942, he relaxed with Bert Lahr, Oliver Hardy, and James Cagney.

  Gene Lester

  Bing was almost as accomplished a fisherman as he was a golfer. He owned many dogs, and even showed some of them off at competitions.

  Susan Crosby Collection

  Bing showed up intoxicated to record “Ave Maria” on April 25, 1945, and Jack Kapp had to reschedule the session. When photographer Gene Lester asked Bing if he was aware of the hole in his pants, Bing put his finger in it and said, “Oh, Jesus, hey, but that makes it convenient, doesn’t it?”Gene Lester

  Bing shakes hands with Frank Tuttle, his favorite director of the 1930s, who brought a touch of René Clair whimsy to The Big Broadcast and achieved a blockbuster with Waikiki Wedding.Gary Giddins Collection

  A lobby card for Double or Nothing (1937) shows Bing with Mary Carlisle, who taught him something about backgammon, and Martha Raye, who made her film debut with Bing. Each appeared in three of his movies.

  Gary Giddins Collection

  David Butler, who first directed Dixie and then Bing (East Side of Heaven) posed with Bing’s music director on the Kraft Music Hall, John Scott Trotter, at a Westwood Marching and Chowder Club production.

  Rory Burke Collection

  Bing records at Decca with a full complement of strings.

  Gene Lester/Elsie Perry Collection

  Bessie Burke, Barney Dean, Everett Crosby, and Bing’s friend and neighbor Dave Shelly at a Crosby party, 1940.

  Rory Burke Collection

  In 1935 Dixie costarred with John Boles, who had aced Bing out of a big number in King of Jazz. Her career soon ended, however, and she became reclusive, though she often accompanied Bing to the track.

  above: Gary Giddins Collection

  below: Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

  Bing, the silent-comedy connoisseur, affect
s a Chaplinesque stance during one of his countless charity golf matches with Bob Hope, who almost always lost.

  Bill Milkowski Collection

  Bing and Bob wrestle during a break on Road to Singapore, 1939. Usually they wrestled over lines.

  Bill Milkowski Collection

  Dorothy Lamour had to fight for her every line once Bob and Bing got started. Np one expected Road to Singapore to break attendance records and begin a twenty-year series.

  Gary Giddins Collection

  The fake feud between Bob and Bing continued for thirty-seven years. During a trip to Spain in 1953, Bing could not resist taking his best shot.

  Susan Crosby Collection

  By 1940 Bing was on top, but all he had achieved would soon seem like a mere prelude to what was to come during the war and after.

  Gary Giddins Collection

  Indeed, the producer claimed he auditioned 1,583 kids for the picture. Several incidents from those tryouts were added to the script, including the child who turned out to be a midget and the girl who would not sing despite her mother’s panicked pleas. Bing had fun on the set. The newsboys bought him a cake to celebrate his assumed thirty-sixth birthday. When Dante failed to hear the director call cut and kept dancing, Bing put his hat on him and it came down to his mouth. Nearly sixty years later, Dante married Rosemary Clooney, who remembered an incident in the 1970s, when they were in a pro shop: “Bing said to Dante, Try on this hat, and he took off the hat and threw it to him and the hat went down to the same place as when he was a kid. ‘Cause Bing had a big head. So Dante said he felt just exactly the same way as he did back then. Oh God, it was funny, to see the admiration Dante had for Bing after all those years.” 7 On several occasions Bing brought his own kids to the set to show off the three-part harmonies of Gary (almost six) and the twins (almost five).

  That some uneasiness also existed is evident from Bing’s understated remark when asked, in 1976, about his most difficult film. “I’ve done some pictures where you didn’t quite know where they were going,” he answered. “I remember a picture called The Star Maker. The director didn’t like the picture but he had to do it — a guy named Roy Del Ruth, he was a good director — and the atmosphere on the set wasn’t too congenial because of that. Roy always treated me very well but wasn’t happy because he disliked things they had done with the script, but he had to go ahead with it. And that’s the only picture I can think of where there was even a smidgen of unpleasantness.” 8

  On one occasion, as Barry Ulanov reported, Bing exercised his power with unruffled dispatch. By this time the star was accustomed to disbursing bit parts to old friends on their uppers. He examined the cast lists for possibilities and asked assistant directors to call the people he had in mind, leaving Bing’s name out of it. Bing had asked Del Ruth’s man to contact a friend to play an elevator operator. Making up one morning, he noticed someone else in the role and asked Del Ruth, “What happened? Couldn’t you get the guy I suggested?” Del Ruth told him, “We didn’t try. We thought this fellow would be better.” Bing nodded, “Well, maybe you’re right.” 9 He took off his toupee and observed what a lovely day it was, perfect for golf. Del Ruth quickly assured Bing that he would get hold of his choice right away and that both actors would get paid.

  Bing was in superb voice. The old songs suited him as well as the new ones or better, especially the non-Edwards relic “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” beautifully sung by Bing to encourage a shy little girl during an audition and prettily shot by Karl Struss, who elsewhere puts shadows on Bing’s cheeks and focuses on his big, limpid eyes. In several scenes he is more aggressive than usual, reciting self-righteous speeches, but is splendidly disarming when teaching the kids confidence in a number that begins with a rhyming section reminiscent of Bert Williams and turns pure Bing as he sidles into Burke and Monaco’s “Go Fly a Kite.” As usual, he was billed after the title card, this time with five other cast members, undistinguished but for Ned Sparks, who was never funnier than as Larry’s child-loathing publicist.

  The Star Maker received respectable reviews and made lots of money, beating the competition in almost every city. Paramount took a full-page ad, headlined BING BUSINESS! — inexplicably crowing that it outgrossed its own competing blockbuster, Cecil B. De Mille’s Union Pacific, in seven markets, from San Francisco to Boston. Louella Parsons praised Bing for daring to appear with those little “picture stealers,” noting, quite rightly, “Never have the old songs been sung with more feeling. Yesterday’s favorite tunes take on a new flavor when Bing croons them.” 10 Time agreed that he sang them “as well as they have ever been sung” and praised the movie as “an engaging archaeological exploration into a vanished world of the U.S. amusement industry,” 11 which was certainly true of the elaborate “School Days” number, with Bing in mortarboard, goatee, and glasses on the tip of his nose.

  Despite The Star Maker’s success, Linda Ware disappeared, and poor ailing Gus Edwards, who lived another six years, got little in the way of a professional boost. One of the studio’s publicity stunts was an August 18 dinner in his honor at the Ambassador Hotel. It attracted freeloading newsmen in large numbers, but few luminaries. Bing was not present. The day before the premiere, he played in a California state golf championship at Del Monte, then went straight to Rancho Santa Fe, some said as an excuse to miss the opening. “One thing is certain,” a Time correspondent memoed his editor, “after he is through with a picture Crosby treats his time as his own, won’t go sailing around the country for studio publicity.” 12

  The Star Maker, compromised though it is by the producer’s ambition to create a star, added to Bing’s prestige as an entertainer who covered the waterfront of American show business. It also helped usher in a new genre in musicals: sham biographies of popular entertainers who made their mark before or beyond movies. Many films were made in the 1930s about nineteenth-century composers — half a dozen about Johann Strauss alone. Many others exploited pop gossip. (Jolson decked Walter Winchell in 1933 for writing a Russ Columbo melodrama, Broadway Through a Keyhole, that everyone knew was about Ruby Keeler’s involvement with a gangster before she married Jolson.) But the only major attempt at dramatizing the story of a great showman was MGM’s lavish and immensely successful The Great Ziegfeld, in 1936.

  Suddenly, in 1939, Paramount, Fox, and RKO turned out five musical biographies. Like The Star Maker, Fox’s Rose of Washington Square used a pseudonym for its thinly disguised depiction of Fanny Brice, but that was made without Brice’s consent — she sued and won a settlement. Real names were used in films purportedly telling the stories of Stephen Foster, Victor Herbert, and Vernon Castle, but they were dead, though Vernon’s wife and dancing partner, Irene, allowed RKO to turn their marriage into a Fred and Ginger vehicle. After Michael Curtiz directed James Cagney in the glimmering Yankee Doodle Dandy (George M. Cohan) in 1942, the floodgates opened: dozens of biopics, none as good, all of them fictitious, many ludicrous, especially in the casting: Victor Mature as Paul Dresser, Mickey Rooney as Larry Hart, Robert Walker as Jerome Kern (Jews were always played by conspicuously gentile Gentiles). Bing partook of the idiom, playing minstrel Dan Emmett in Dixie (1943) and testing as Will Rogers for a picture David Butler tried to launch.

  Yet The Star Maker represented for Bing not an entry into a new decade but the closing of a door on the old. Where could he have gone from there? Screening Bing’s last picture of the 1930s, how could studio bosses fail to recognize a sad portent, a future of conventional marital amusements, a dozen versions of the same script: misunderstanding at breakfast, song, compromising situation with a secretary, song, mistaken identities, song, denouement, song. Yes, Bing was a far more accomplished actor than ever before, but he was also considerably harder to cast. His comedy was mellow, not brazen; his personality likable, not fervent. He could no more essay Cary Grant screwballs than Errol Flynn swashbucklers. Bing created the quintessential light leading man with a stunning voice, and — though he had not enjoyed a
genuine smash since Waikiki Wedding — his popularity continued to hold. In 1939 he was Paramount’s top-ranked male draw (ahead of Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper, and Jack Benny) and Universal’s second-ranked (after Charles Boyer). 13 But no one could predict how his persona might develop beyond the sort of decorous romances that sneaked up on him throughout the 1930s.

  A transformation loomed ahead, triggered by the February 1940 release of Road to Singapore. In the brief interval before that picture began shooting, Bing concentrated on his recording career, continuing the prolific schedule of 1938. Usually, records had to be sacrificed when Bing was juggling a movie and his radio show, and not just because of time constraints. Each film required prerecording sessions; additional pressure on his voice was considered reckless. Yet between March and June — before and after The Star Maker — Kapp managed to squeeze in nearly a dozen sessions, eking out more than two dozen hits, though no megahits; it was the year (1939) when Glenn Miller’s sugared swing and Kay Kyser’s infantile gimmicks held sway.

  Every change in Bing’s vocal style precipitated an alteration in his stature, in the nature of his renown. This Kapp understood too well. Just as Bing’s recent movies prefigured an increasingly housebroken maturity, so his new records would reflect his standing as a classicist, the troubadour laureate of American song. Considering Crosby’s beginnings at Decca (“Just a-Wearyin’ for You”) and the wistful successes of 1938, Kapp’s increasingly retro direction was surprising only in its tenacity. The good and the bad went hand in hand: Bing made many exceptional records in 1939 while hacking his way through sentimental fluff, patriotic airs, and songs from his own distant past. As always, his primary recording obligations were his movie songs, which occasioned few complaints — the Deccas were often vastly superior to the screen versions. For the rest, he was saddled with a profusion of mossy evergreens, and looking backward more often than ahead.