by Gary Giddins
Top o’ the Morning Directed by David Miller. Produced by Robert L. Welch. Written by Edmund Beloin and Richard Breen. Photographed by Lionel Lindon. Songs by Johnny Burke-James Van Heusen; others. Cast: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Ann Blyth, Hume Cronyn, Eileen Crowe, John McIntire, Tudor Owen, Jimmy Hunt.
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (Disney/RKO) (V) Directed by Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, and James Algar. Production supervised by Ben Sharpsteen. Written by Geronimi, Bill Peet, and others, from a novel, The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, and story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” by Washington Irving. Songs by Don Raye—Gene de Paul. Bing Crosby narrates “Ichabod” (Basil Rathbone narrates “Mr. Toad”) and sings three songs.
1950
Riding High Directed and produced by Frank Capra. Written by Robert Riskin, Melville Shavelson, and Jack Rose, from a story by Mark Hellinger. Photographed by George Barnes and Ernest Laszlo. Songs by Johnny Burke—James Van Heusen; Stephen Foster; others. Cast: Bing Crosby, Coleen Gray, Raymond Walburn, Frances Gifford, Clarence Muse, William Demarest, Charles Bickford, Frankie Darro, Harry Davenport, Douglass Dumbrille, Ward Bond, Gene Lockhart, James Gleason, Percy Kilbride, Margaret Hamilton, Oliver Hardy, Joe Frisco.
Mr. Music Directed by Richard Haydn. Produced by Robert L. Welch. Written by Arthur Sheekman, from a play, Accent on Youth, by Samson Raphaelson. Photographed by George Barnes. Songs by Johnny Burke—James Van Heusen. Cast: Bing Crosby, Nancy Olson, Charles Coburn, Ruth Hussey, Robert Stack, Tom Ewell, Ida Moore, Charles Kemper, Donald Woods, the Merry Macs, Peggy Lee, Groucho Marx, Dorothy Kirsten, Marge and Gower Champion.
1951
Here Comes the Groom Directed and produced by Frank Capra. Written by Virginia Van Upp, Liam O’Brian, and Myles Connolly, from a story by Robert Risken and O’Brien. Photographed by George Barnes. Songs by Johnny Mercer—Hoagy Carmichael; Jay Livingston—Ray Evans; Giuseppe Verdi. Cast: Bing Crosby, Franchot Tone, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith, James Barton, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Connie Gilchrist, Robert Keith, H. B. Warner, Minna Gombell, Walter Catlett, Carl Switzer, Louis Armstrong, Phil Harris, Dorothy Lamour, Frank Fontaine, Cass Daley.
The Fifth Freedom (Chesterfield Cigarettes) (S,C) Korean War propaganda. Bing Crosby sings “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”
Angels in the Outfield (MGM) (C) A fantasy about baseball; Bing Crosby appears as part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
You Can Change the World (The Christophers) (S) Directed by Leo McCarey. Produced by William Perlberg. Song by Johnny Burke—James Van Heusen. Cast: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Irene Dunne, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, William Holden, Paul Douglas, Loretta Young, Ann Blythe, Fr. James Keller.
1952
The Greatest Show on Earth (C) Circus melodrama; Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are glimpsed in the bleachers.
Son of Paleface (HC)
just for You Directed by Elliott Nugent. Produced by Pat Duggan. Written by Robert Carson, from a story, “Famous,” by Stephen Vincent Benet. Photographed by George Barnes. Songs by Harry Warren-Leo Robin. Cast: Bing Crosby, Jane Wyman, Ethel Barrymore, Bob Arthur, Natalie Wood, Leon Tyler, Cora Witherspoon, Ben Lessy, Regis Toomey, the Mexican Ballet.
Road to Bali Directed by Hal Walker. Produced by Harry Tugend. Written by Frank Butler, Hal Kanter, and Bill Morrow, from a story by Butler and Tugend. Photographed by George Barnes. Songs by Johnny Burke-James Van Heusen. Cast: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Murvyn Vye, Ralph Moody, Leon Askin, Peter Coe, Michael Ansara, Carolyn Jones, Bob Crosby, Jane Russell, Humphrey Bogart, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
1953
Little Boy Lost Directed and written by George Seaton, from a story by Marghanita Laski. Produced by William Perlberg and Seaton. Photographed by George Barnes. Songs by Johnny Burke-James Van Heusen; others. Cast: Bing Crosby, Nicole Maurey, Christian Fourcade, Claude Dauphin, Gabrielle Dorziat, Colette Deréal, Georgette Anys, Peter Baldwin.
Scared Stiff (C) Comedy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis; Bing Crosby and Bob Hope show up in the last scene.
Faith, Hope and Hogan (Christopher Thoughts) (S,C) Produced and directed by Jack Denove. Cast: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Ben Hogan, Ralph Kiner, Phil Harris, Fr. James Keller.
1954
White Christmas Directed by Michael Curtiz. Produced by Robert Emmett Dolan. Written by Norman Krasna, Melvin Frank, and Norman Panama. Photographed by Loyal Griggs. Songs by Irving Berlin. Cast: Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, Dean Jagger, Mary Wickes, Sig Ruman, John Brascia, Richard Shannon, Ann Whitfield, Grady Sutton, Herb Vigran, Johnny Grant, Percy Helton, Barrie Chase, George Chakiris.
The Country Girl Directed and written by George Seaton, from a play by Clifford Odets. Produced by William Perlberg and Seaton. Photographed by John F. Warren. Songs by Ira Gershwin-Harold Arlen. Cast: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, William Holden, Anthony Ross, Gene Reynolds, Eddie Ryder, Ida Moore, Jacqueline Fontaine.
1955
Bing Presents Oreste (S,C) Bing introduces opera singer Oreste Kirkop; a one-reel trailer for The Vagabond King ( 1956).
1956
High Tor (Ford Star Jubilee, CBS-TV) Directed by James Neilson. Produced by Arthur Schwartz. Written by Maxwell Anderson and John Monks Jr., from a play by Anderson. Photographed by Lester Shorr. Songs by Schwartz and Anderson. Cast: Bing Crosby, Nancy Olson, Julie Andrews, Everett Sloane, Hans Conreid, Lloyd Corrigan.
Anything Goes Directed by Robert Lewis. Produced by Robert Emmett Dolan. Written by Sidney Sheldon, from a play by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse as revised by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse. Photographed by John F. Warren. Songs by Cole Porter; Sammy Cahn—James Van Heusen. Cast: Bing Crosby, Donald O’Connor, Jeanmaire, Mitzi Gaynor, Phil Harris, Kurt Kaszner, Walter Sande, Richard Erdman, Argentina Brunetti, Ruta Lee, Marcel Dalio.
High Society (MGM) Directed by Charles Walters. Produced by Sol C. Siegel. Written by John Patrick, from a play, The Philadelphia Story, by Philip Barry. Photographed by Paul C. Vogel. Songs by Cole Porter. Cast: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Celeste Holm, Louis Calhern, John Lund, Sidney Blackmer, Margalo Gillmore, Lydia Reed, Richard Garrick, Trummy Young, Edmond Hall, Billy Kyle, Arvell Shaw, Barrett Deems.
1957
Man on Fire (MGM) Directed and written by Ranald MacDougall, from a story by Malvin Wald and Jack Jacobs. Produced by Sol C. Siegel. Photographed by Joseph Ruttenberg. Song by Paul Francis Webster—Sammy Fain. Cast: Bing Crosby, Inger Stevens, Mary Fickett, E. G. Marshall, Malcolm Brodrick, Richard Eastham, Anne Seymour, Dan Riss.
The Heart of Show Business (Columbia) (V) Documentary on Variety Clubs International. Directed by Ralph Staub. Narrated by Bing Crosby, Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart, Burt Lancaster, Cecil B. De Mille.
1958
Showdown at Ulcer Gulch (Saturday Evening Post) (S,C) A one-reel magazine promotion with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams, Groucho Marx, Chico Marx.
1959
Alias Jesse James (United Artists) (HC)
Say One for Me (20th Century-Fox) Directed and produced by Frank Tashlin. Written by Robert O’Brien. Photographed by Leo Tover. Songs by Sammy Cahn-James Van Heusen. Cast: Bing Crosby, Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, Ray Walston, Les Tremayne, Connie Gilchrist, Frank McHugh, Joe Besser, Stella Stevens.
1960
Let’s Make Love (20th Century—Fox) (C) Romantic comedy with Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand; Bing Crosby sings “Incurably Romantic” and gives Montand a lesson in crooning.
High Time (20th Century-Fox) Directed by Blake Edwards. Produced by Charles Brackett. Written by Tom and Frank Waldman, from a story by Garson Kanin. Photographed by Ellsworth Fredericks. Songs by Sammy Cahn—James Van Heusen; others. Cast: Bing Crosby, Nicole Maurey, Fabian, Tuesday Weld, Richard Beymer, Patrick Adiarte, Yvonne Craig, Gavin MacLeod.
Pepe (Columbia) (C) Cameo—studded vehicle for Cantinflas; Bing croons a medley and autographs a tortilla.
1962
The Road to Hong
Kong (United Artists) Directed by Norman Panama. Produced by Melvin Frank. Written by Panama and Frank. Photographed by Jack Hildyard. Songs by Sammy Cahn—James Van Heusen. Cast: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Joan Collins, Robert Morley, Dorothy Lamour, Walter Gotell, Felix Aylmer, Roger Delgado, Mei Ling, Peter Madden, Peter Sellers, Jerry Colonna, David Niven, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin.
1964
Robin and the 7 Hoods (Warner Bros.) Directed by Gordon Douglas. Produced by Frank Sinatra. Written by David R. Schwartz. Photographed by William H. Daniels. Songs by Sammy Cahn—James Van Heusen. Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Bing Crosby, Peter Falk, Barbara Rush, Victor Buono, Allen Jenkins, Jack La Rue, Phillip Crosby, Sig Ruman, Edward G. Robinson.
1966
Stagecoach (20th Century-Fox) Directed by Gordon Douglas. Produced by Martin Rackin. Written by Joseph Landon, from a screenplay by Dudley Nichols from a story by Ernest Haycox, “Stage to Lordsburg.” Photographed by William H. Clothier. Cast: Bing Crosby, Ann-Margret, Michael Connors, Alex Cord, Red Buttons, Robert Cummings, Van Heflin, Slim Pickens, Stephanie Powers, Keenan Wynn.
Cinerama’s Russian Adventure (United Roadshow Presentations-Sovexportfilm) (V,C) Narrated and introduced by Bing Crosby.
1968
Bing Crosby’s Washington State (Cinecrest) (S,V) Directed by Dave Gardner. Written and photographed by Robert Brown and Ruth Davis. Narrated by Bing Crosby.
1971
Dr. Cook’s Garden (Paramount Pictures Television/ABC—TV) Directed by Ted Post. Produced by Bob Markell. Written by Art Wallace, from a play by Ira Levin. Photographed by Urs Ferrer. Cast: Bing Crosby, Frank Converse, Blythe Danner, Bethel Leslie, Abby Lewis, Barnard Hughes, Staats Cotsworth, Jordan Reed.
You Can Still Change the World (The Christophers) (S,C) Produced and written by Jeanne Glynn. Directed by Beatrice Conetta. Narrated and introduced by Bing Crosby. Compilation of film clips from television programs produced by The Christophers on the occasion of their twentieth anniversary.
1972
Cancel My Reservation (MGM—EMI) (HC)
1974
That’s Entertainment! (MGM) (V,C) Directed, produced, and written by Jack Haley Jr. Complilation of film clips introduced by Bing Crosby, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Fred Astaire, and Liza Minnelli.
Notes and Sources
AI author interview
AMPAS Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — Margaret Herrick Library
Rinker Unpublished memoir, The Bing Crosby I knew,by Al Rinker, completed in 1978
BCCGU BCCGUing Crosby Collection, Foley Center Library, Gonzaga University
HCC HCCoward Crosby Collection
JWTPR JWTPR. Walter Thompson program reports for Kraft Music Hall
KGM KGMnpublished memoir by Kitty (Lang) Good, recorded and transcribed during the 1980s and 1990s. Courtesy of Kitty Good and her son, Tim Good
Lucky Call Me Lucky, by Bing Crosby and Pete Martin
RBT Remembering Bing: interview transcripts for a 1987 Chicago WTTW television documentary, produced and written by Jim Arntz and Katherine MacMillin, executive producer: Glenn DuBose.
TIA Time Inc. Archive
Introduction
1. Seldes, The Public Arts, p. 126.
2. Thompson, The Complete Crosby, p. 252.
3. Death certificate filed with the American embassy in Madrid, Oct. 21, 1977.
4. Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow (1941; reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 3.
5. Newsweek, June 28, 1999.
6. Shepherd and Slatzer, Bing Crosby: The Hollow Man, and Crosby and Fire stone, Going My Own Way.
7.Among the most egregious were a memoir by Joan Rivers that called him a drunken wifebeater (for which there is no evidence); the pilot for a syndicated TV show, Hollywood Babylon, with Tony Curtis, that recycled demonstrative untruths concerning his will; and a December 22, 1999, story in the New York Post that dis torted Crosby’s readily available FBI file (see note 40 to Chapter 21).
8.Smith, Life in a Putty Knife Factory, p. 258.
9.An article in the New York Times, “Watched by Millions,” Aug. 25, 2000, reported that the only programs to attract more than 50 million viewers in the preceding eight months were two special events, the Super Bowl (88.5 million) and the final episode of Survivor (51.7 million).
10. Cited in the Philadelphia Courier, Nov. 22, 1947.
11. 1960 radio interview by Tony Thomas, for Canadian Broadcasting Company, released on LP, Conversations in Hollywood, vol. 2 (Citadel).
12. Emerson, Representative Men (1850).
13. Rourke, American Humor.
14. According to Whitburn, Pop Memories 1880-1954 and Top Pop Singles 1955-1986. Much of Whitburn’s figuring is based on speculation, so it would be folly to place too much emphasis on his pop-chart rankings, but the general picture he offers has proved reliable.
15. According to the annual Quigley Publications poll; Steinberg, Reel Facts.
16. There are many others. Crosby made twenty-three gold and two platinum singles, including the only double-sided gold record (“Play a Simple Melody”/“Sam’s Song”); he was the leading record seller through two decades, the 1930s and 1940s; more than half his feature films were among the ten highest grossing pictures of the years in which they were released; in 1946 three of the five top-grossing pictures of the year (The Bells of St. Mary’s, Blue Skies, Road to Utopia) were Crosby vehicles, each a sequel to one of his earlier successes; he introduced more Academy Award-nominated songs (fourteen) and more winners (four) than any other film star.
PART ONE
1. The Harrigans
1. Kraft Music Hall radio broadcast, Mar. 15, 1945.
2. This section is based largely on genealogical research by King and Fitzgerald. See their The Uncounted Irish and King’s The Irish Lumberman-Farmer, as well as King’s “Bing Crosby’s Irish Roots: The Harrigan Family of County Cork, New Brunswick Can., Minnesota, and Washington” in Minnesota Genealogist, vol. 14, no. 4 (1983); a letter from Joseph A. King to Sheelah Carter of Spokane Public Library, dated Jan. 27, 1979, in library files; and a 1994 AI with King. Much information was also culled from the Crosby family’s Crosby Genealogy, commissioned by Larry Crosby and published privately.
3. Her full name was Catherine Driscoll Harrigan. In several essays and books, King inadvertently gives her birth date as 1782 (which would make her fifty at the time of Dennis Jr.’s birth), yet it was King who discovered, in the 1851 census for Williamstown, New Brunswick, that she was actually born in 1791. (See Lumberman- Farmer, Appendix A, p. 172.)
4. King speculates that Dennis sold his leases in the townlands at Driane and Derryleary, which bordered Schull, in order to purchase the fares. In Parliamentary Report of 1835 and 1836, two parish priests, Father James Barry and Reverend Robert Trail, estimated that no more than ninety people of the parish emigrated in 1831 —“they were, with very few exceptions, Protestants, and in comfortable cir cumstances.”
5. Swift, “A Modest Proposal,” 1829.
6. Edmund Burke, in a letter in 1792, described the code as “a machine as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”
7. Wellington, cited in Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, p. 20.
8. Gustave de Beaumont, Ireland: Social, Political and Religious, 1839), cited in ibid., p. 19.
9. The story of John of Skibbereen is based on an undated letter from Bing Crosby’s first cousin, Margaret Harrigan Kendell, of Redmond, Washington, accessed by King, who says Kendell’s information was given her by William Harrigan, a first cousin of Bing’s mother. Larry Crosby was under the impression that John used two surnames, Harrigan and O’Brien, and was known as Organ O’Brien because he played the organ in church at Skibbereen, a part of West Cork where (King writ
es) “the population lived so exclusively on the potato that no trade in any other description of food existed.”
10. Cited in Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, p. 24.
11. Ibid., p. 26.
12. See Van Der Merwe, Origins of the Papular Style, pp. 10—14, for a fuller treatment of how the Oriental influence was sustained in Europe’s northwestern countries.
13. Chambers’s Encyclopaedia, cited in the 1972 supplement to the Oxford English Dicitonary, under croon.
14. AI, Ronan Tynan.
15. It might perhaps be more accurate to say that Crosby “allowed to be written in his memoir,” Call Me Lucky, as he did not so much write as speak it to his collabora tor, Pete Martin. But he did scrutinize the manuscript, and though he permitted many inaccuracies (not nearly as many as he blithely approved in his brothers’ book), the volume reflects his wishes. Indeed, it is not impossible that he took an active hand in sections of Lucky.
16. King interviewed Father John Deasy of Schull, who said, “[Bing] mistakenly thought his grandfather was born in Ireland.” The Uncounted Irish, p. 290. Several early books on Crosby trace the Harrigans to County Mayo and describe Dennis Jr. as a plumber, misinformation that Bing unaccountably declined to correct when he vetted Thompson’s 1976 biography.
17. King, The Uncounted Irish, p. 101.
18. Others include Louis B. Mayer, production chief at MGM, and Robert C. Gillis, who in 1904 helped purchase and design much of the Hollywood community.
19. According to the 1900 census, Dennis Jr. initially entered the United States in 1859, as a carpenter and contractor. He returned to Canada, however, and married Catherine (Katie), bringing her to the United States in 1867. She was born in March 1836 or 1837 in New Brunswick, the daughter of John Ahearn and Ann Meghan of Ireland and Miramichi, and died on October 25, 1918, in Tacoma. Also “Dennis Harrigan Dies[;] Prominent Contractor, Resident of Tacoma Since 1888 Passes,” Tacoma Daily Ledger, Sept. 19, 1915, and “Crosby’s Mother, State Native, Dies,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, Jan. 8, 1964.