Bing Crosby
Page 78
34. Ibid.
35. “A Mother’s Day,” op. cit.
36. Ibid.
37. AI, Alan Fisher.
38. “Uncle Sam Sans Whiskers,” op. cit.
39. Gonzaga 9:2. (Dec. 1917). The school magazine, Gonzaga, a key source for much of the material in this section, appeared between 1910 and 1922 and was considered an exemplary student publication by educators. Each issue ran between forty-two and forty-eight pages and sold for twenty cents, averaging a $500 annual profit, most of which was sent to Pope Benedict XV’s relief program.
40. AI, Ray Flaherty.
41. Gonzaga 11:3 (Dec. 1919).
42. AI, Ray Flaherty.
43. Gonzaga 11:1 (Oct. 1919). Bing was mistakenly listed as class of ‘21, which would have been correct had Kate not started him early.
44. Lucky, p. 68.
45. The debate: “Resolved: A national referendum should he held to determine support for Wilson’s League of Nations.”
46. Confessions, bk. 2, chap. 2. A tradition at Gonzaga encouraged instructors to “turn out men who not only absorbed a great amount of knowledge, but who could use it, express it and get up and make a talk in a creditable manner,” William DePuis, “School Dramatics,” The Gonzaga Year-Book, 1924.
47. Lucky, p. 71.
48. Ibid., pp. 71—72.
49. “School Dramatics,” op. cit.
50. Transcribed from his dedication speech at Gonzaga, 1957.
51. Gonzaga 11:4 (Jan. 1920).
52. The student was Doug Dyckman, Gonzaga 11:6 (Mar. 1920).
53. Father Art Dussault, a friend and classmate of Bing’s and later his primary liaison at Gonzaga, told columnist Earl Wilson (New York Post, Aug. 4, 1952) that Bing owed a lot to “having been jugged,” suggesting that it had helped train his phenomenal memory for songs and scripts.
54. Gonzaga 11:7(Apr. 1920). Ted was one of the most prolific and ambitious writers at the school. His numerous works include the poem “Gonzaga” (“And all in their breasts the teachings of their Alma Mater hold / Nor barter their birthright precious for passion or fame or gold!”), 11:1 (Oct. 1919); verse tributes to the Crosby seafearers and Lincoln; such short stories as “The Girl on the Job” (a woman who takes a wartime job then gives it up to a man), 11:2 (Nov. 1919), and “Trying Days” (set in a logging camp), 11:4 (Jan. 1920); and a long journalistic tribute, “Major Gerhard L Luhn, USA,” about a recently departed German-born (yet “every inch an American… no lurking loyalty for the old land”). Luhn had been a hero of the Mexican and Civil Wars, a cavalryman and Indian fighter, the veteran of forty army posts, and “a Christian above all”; he organized the first cadet corps at Gonzaga in 1900. Gonzaga 11:6 (Mar. 1920).
55. Gonzaga 11:9 (June 1920). This long-forgotten juvenilia, clunky but vivid, seems to anticipate many aspects of his career, from his dusky caricature in the Mack Sennett two-reeler Dream House, through parodied caravans in the Road pictures. The central image recurs unconsciously in his exalted description (Lucky, p. 43) of meeting Paul Whiteman, the first potentate Bing ever knew. No less prescient is the cymbal, the instrument he brought with him into the big time, or the pagan setting he came to know in the sodden arms of Prohibition. The young Bing’s vision of a white-robed ruler served by vassals while an audience sings his praises and music flows suggests how far Bing’s dreams had begun to distance him from Spokane.
6. Mr. Interlocutor
1. Rourke, American Humor, p. 103.
2. AI, Ray Flaherty.
3. The cost breakdown for college day students was as follows: $50 tuition per semester for College of Arts and Sciences, $5 breakage deposit, $3 bulletin and library fee, $10 student activities (including season tickets to all ordinary games, as well as debating and dramatic societies, orchestra, band, and other events) $10 laboratory fee, $2.50 partly refundable deposit for chemicals.
4. Gonzaga Register, 1920-21.
5. Ibid.
6. Gonzaga hired Charles E. “Gus” Dorais in May 1920, after Jim Thorpe was obliged to decline because of a prior contract.
7. “Dorais Gives Recruits Tryout,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, Mar. 31, 1922.
8. Lucky, p. 303. Bing’s mother worked with Father Sharp in her role as treasurer of the Mother’s Club, which raised money for scholarships and school functions. He served on its executive board as faculty representative. Mrs. T. J. Corkery, mother of Frank, served as secretary and later as president. The April 26, 1921, Spokane Daily Chronicle lists Mrs. H. L. Crosby as one of two dozen patronesses of a play, Gonzaga’s Chief. See also, Schoenberg, Gonzaga University, p. 302; Gonzaga 12:5 (Mar.1921); Gonzaga 14:1 (Autumn 1922).
9. Lucky, p. 39.
10. Ibid.
11. Ad, Gonzaga Bulletin, Oct. 7, 1921.
12. “Work of Michael Pecarovitch Lauded by Southern Critics,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 5, 1922. Pecarovitch lived in San Pedro, California, and participated in theatricals at Santa Clara, Seattle College, and Gonzaga.
13. Gonzaga 12:2 (Nov. 1920).
14. Ibid. 12:3 (Dec. 1920).
15. Another member was George Twohy, Bing’s high-school debating partner.
16. Rourke, American Humor, p. 103.
17. Donald O’Connor, for example, has spoken of the sincerity with which an actor was expected to approach a black role. AI.
18. Ellison, “An Extravagance of Laughter,” in The Collected Essays.
19. AI, Bob Hope.
20. Rourke, American Humor, p. 103.
21. For example, whites played Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu decades after they were no longer allowed to play blacks, except in classical theater; consider The Road to Hong Kong or Dr. No in the 1960s.
22. Rourke, American Humor, pp. 103—04.
23. In “Vintage Glimpses of a Lost Theatrical World,” Margo Jefferson writes of a silent film of black pantomimist and dancer Johnny Hudgins: “His charm so palpable that the burned-cork makeup, which we have come to read as intrinsically degrading, seems as incidental as the white makeup circus clowns have worn for centuries,” New York Times, Oct. 20, 1996.
24. AI, Gerald Marks. Coincidentally, Marks and Sy Oliver were both New Yorkers born in Michigan.
25. Letter from Father Arthur L. Dussault, S.J. Jesuit Oregon Province Archives.
26. AI, Father Patrick J. Ford. S.J., academic vice president of Gonzaga.
27. Ibid.
28. Letter from Dussault to “Cathy and Hobie,” Apr. 9, 1990. Jesuit Oregon Province Archives.
29. Letter from Dussault to Mr. Marion Simms, Sept. 14, 1950. Jesuit Oregon Province Archives.
30. Tony Thomas interview, op. cit.
31. George O’Reilly interview, op. cit.
32. NET interview, op. cit.
33. Goldman, Jolson, p. 36.
34. Ibid., p. 4.
35. Waters, His Eye Is on the Sparrow, p. 218.
36. Gonzaga 13:2 (Apr. 1922).
37. “Gonzaga Pupils Rehearse Play,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, Feb. 8, 1923. Also Gonzaga 14:2 (Winter 1923).
38. Strangely, Bing tells a story in Lucky about a fan who insisted upon calling him Bim Crosland, which is how he signed the fan’s autograph book.
39. “Gonzaga Actors Delight Crowd,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, Nov. 8, 1923.
40. Anne Shaw Faulkner, “Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?” Ladies’ Home Journal, Aug. 1921.
7. Musicaladers
1. Confessions, bk. 4, chap. 1.
2. Rinker. The Bing Crosby I Knew is a 110-page draft for a proposed book, finished in 1978 (a year after Crosby’s death) when Al was seventy-one; he died three years later. At one point, his suggested title was It’s a Treat to Beat Your Feet on the Mississippi Mud. Courtesy of Julia Rinker.
3. Ibid.
4. Rinker interview from The Old Guy on the Orange Juice Commercial: A Biography for Radio of Bing Crosby, written and narrated by Rod Coneybeare, c. 1977.
5. Rinker.
6. The Cotton Pickers, which made its key recordings in 1922 and 1923
, should not be confused with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, a black band that began recording in 1928.
7. Rinker.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Rinker interview by John McDonough, 1976.
12. Lucky, p. 75.
13. H. Allen Smith, “Mildred Bailey Plans to Sing Her Life Story from the Stage of Town Hall Next Fall,” New York World Telegram, Apr. 12, 1941.
14. Rinker.
15. Coneybeare interview, op. cit.
16. Ibid.
17. Lucky, p. 75.
18. Sidney Copeland, office memorandum, Aug. 3, 1946. TIA.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. TV interview, The Pat Collins Show, WCBS, New York, 1976.
22. Crosby interview, radio documentary by John Salisbury, KXL, Portland, Oregon, 1976.
23. Coneybeare interview, op. cit.
24. Copeland memo, op. cit.
25. William Stimson, “Bing Crosby: The Road to Hollywood,” Spokane Magazine, Dec. 1977.
26. Bing Crosby, “Requiem for Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Music Journal, Jan. 1962. “A music company in my native Spokane was our jazz classroom. We met there to listen to the latest and practice playing by ear. With my pal Al Rinker, I practically lived in the place. I’m sure that our parents were as worried about our ‘crazy’ music as today’s parents have been about Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
27. Joseph Mitchell, “In Which Bing Crosby Debunks Himself; Broken Hearts? No, Just Broken Bottles,” New York World Telegram, Dec. 16, 1931.
28. AI, Don Eagle, a Spokane musician, a generation younger than Bing, who worked with him in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and interviewed Rinker and others for a series of sketches published in Bingang.
29. Bing’s June 24, 1937, letter to Stubeck and Stubeck’s comments from Copeland memo, op. cit. The store was at Sprague and Wall.
30. Lincoln Barnett, “Bing, Inc.,” Life, June 18, 1945.
31. Jack Sheehan, “A Brush with Celebrity,” Showbiz, 1995, reprinted in Bing, no.114 (Dec. 1996). In November 1975 Bing read an article by Sheehan about Bud Ward, the Spokane-born amateur golfer, and sent him a flattering letter with his own recollections of Ward. Sheehan wrote Bing and told him of his aunt Dorothy’s death. Bing wrote him to say he remembered meeting him at Hayden Lake.
32. Rinker.
33. Ibid.
34. Copeland memo, op. cit.
35. Ibid.
36. “Bing We Hardly Knew Ye,” op. cit.
37. Ibid. Material on Lareida’s also drawn from AI with of Nancy Gale Compau of the Northwest Collection, Spokane Public Library, who, in addition to research aid, related information from her father, who frequented Lareida’s. Also Stimson, A View of the Falls, unidentified clip. BCCGU.
38. Letter from H. Neal East to Bing Crosby, Feb. 19, 1935. HCC.
39. “Bing Crosby: The Road to Hollywood,” op. cit.
40. Ibid.
41. Bill Salquist, “Hometown Remembers Because Bing Did,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, Oct. 15, 1977.
42. Rinker.
43. Ibid.
44. McDonough interview, op. cit.
45. Rinker.
46. Spokane Chronicle, May 19, 1918. After the resolution was passed by the County Council of Defense banning The Birth of a Nation from “Spokane county,” it was made public in an announcement by Clemmer on behalf of the league of motion picture men of the Spokane district.
47. “Now the Klemerklink for Doc Clemmer’s Young Friends,” Spokane Chronicle, Apr. 28, 1916.
48. “New Firm Takes Over Clemmer,” Spokesman-Review, May 2, 1925. It was the 149th theater that Carl Laemmle’s Universal Pictures had taken over in a period of sixty days. Universal operated the theater until 1929, when Ray Grombacher leased it and renamed it the Audian. It later became the State Theater and is now the Met,a concert theater.
49. Lucky, p. 74.
50. Rinker.
51. Ibid.
52. Author visit, also AI, Michael Smith, manager of the Met, and Spokane Chronicle, May 30, 1986. After the State (Clemmer) and Garland (which opened in 1945) closed, the only single-auditorium theater in Spokane was the Dishman, which showed pornography. In 1988 the Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. restored the Clemmer/State as the Met, magnificently re-creating the original design by E. W. Houghton and structure by August Paulsen.
53. Dussault attended Bing’s tryout at the Clemmer and later recalled, “Many of the boys from school used to go down and cheer Bing and Al on.” Letter to Stanley Antepenko, Sept. 22, 1976. Jesuit Oregon Province Archives.
54. Dyar, News for an Empire.
55. Lucky, p. 74.
56. See Chapter 8 for Crosby’s use of the term in his letter to Dirk Crabbe.
57. Thompson, Bing, p. 16.
58. Rinker.
59. “My Boy Bing,” op. cit.
60. Rinker.
61. Lucky, p. 78.
62. Madeleine Carroll, a twenty-two-year-old neighbor was interviewed by a Time reporter; Copeland memo, op. cit.
8. Vaudeville
1. Billing reproduced in numerous ads in the trades and on stage bills, 1926.
2. Nevertheless, the word phonograph obtained prominence in the United States, while gramophone became standard in the United Kingdom.
3. Gelatt, The Fabulous Phonograph, p. 146.
4. In a 1980s radio interview with Bill Osborne in Seattle, Bob Crosby recalled the Meyers campaign. “It was done tongue in cheek. They were going to have a lot of fun. They dressed Vic up and put a white sheet on him like Mahatma Gandhi had and gave him a goat to lead around town. They had a lot of fun. Their only campaign issue was that Vic was going to put hostesses on all the streetcars and serve coffee and tea at the end of the line, and cookies. That was his campaign promise. What happened was, it just astounded everybody, including brother Larry, that Vic Meyers got elected lieutenant governor. He studied parliamentary law, and they tell me, at least my uncle did, Judge Harrigan, who’s in the House over in Olympia, he said he became one of the finest Speakers of the House, knew parlimentary law. So Vic stayed lieutenant governor for over twenty years, I believe.”
5. At least that’s what Bing recalled; Al thought they sang with Meyers himself. In most instances where disputed accounts between Crosby and Rinker can be verified, the former’s recollections, written thirty years closer to the events, have proved to be the more reliable. In instances that could not be verified, Bing’s account isoften more colorful than Al’s. It should be noted that when the Crosby memoir was a 1953 bestseller, Whiteman, Rinker, Barris, Malneck, and other principals were alive, and none found reason to correct the record as he created it — not even in private interviews from that era.
6. Rinker.
7. Ibid.
8. Lucky, p. 79.
9. Rinker.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Jones was seen briefly twelve years later as a member of a trio singing “The Ragtime Violin,” in the 1938 20th Century-Fox musical Alexander’s Ragtime Band. Bing gave her a prominent spot in East Side of Heaven that same year. See Chapter 24.
13. AI, RedNorvo.
14. “Mildred Bailey Plans to Sing…,” op. cit.
15. Crosby liner notes, Mildred Bailey: Her Greatest Performances 1929-1946,Columbia Records, 1962.
16. Rinker.
17. Ibid.
18. AI, Milt Bernhart, Red Norvo.
19. Rinker.
20. Crosby liner notes, op. cit.
21. Mildred later auditioned for talent scout and record producer John Hammond with Smith blues.
22. Rinker.
23. AI, Barry Ulanov.
24. Pete Martin may have jumbled some facts in the Lyman passage in Lucky, or Bing, who liked to mention the names of people he admired or thought were neglected, may simply have added him to the historical record. Lyman is not mentioned in Ulanov or other early accounts. Yet the older Bing got, the more insiste
nt he became about the Lyman gig, sometimes extending it to a few weeks. He would also extend his yearlong pre-Whiteman vaudeville experience to eighteen months or two years.
25. Owens, Sweet Leilani, p. 21.
26. Ibid., p. 22. Owens misremembered the songs they auditioned and named “Mississippi Mud,” which lay two years in the future.
27. Ibid., p. 23.
28. Rinker.
29. Collins interview, op. cit.
30. Variety, Oct. 20, 1926.
31. Cited in Slide, The Vaudevillians, p. 159.
32. Spokane Daily Chronicle, Jan. 1, 1926.
33. Doreen Taylor, who danced as Doreen Wilde, was interviewed at length in 1981-82, shortly before her death, by her granddaughter, Alison McMahan, who later transcribed and collated the tapes.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Bing Crosby, Live at the London Palladium (K-Tel, United Artists), 1976.
37. Wilde interview, op. cit.
38. Confessions, bk. 2, chap. 1.
39. This four-page handwritten letter, written to Dirk Crabbe on January 24, 1926, was sent by the recipient’s widow, Lillian Crabbe Hanson, to the Minneapolis radio personality Arne Fogel and first published in Bingang in July 1988. Some of the addenda appeared as “Don Eagle Provides Further Insight into Early Bing Letter,” Bingang, July 1990.
40. Wilde interview, op. cit.
41. Ibid.
42. Norman, The Film Greats, p. 197.
43. Lucky, p. 80.
44. That same week Variety ran an ad taken out by a young vaudevillian named Harry Barris, who toured the Midwest with his Blu Blowing Baby Grand; in little more than a year, he would change all their lives. Also that week, on May 4, Bing’s brother Larry, an editor at the Wallace-Press Times in Wallace, Idaho, married Elaine Couper of Spokane.
45. Thompson, Bing, p. 18.
46. Rinker.
47. Ibid.
48. AI, Phil Harris.
49. The humor of Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, largely forgotten today, was brought to a fevered pitch in the 1938 stage hit Hellzapoppin’, which ran three years and has been called “the greatest vaudeville revue of all time.” Slide, The Vaudevillians, p. 111.
50. Harris later said, “The first ballad I really remember him singing was ‘I Kiss Your Hand, Madame,’at the Montmartre, in 1929.” AI.
51. Cited as “a San Diego newspaper” in Shephard and Slatzer, Bing Crosby: The Hollow Man, p. 58.