Bing Crosby

by Gary Giddins

  Good, Kitty. Untitled memoir by the widow of Eddie Lang, taped by her son, Tim Good. Courtesy of Kitty and Tim Good.

  Gordon, Julia M. What a Life: The Eddie Bracken Story. Life of the actor by his granddaughter, written on a Senior Fellowship from Dartmouth. Courtesy of Eddie Bracken and Julia M. Gordon.

  McDonough, John. Decca: 60th Anniversary History. Commissioned by MCA. Courtesy of John McDonough.

  Porter, Joey. Never Been So Lost. Screenplay by the son-in-law of Harry Barris. Courtesy of Joey Porter and Marti Barris.

  Rinker, Al. The Bing Crosby I Knew. Written memoir. Courtesy of his daughter, Julia Rinker, and widow, Elizabeth Rinker.

  Taylor, Doreen. Untitled memoir of dancer Doreen Wilde, taped by her granddaughter, Alison McMahan. Courtesy of Alison McMahan.

  Tuttle, Frank. They Started Talking. Written memoir. Courtesy of his daughter, Helen Votachenko.

  Selected Fan Magazines

  Bingang. Since 1936, published twice a year by Club Crosby. President, Mark Scrimger. Membership inquiries: vice president and editor Wayne L. Martin, 435 So. Holmes Ave., Kirkwood, MO 63122-6311, USA. European representative: Ken W. Crossland, 9 Arden Drive, Dorridge, Solihull, W. Midlands B93 8LP, UK. Club Crosby@aol.com

  Bing. Since 1950, published three times a year by the International Crosby Circle. Edited by Malcolm Macfarlane. Membership inquiries: Hon. Secretary and Treasurer Michael Crampton, 19 Carrholm Crescent, Chapel Allerton, Leeds LS7 2NL, UK. American representative: F. B. Wiggins, 5608 North 34th Street, Arlington, VA 22207, USA. Macwilmslo@aol.com

  The Crosby Voice. Published by the Bing Crosby Victorian Society. Inquiries to Bob Neate, 22 Pakenham Street, Blackburn, Victoria, 3130 Australia.

  Bingtalks. Published by the Bingthings Society, founded and edited by Bob Lund-berg, 1989 to 1995.

  Bing Crosby Home Page. On-line only, created by Steven Lewis. www.kcmetro.ee.mo.us/crosby

  Acknowledgments

  My primary debt is to the people — friends, relations, colleagues, and acquaintances of Bing Crosby — listed in Interviews and Bibliography. I spoke to some for just minutes and others for many hours, but Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams would be poorer without any one of them, and I thank them all. Many graciously made available letters, photographs, and other mementos.

  I cannot overstate my gratitude to curators and librarians at public and private archives. For two weeks at Gonzaga University, I was aided with charity and skill by the chair of the Special Collections, Stephanie Edwards Plowman, and her assistant, Sharon Prendergast, who led me through the maze of hundreds if not thousands of documents in the Bing Crosby Collection at Foley Center Library. My thanks to Robert Burr, Gonzaga’s library dean, Marty Pujolar, director of the alumni association at the Crosby Alumni House; Brother Edward Jennings S.J., Jesuit archivist assistant; and Father William Yam, S.J., Jesuit archivist.

  I benefited greatly from the aid of Judith Kipp, the conservator of the Tacoma Public Library’s Northwest Room and Special Collections, whose zest for research inspired my own as she found the answers to my every query; I am grateful to her associates, Brian Kamens and Gary Fuller Reese. Nancy Gale Compau, head of the Northwest Room of the Spokane Public Library, was unstintingly helpful.

  At the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, I was assisted by Samuel A. Gill, Margaret Herrick Library Archivist at the Center for Motion Picture Study; chief librarian Dr. Linda Mehr; and Russell Good, Sondra Archer, and Michael Friend. At the University of Southern California Film Archive, I relied on the expertise of director Ned Comstock and Leith Adams. My friend Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, assembled Crosby clippings and sent other materials. Michael Cogswell, director of the Louis Armstrong House and Archives, found major documents; I am grateful to the always loyal Phoebe Jacobs and Dave Gold of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation for allowing me to use them. Marion Hirsch, archivist at the Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History of Kraft General Foods at Duke University, provided complete Kraft Music Hall program reports; my thanks to Elizabeth W. Adkins, archives manager for Kraft General Foods.

  One of the luckiest calls I received was from Alan Farnham, then at Fortune, who introduced me to two other Fortune writers, Sean Tully and Terence Pare. The three Crosby enthusiasts enabled me to explore the Time Inc. archive with its memoranda on background interviews done for, but usually not used in, stories that ran in Fortune, Time, and Life. The files allowed me to hear the voices of people who were part of Bing’s early years — elementary-school teachers, boyhood friends, physician, agents, stage hands, engineers, and so forth. I am grateful to my old friend Elizabeth Pochoda, for access to the morgue at the New York Daily News, and Ken Chandler for clippings from the New York Post. Everyone writing about movies ought to know the work of G. D. Hamann, a one-man clipping factory; in addition to publishing five volumes on Bing, he located and sent me many unexpected gems.

  Daniel G. Smith, chief of publicity for Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, provided me with various papers on the origin of the track and a comprehensive tour — filled with many anecdote-rich people — so intoxicating that I considered becoming a tout. I am grateful to Mary Shepardson of Del Mar Special Projects and Marketing and everyone I encountered there. I thank Jack Disney, the historian of Santa Anita Race Track, and Michael Smith, manager of Spokane’s The Met, a restoration of the old Clemmer Theater. Cos-sette Gutierrez was most helpful at the County Clerk’s Office in Redwood City. My thanks to Mary Beth Roberts at Famous Music, Jim Hillbun of the defunct Ampex Museum of Magnetic Recording, John Mulderig of The Christophers, Andy McKaie at MCA, and Christopher Ann Paton, archivist of the Popular Music Collection at Georgia State University.

  I am grateful to Herb Scheer of the Lincoln Center Library of Performing Arts, along with the New York Public Library staff; Sylvia Kennick Brown, special collections librarian and college archivist at Williams College; John Farris, the curator at Hyde Park; Rosemary Hanes, Joseph Balian, and the AFI film collection of the Library of Congress; Ronald C. Simon, curator of New York’s Museum of Broadcasting; Howard W. Hays of the UCLA Film and Television Archive; UCLA Theater Arts Library; the University of Southern California’s Cinema and Television Library; Laura Arksey of the Eastern Washington State Historical Society; Valerie Sivinski of the Tacoma Historical Preservation Office; Columbia University’s Oral History Research Office; and the AFI’s Louis B. Mayer Library and Leo McCarey Collection.

  * * *

  My thanks to Bryan Johnson and his staff at Film Syndicate (Bing: His Legendary Years 1931—1957) for sharing research, including reels of rare footage, and to Derek Bailey and Landseer Productions (Bing Crosby — the Voice of the Century), for also sharing research. I am indebted to the crew that made the PBS documentary Remembering Bing, and to its producers and director, Glenn DuBose, Jim Arntz, and Katherine MacMillin, who allowed me access to their interviews.

  Many people provided me with letters: I am especially grateful to William H. David, son of producer Henry Ginsberg; Carolyn Manovill and Gloria Burleson, who came upon Ms. Manovill’s letters in an old suitcase; and Violet Brown and her daughter Pamela Crosby Brown. I am humbled by the generosity of Howard Crosby, who sent me a decade’s worth of correspondence between Bing, his siblings, and father, enabling me to straighten out a hopelessly tangled narrative; and Susan Crosby, who taught me about bipolar illness and loaned me the remarkable journal and scrapbook of her former husband, Lindsay Crosby.

  The memoirs of the former Kitty Lang were a revelation to me that I hope will be edited and published in their own right. I am deeply indebted to her son, Tim Good, for entrusting me with them. I am equally in debt to Julia Rinker, for her insights as well as the irreplaceable memoirs of her father, Al Rinker. Alison McMahan phoned when she heard about my project to offer transcript, tape, and photos of her grandmother, Doreen Wilde, an incredible boon. My thanks to Helen Votachenko for the memoir of her father, Frank Tuttle; Juli
e Gordon, for her study of her grandfather, Eddie Bracken; and James T. Maher, for preparing and annotating his extensive notes from his interviews with John Scott Trotter.

  Rory Burke is a constant source of encouragement and good cheer. She flew to Spokane when I was researching there and gave me many hours of candid recollections, then sent a carton of correspondence, photos, scrap-books, and other materials. I thank her daughter, Quinn Burke, for the baptismal photograph used in this volume. Elizabeth Frank offered good advice and packed a shopping bag with the relevant scripts and papers of her father, writer-producer Mel Frank. I thank Sonny Rollins for being who he is and for playing “Prisoner of Love” and “Sweet Leilani” when I most needed to hear them — coincidences, of course, but evidence that jazz is God’s gift.

  I miss Jimmy (Dr. W. James) Gould, who with his wife, Maureen, offered encouragement, friendship, and a quiet place to work when I began, in 1991. I am indebted to Richard W. Weiss for helping me to see that the examined life is worth living. No one has been more encouraging over the years than Michael Anderson, a masterly editor who always knows just when to call, and Mary Cleere Haran, singer, chanter, humorist, and my main source on Irish Catholic angst. I owe more than I can ever repay to Geoffrey C. Ward, though none of his many kindnesses has meant as much as his and Diane Ward’s friendship.

  The enthusiasm and generosity of Bing Crosby’s fans have been a tonic. Mark Scrimger, the president of Club Crosby, one of two international fan clubs that publish outstanding fanzines, sent me a freezer-size carton of Bingang, books, magazines, and other materials — so many that it took a year to work my way down to the bottom. He subsequently provided invaluable photographs and letters. The late Bob Lundberg, who founded and edited Bingtalks, and the late James S. Johnson introduced me to Bing fan-dom, including that most congenial and magnanimous of fans, Bill Hunt, who sent me numberless audiotapes, videotapes, articles, and suggestions. Some collectors build fortresses around their acquisitions; Bill wants everyone to enjoy his.

  Malcolm Macfarlane, editor of the other exceptional fanzine, the International Crosby Circle’s Bing, has provided endless aid and comfort, not least through his invaluable Bing: A Diary of a Lifetime, but also through swift e-mail responses to my relentless barrage of queries. Always ready to help, Malcolm forwarded useful materials and hooked me up with Ron Bosley, who provided several of this book’s photographs. I am grateful to the ICC’s American representative, F. B. Wiggins, for many kindnesses, and to John Marshall and his intelligently acerbic early-1990s Crosby newsletter, The Grapevine.

  Arne Fogel, the Minnesotan singer and radio personality who has given as much thought to the Crosby style as anyone, has generously shared his expertise while sending me dozens of audio- and videotapes, including most of the existing Crosby interviews. My old friend Will Friedwald, whose passion for Cros runs just as deep (see Jazz Singing), was the first to come by bearing a truckload of Crosbyana. Where would we be without the ministrations of Uncle Wilski? Records Will and Arne did not have were put on tape for me by BMI’s singer maven, Dan Singer. Peter Levinson offered me contacts, phone numbers, clippings, Los Angeles hospitality, and worthy advice. My thanks to Saint Clair Pugh of Liz Smith’s office, for phone numbers and advice, and to Ms. Smith for publishing an item about the book that brought numerous responses.

  John McDonough provided me with the manuscript of his comprehensive history of Decca Records, commissioned for the company’s sixtieth anniversary, in 1994, by MCA, which then chose not to celebrate it. John also made available interviews he conducted for his newspaper stories, as well as the Robert Trout epigram. Chip Deffaa recorded and annotated audiotapes of materials so rare that I would not have known enough to go looking for them. James Gavin revealed a gift for locating impossible-to-find films and sent other items he happened upon. Bill Milkowski’s Crosby anecdotes, writings, and photographs proved treasurable.

  Film preservationist Bob DeFlores enabled me to see several rare films (including the splendid Here Is My Heart); my thanks to him and Brenda for their hospitality. Until the day he died, Leslie Gaylor was a relentless Crosby propagandist whose name was known to every broadcaster in England; they had all received his letters demanding more Bing. (Bing felt guilty about the postage Leslie paid and sent him small checks, which he initially refused to cash.) Leslie sent me his correspondence from Crosby, Johnny Mercer, and others — many times. Peter Cakanic Jr., always an encouraging correspondent, sent tapes and clips. John Newton shared several remarkable finds from his collection of showbiz memorabilia. I had hardly met Eric Anderson when he loaned me his collection of Bing ads. The late Bill Osborn transferred to tape a complete collection of Crosby radio broadcasts. The late Ken Twiss, who created the Bing Crosby Historical Society, shared print materials and time when he had precious little of it left.

  Ernest H. Sutkowski, who has long sponsored a thrice-weekly Crosby show on WRTN-FM in New Jersey, took an early interest in this book and offered his considerable assistance in acquiring recordings and meeting people. I am grateful to him and his assistant Mary Beth Del Balzo for many things, not least for introducing me to Francis X. Smith, former city councilman and justice of the New York Supreme Court. When Frank was named “Judge of the Year” in 1984, Congressman Gary Ackerman took note in the Congressional Record of his collection of Crosbyana, assembled with “boundless zest, wide-eyed rapture, and an unquentable thirst to expand his knowledge.” After dinner with Ernie and Frank, the judge opened his car trunk and entrusted me with two huge volumes of memorabilia.

  With apologies to those inadvertently omitted, I thank Alice Faye, Alan Nahigan, Allen Sviridoff, Andrew O’Toole, Ann McKee, Arnold J. Smith, Barnaby Conrad, Ben Sonnenberg, Bill Christine, Bill Daugherty, Bob Ellis, Bob Gottlieb, Bob Larsson, Bob Mohr, Campbell Burnap, Charles D. Bail-lie, Charles Graham, Chica Boswell Minnerly, Chris Bozeman, Curtis F. Brown, Dan Levinson, Daniel Okrent, David Lobosco, David Lotz, David McCain, David Nasaw, David Stenn, Deborah Grace Winer, Derek Parkes, Dorothy Rivers, Dr. Jock Jocoy, Duncan Lamont, Dwayne Netland, Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee, Edward Cramer, Eileen Van Buren, Evan Chal-lis, Gene Santoro, Gord Atkinson, Greg Van Beek, George Scorpy Doyle, Hank O’Neal, Hobie Wilson, Jack Bean, Jack Ellsworth, James Spada, Jane Kovner, Jay Diamond, Jean Bach, Jean Strouse, Jean-Louis Brindamour, Jeff Abraham, Jeff Atterton, Jeanine Bassinger, Jewell Baxter, Jim Reilly, Joe Sin-nott, John R. T. Davies, John Joyce, John McNicholas, Father John Russo, S.J., Joyce Jamison, Joyce Jansen, Joyce Lundberg, June Waller, Ken Bloom, Keith Parkinson, Kent Jones, Leith G. Johnson, Leonard Maltin, Lyn Erik-son, Marian McPartland, Michael Bloom, Michael Avallone, Michael Fein-stein, Michael Modero, Miguel Ferrer, Nancy Franklin, Nancy Gordon, Nat Hentoff, Pam Sharp, Patricia O’Hare, Perry Robinson, Peter O’Brien, S.J., Peter Minton, Peter and Susan Straub, Philip Yampolsky, Raphael Ferrer, Richard Lamparski, Richard M. Sudhalter, Richard Stone, Ridge Walker, Romy Kaufman, Ron Hutchinson, Ronan Tynan, Ross Firestone, Sherwin Dunner, Stan White, Stanley Dance, Steve Dolley, Steve Futterman, Steven LaVere, Stuart Oderman, Susan Terry, Sy Johnson, Terry Carter, Thomas M. Hampson, Tom Dardis, Walter Surovy, Ward Grant, Wayne L. Martin, Wilfrid Sheed, William Bastone, William E. Redpath, and William Ruhlmann.

  My chief researcher was Libby Pace, an extraordinary investigator who efficiently rounded up people, legal papers, and archival material; expertly helped with interviews; and enabled me to navigate Los Angeles. Nancy Snyder, who took over midway, is a canny researcher to whom I confidently delegated interviews. A few early interviews were conducted by Arlene Hellerman; others were set up by Joe Gilford.

  I remain grateful for the efficiency and kindness of Mary Beth Hughes, who ran my office and planned my research trips when she should have been writing. She introduced me to Charles Bock, who examined countless issues of Variety and fanzines when he, too, should have been working on his novel. Connie Julian found research material and transcribed tapes until she was called away by political uprisings. Debra Wenzel and J
oan Hirsch did many transcriptions. Lee Rothchild, now bringing order to Australia, brought order to hundreds of bulging Crosby files. Thanks also to Christopher Luongo, Gloria James, Jenny Rothchild, Lea Jacobson, and Peter Lubell. Special thanks to my assistant Elora Charles, whose beguiling voice and Alexandrian zeal have brought refreshing charm and efficiency to an office in need of both.

  The one person without whom this book would not exist is its original editor, Paul Bresnick, who persisted for years in convincing me to tackle it, then watched the manuscript grow larger and larger until it finally burst into two volumes. The original publisher was swallowed by one that wanted nothing to do with it. I am grateful to Paul for his loyalty and friendship, and hope he takes pride in the finished work.

  Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams was an orphan for no more than the blink of an eye thanks to my radiant editor and publisher, Sarah Crichton, who said yes in thunder. She also conned me into thinking the manuscript was as clean as I needed to believe until it was finished, and then covered page after page with her “suggestions.” I cannot enumerate all the ways in which Sarah has helped me to focus, pare, and open the narrative. Have I said, “Thank you?” Thank you! And thank you to Steve Lamont, who copy-edited the final manuscript with ingenious fastidiousness and empathy and did yeoman fact-checking that saved me all kinds of humiliation and grief. My thanks to editor Chip Rossetti for piloting the entire project; managing editor Mary Tondorf-Dick; John Fulbrook III, who designed the cover (with a photograph made available by Mickey Kapp); publicists Beth Davey and Heather Rizzo; publisher’s assistant Rita Omark; Jon Protas; and everyone at Little, Brown. Also to Don Forst, Robert Christgau, Doug Simmons, and everyone at the Village Voice, my second home.

  I owe a lot more than 10 percent to my canny agent, Georges Bor-chardt — not that I want to plant a seed. But he did restore my sanity more than once during an often tumultuous decade. Thanks also to Anne Bor-chardt and DeAnna Heindell.