Bing Crosby (113 page)
Authors: Gary Giddins
36
. Bogue,
Ish Kabibble.
37
. Ibid.
38
.
Thomas interview, op. cit.
39
.
Variety,
Apr. 18, 1928.
40
. AI, Marti Barris and Joe Porter.
42
. Rinker.
43
. O’Brien interview, op. cit.
44
. Rinker.
45
.
Variety,
Aug. 15, 1928.
46
. Ibid.
47
. Letter from Louis Armstrong to unknown recipient, c. 1967. Louis Armstrong House and Archives at Queens College/CUNY.
48
. Dance,
The World of Earl Hines,
p. 146
.
49
. AI, Gary Crosby.
50
. Osborne interview, op. cit.
51
. The full inscription reads, “Am I too suave or sveldt [sic]. To Ted, Hazel and the little one. Bing. Brush by Fuller.”
52
. Rinker.
53
. Ted Crosby,
The Story of Bing Crosby,
p. 143
; also
Lucky,
p. 95
.
54
. Challis interview by Ira Gitler, Oral History Program, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, N.J.
55
. “Popular Records,”
The New Yorker,
Dec. 29, 1928.
56
.
Variety,
December 26, 1928.
11. Of Cabbages and Kings
1
. Universal ad for
King of Jazz,
in
Variety,
Dec. 11, 1929.
2
. The writer was Paul Schofield, known for the 1926
Beau Geste.
3
. For what it’s worth, rumors at the time blamed the rancor on Olsen’s concern that Shutta was carrying on with Cantor.
4
. Evans and Kiner,
Tram,
p. 105
.
5
. Vallée,
Let the Chips Fall,
p. 15
. “If further proof were needed that there is little or no vanity in Rudy Vallée, I need only point out that throughout
the course of four marriages over a period of forty-seven years, there has never been a single progeny to bear my name!” (p.
16).
7
. Abel Green, “Whiteman-Old Gold Social Bunch Ride De Luxe — 50 Aboard and Happy,”
Variety,
May 29, 1929.
8
. Evans and Kiner,
Tram,
pp. 114
—15.
9
. KGM.
10
. Ibid.
11
. Ted and Larry Crosby,
Bing,
p. 149
.
13
. Evans and Kiner,
Tram,
p. 115
.
14
. AI, Kurt Dieterle.
16
. Ted and Larry Crosby,
Bing,
p. 15
6.
17
. TV interview,
The David Frost Show,
Feb. 10, 1971.
19
. AI, Dorothea Ponce.
20
.
Vallée,
Let the Chips Fall,
pp. 91
—92.
21
. Shepherd and Slatzer,
Bing Crosby: The Hollow Man,
p. 124
.
22
. Various ads,
Los Angeles Evening Express,
July 1929.
23
. Ibid.
24
. Ibid.
25
. AI, Phil Harris.
26
. Various ads, op. cit.
27
. Earl Wilson, “It Happened Last Night,”
New York Post
(undated clip), 1946.
28
. Evans and Kiner,
Tram,
p. 118
.
29
. Rinker.
30
. Ibid.
32
. Cardinal O’Connell made his remarks before a thousand members of Boston’s Holy Names Society in January 1932, cited in
Eberly,
Music in the Air,
p. 103
.
33
. Ibid.
36
. In
Variety,
Nov. 29, 1929, Bob Landry wrote of the “Gay Love”/“Can’t We Be Friends” disc, “looks like a possible favorite, properly piloted.”
37
. Cited in Daniel,
Chronicle of the 20th Century,
p. 375
.
38
.
Variety,
Dec. 11, 1929.
40
. AI, Bobbe Van Heusen.
41
. AI, Kurt Dieterle.
42
. Ted and Larry Crosby,
Bing,
p. 170
.
45
. AI, Bobbe Van Heusen.
46
. Ibid. The wire would have been dated 1969. Bobbe married Perlberg before a justice of the peace in Pasadena in February
1928, though she insisted that it was a couple of years later. The sisters’ career began when Irving Berlin’s producer, Hassard
Short, heard them in Edmonton and asked them to sing for Berlin over the phone. Short then changed their name from Brock to
Brox. They appeared on stage in
The Cocoanuts
and the
Ziegfeld Follies of 1927
and then signed with MGM. Bobbe, whose real name was Josephine, was also known as Dagmar (after silent film actress Dagmar
Godowsky). Her sisters were Lorayne, who married trumpet player Henry Busse in 1935, and Pat.
47
.
Variety,
Feb. 26, 1930.
48
.
Variety,
May 7, 1930.
49
. Regina Crewe,
New York American,
May 3, 1930.
50
. The picture opened with a running time of ninety-eight minutes, according to
Variety,
May 7, 1930, suggesting a last-minute cut (restored prints play 105 minutes). The live show opened at forty-two minutes and
was soon cut to thirty-seven. Gersh win was paid $5,000 and Whiteman $12,500. Tickets sold for two dollars.
51
.
New York Times,
May 3, 1930.
52
. The new sequences for the German edition and one made for Spain were directed by a twenty-four-year-old German immigrant,
Kurt Neumann, yet another newcomer launched by
King of Jazz;
he went on to make many low-budget genre
films, e.g.,
The Unknown Guest, Cattle Drive, Rocketship X-M, Tarzan and the She-Devil,
and most famously,
The Fly.
53
.
Variety,
Apr. 9, 1930.
55
. Ibid.
56
. AI, Rosemary Clooney, to whom Kathryn Crosby told the story in spring 2000.
57
. Rinker.
58
. Coslow,
Cocktails for Two,
p. 105
.
59
. These include the 1935 feature
Broadway to Hollywood
and such shorts as
Roast Beef and Movies
and
Nertsery Rhytmes
(with Ted Healy’s Three Stooges). Most of the surviving footage was marketed in Germany in 1930, including the remarkable
“Lockstep” prison number, which debuted in the United States in
That’s Entertainment III
(1994). For Bing the experience marked the beginning of his lifelong friendship with actor William “Buster” Collier Jr. (the
son of matinee idol William Collier Sr., who was also in
The March of Time),
a fishing buddy and neighbor.
61
. Challis’s swing arrangements include “Clarinet Marmelade” and “Singing the Blues” for Henderson and “Stardust” for Ellington.
12. Dixie
1
. “Bing Crosby Debunks Himself,” op. cit.
2
. AI, Frank Lieberman.
3
. AI, Rory Burke.
4
. Pulliam,
Harriman.
5
. The movie was
Happy Days,
and the number with the Boswells was cut from the final print.
6
. Letter from Dixie Lee to Edward J. Meeman, 1930, on the occasion of the first of her movies,
Cheer Up and Smile
(her sixth film), to open in Harriman. Meeman was editor of the
Knoxville News-Sentinel.
Cited in Pulliam.
7
. AI, Pauline Weislow.
8
. Meeman letter, op. cit.
9
. “It Happened Last Night,” op. cit.
10
. Vocco also came to Bing’s aid in Chicago (“My goodness, in the old days, I used to put Bing Crosby to bed — he was drunk
all the time, you know — but we became really good friends,” he recalled after Bing’s death); the aid he provided Dixie cemented
a lifelong friendship. Vocco interview, Columbia University Oral History Research Office.
11
. “It Happened Last Night,” op. cit.
12
. The pictures were
Let’s Go Places, Harmony at Home, Happy Days, Cheer Up and Smile,
and
The Big Party.
13
. “One of the most elaborate song and dance numbers probably ever screened is ‘Crazy Feet’ with Dixie Lee singing and 32
girls doing tap and jazz routines.”
Variety,
Feb. 19, 1930.
14
. Atkins,
David Butler;
AI, Robert O’Brien; Ulanov,
The Incredible Crosby.
For Richard Keene (aka Raymond Keene, said by Bing
[Lucky,
p. 121
] to have arranged Bing’s unsuccessful screen test at Fox), Shepherd and Slatzer,
Bing Crosby: The Hol low Man.
For White,
Los Angeles Times,
Sept. 30, 1930. Movies White appeared in with Dixie are
Happy Days
and
Fox Movietone Follies.
15
.
Charles Samuels, “Bing Crosby the Groaner,” unidentified magazine clip, 1946. BCCGU.
16
. Anne Edwards, “Bing Crosby the Going My Way Star in Rancho Santa Fe,”
Architectural Digest,
April 1996.
17
. “It Happened Last Night,” op. cit.
18
. AI, Pauline Weislow.
19
. AI, Flo Haley.
20
. AI, Dr. George J. (Jed) Hummer.
21
. AI, Marsha Hunt.
22
. Larry and Ted Crosby,
Bing,
p. 184
; also, “Bing Crosby the Groaner,” op. cit.
23
. Cooper,
Please Don’t Shoot My Dog,
p. 23
.
24
. This was directly before he left with Whiteman on the aborted trip to Vancouver, which led to his breaking his association
with the bandleader.
25
. Larry and Ted Crosby,
Bing,
p. 178
.
26
. “It Happened Last Night,” op. cit.
27
. Rinker.
28
. Al Hine, “Million Dollar Kettle Drummer,”
Esquire,
May 1953.
29
. Leroy,
Mervyn Leroy: Take One,
p. 88
.
30
. Anthony Quinn, RBT.
31
. Rinker.
32
. Waters,
His Eye Is on the Sparrow.
33
. “The Survival of African Music in America,”
Popular Science Monthly,
Sept. 1899. Cited in Van Der Merwe,
Origins of the Popular Style,
pp. 134
—36.
34
. AI, Joe Bushkin.
35
. AI, Jake Hanna.
36
. AI, MiltHinton.
37
. Letter from Walter Huston to Marie Manovill, Dec. 31, 1938. Courtesy of Marie Manovill and Gloria Burleson.
38
. AI, Bud Brubaker.
39
. AI, June MacCloy.
40
. Ibid.
41
. Armstrong letter, c. 1967, op. cit.
42
. Crosby and Firestone,
Going My Own Way,
p. 112
.
43
.
Spokesman-Review,
Sept. 30, 1930.
44
.
Spokane Daily Chronicle,
Sept. 30, 1930.
45
.
New York Times,
Sept. 30, 1930. This was an AP dispatch. Bing was twenty-seven and had not yet clipped a year from his age; the incorrect
age given Murray Crosey is simply one of many errors, including Dixie’s real name and birthplace.
46
. AI, Basil Grillo.
47
. “Dixie Lee Weds Bing Crosby,”
Los Angeles Times,
Sept. 30, 1930.
48
. AI, Flo Haley.
49
. Armstrong letter, c. 1967, op. cit.
50
. Rinker.
51
. Armstrong,
Swing That Music,
p. viii.
52
.
Los Angeles Examiner,
Mar. 5, 1931.
53
. This occurred only two weeks before the death of Knute Rockne, the beloved Notre Dame football coach, in a plane crash
(March 30), an event that so disturbed Bing that he did not fly again until 1944, occasionally losing work as a result.
54
.
Bob Crosby, RBT.
55
. This line appears in an unproduced teleplay,
Bing and Dixie,
by Mel Frank, based largely on interviews gathered by Frank and producer Meta Rosenberg; in this instance, the line was related
to Meta by George Rosenberg, her husband and Bing’s longtime agent. AI, Meta Rosenberg, Elizabeth Frank.
13. Prosperity Is Just Around the Crooner
1
. Sennett,
King of Comedy,
p. 258
.
2
. Coslow,
Cocktails for Two,
p. 111
.
3
. The show also included an interview with Marlene Dietrich, possibly the first time they met.