Bing Crosby (118 page)
Authors: Gary Giddins
29
.
Time,
1938 (undated clip). TIA.
30
. Cagney,
Cagney by Cagney,
p. 109
.
31
. Letter from Lotte Lehmann to Marie Manovill, Apr. 1, 1938.
32
. Letter from Rose Bampton to Marie Manovill, Apr. 4, 1938.
33
. Ibid.
34
. Paramount Bradfield vwf, July 6, 1938.
35
. Paramount Bonney jaf, August 5, 1938.
36
. Ibid.
37
. AI, Phil Harris.
38
. “Picture Making Second to Crosby’s Track Winners,”
New York Daily Mirror,
Aug. 20, 1938.
39
. AI, Charles Whittingham.
40
. AI, Noble Threewitt.
41
. Harrison Carroll,
Los Angeles Evening Herald-Express,
Aug. 8, 1938.
42
.
NewYork Times,
Aug. 14, 1938.
43
. Ibid.
44
. “By Bing Crosby,” 5 Paramount Bradfield SW, July 26, 1938. This release was published verbatim in the
New York Journal-American,
Sept. 4, 1937, with the head line,
CROSBY’S HAY-BURNERS BEAR BRUNT OF HOLLYWOOD JIBES.
45
. Ibid.
23. A Pocketful of Dreams
1
. Anthony Quinn, RBT.
2
. Budd Schulberg,
What Makes Sammy Run?
(NewYork: Random House, 1941).
3
. Geist,
Pictures Will Talk,
p. 58
.
4
. “Bing Crosby the Groaner,” op. cit.
5
.
The rapscallion Bing of the Sennett shorts was not entirely displaced; he often ended up competing with a suitor
(Waikiki Wedding)
or a parent
(Double or Nothing).
Yet the plots of all but a few of his 1930s films are shaped from the same mold.
6
. “Bing Crosby Works for Bing Crosby Now,”
New York World-Telegram,
Aug. 6,1936.
7
. Mel Neuhaus, “Interview: Bing Crosby,” 1976, published in
Laser Marquee,
Nov. 1994.
8
.
Variety,
June 17, 1936.
9
.
Variety,
July 15, 1936.
10
.
Variety,
July 29, 1936.
11
.
Hawaii Star-Bulletin,
cited in “The Musical Tantrum,”
Honolulu Magazine,
June 1988, reprinted in
Bingang,
Dec. 1988.
12
. Owens,
Sweet Leilani,
p. 70
.
15
. Sheila Graham, “Crosby Plans to Quit Film,” syndicated column, Sept. 4, 1936.
16
. Interview with Edward A. Sutherland, Columbia University Oral History Research Project.
17
. Tuttle memoir.
18
. A talented performer, Ross deserved a better career than she had. Born in Omaha in 1909, she introduced “Blue Moon” in
a small role in the picture
Manhattan Melodrama
in 1934.
Waikiki Wedding
was her big break, leading to her celebrated duet with Bob Hope in
The Big Broadcast of 1938.
She made two more films with Hope and reunited with Bing, albeit in a secondary role, for
Paris Honeymoon,
then went to Broadway, where her career ended in the 1940s, after she turned down the lead in
Guys and Dolls
because her husband was dying. Ross died in 1975.
20
. Owens,
Sweet Leilani,
p. 77
.
21
. Tuttle memoir.
22
. Anthony Quinn, RBT.
23
. Ibid.
24
. Owens,
Sweet Leilani,
p. 80
.
25
.
Variety,
Mar. 31, 1937.
26
.
Time,
undated clip. TIA.
27
. New
York Times,
Mar. 25, 1937.
28
.
Melody Maker,
Apr. 17, 1937.
29
.
Variety,
Mar. 31, 1937.
30
.
Variety,
Jan. 5, 1938.
31
. “Timeline: Hawaiian Entertainment Milestones,”
Billboard,
Apr. 30, 1994.
32
. Promotional interview disc for Decca Records, 1955.
33
. AI, Mary Carlisle.
34
. The picture is replete with howlers. Frawley turns in the money, yet he is supposed to be a small-time crook; Bing provides
the accompaniment for a song by flicking on a car radio, without turning on the ignition; Bing outwits the heirs with an architectural
trick that would have cost more than the fortune he hoped to snag; etc.
35
. Irene Thirer, “Frank Tuttle Specialty Is Holiday Movie Wares,”
New York Post,
Mar. 25, 1937.
36
.
Letter from Joseph Breen to John Hammell, Apr. 16, 1937. Also letter from F. S. Harmon of MPAA to Breen, Sept. 16, 1937, on
Will Hays’s response to the scene in question. MPAA files, AMPAS.
37
. The clause forbidding Paramount to bill him as the “sole star” is in his contract for
Double or Nothing.
AMPAS. In the film’s onscreen credits, Crosby and Raye are listed in larger type, followed by Devine and Carlisle in smaller
type, thus continuing what had become a Crosby tradition of billing him as part of a quartet.
38
. AI, Trudy Erwin.
39
. Ibid.
40
. AI, Mary Carlisle.
41
. Ibid.
42
. Ibid.
43
. Ibid.
44
. Ironically, Devine plays the character O. Henry describes as “a well-set-up, affable, cool young man.”
Pocket Book of O. Henry Stories
(New York: Washington Square Press, 1948).
45
. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found,
The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theater
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
46
. The famous sketch was written for her by Dion Titheradge, and in the film is played by Lillie and three Hollywood specialists
in flustered, effete servility: William Austin, Harold Minjir, and the matchless Franklin Pangborn.
47
. AI, Mary Carlisle.
48
.
Chicago Defender,
Aug. 7, 1937, cited in Stratemann,
Louis Armstrong on Screen.
49
.
Chicago Defender,
Sept. 25, 1937. Cited in Stratemann,
p. 73
.
50
. Paramount’s
Doctor Rhythm
press book, which credits Armstrong with “Specialty Numbers.”
51
. Dudley Glass,
The Georgian,
cited in
Variety,
Sept. 15, 1932.
52
. Dolph Franz to Adolph Zukor, Aug. 25, 1937. AMPAS.
53
.
Hollywood Citizen News,
Oct. 28, 1937.
54
. Music Files, Paramount Pictures, cited in Bloom,
Hollywood Song.
55
. Letter from Father Leo J. Robinson, S.J., to Larry Crosby, Oct. 31, 1937. BCCGU.
56
. Letter from Bing Crosby (on Major Pictures Corporation letterhead) to Father Leo J. Robinson, Nov. 3, 1937. BCCGU.
57
. Crosby scored 37 36 73 to Hope’s 40 44 84.
58
. Tuttle memoir.
59
.
Variety,
Jan. 26, 1938.
60
. Cited in Bach,
Marlene Dietrich,
p. 189
.
61
. Tuttle memoir.
62
.
Melody Maker,
May 28, 1938.
63
. Ibid., Aug. 6, 1938.
64
. Ibid.
65
. On the
David Frost Show,
Feb. 10, 1971, Bing and Louis exchanged the following comments (note: Louis was not in
Rhythm on the River):
DF: How many different things have you done together?
High Society…
BC:
Pennies from Heaven. Rhythm on the River.
LA: There were some other pictures, too, you know.
BC:
Doctor Rhythm.
We did a lot of radio together.
LA: We had some nice hustles together.
66
. AI, Joe Bushkin.
67
.
Newsweek,
May 9, 1938.
68
. Paramount’s
Doctor Rhythm
pressbook.
69
. Indeed, Bing plays his comic scenes with aplomb, underscoring his
KMH
persona by prescribing “continuous pedular agitation” to a patient who needs to walk more and fighting a pack of sailors as
a way of winking at those who read in the papers of his navy encounter. He affects a number of silent-comedy stances.
70
. Tuttle memoir.
71
. Sidney Skolsky, “Tintypes,”
New York Daily Mirror,
Aug. 18, 1938.
72
. Ibid.’
73
. Atkins,
Arthur Jacobson,
p. 107
.
75
. AI, Donald O’Connor.
76
. Salisbury interview, op. cit.
77
. Atkins,
Arthur Jacobson,
p. 110
.
80
. “By Bing Crosby,” Paramount herbert vpf, Jan. 24, 1938.
81
. Kate Cameron, “Crosby, MacMurray in Paramount Hit,”
New York Daily News,
Aug. 18, 1938.
82
. Time, Aug. 20, 1938.
83
.
Life,
Aug. 1938.
84
.
New York Times,
Aug. 29, 1938.
85
. Ibid.
86
.
The Film Criticism of Otis Ferguson,
p. 23
1.
87
.
Life,
op. cit. The upper case T in
twins
is
Life’s,
as are the misspellings of the boys’names.
88
. Anthony Quinn, RBT.
89
. AI, Donald O’Connor.
24. Captain Courageous
1
. AI, Gary Crosby.
2
. “Crosby Returns from Bermuda Trip with Many Stories but No Shirts,” NBC press release, Oct. 27, 1938.
3
. Ibid.
4
. Since the early 1980s Crosby has often been portrayed as a virtuoso philanderer, sometimes with a snide zealotry that would
have made the Puritans roll their eyes. That Crosby disported himself in his early years we have seen. That he cheated on
Dixie during the 1940s and after, embarking on a love affair for which he almost cashiered their marriage, we shall see, in
volume two. But rumors aside, instances of such behavior in the period under discussion are not substantiated.
5
. Since more than one research archive includes in its files for Florence George and/or Everett Crosby an arrest record concerning
a woman of the same name and one Ira Sturman, charged at his apartment, on February 9, 1929, with possession of
narcotics and ten gallons of liquor, it may be prudent to note here that
that
Florence was a dancer and no relation to Everett’s wife, who was twelve years old at the time of her namesake’s misadventure.
Everett was forty-two when he married Florence in New York, on May 9, 1939 (director Victor Schertzinger was best man); they
had no children.
6
. Ted married Hazel Nieman (children, Patricia Antonia, Catherine Anne, and Helen Delores, who entered the Holy Names order
as Sister M. Catherine Joan). His second marriage was to Margaret Mae Mattes (children, Howard Mattes and Edward Nathaniel).
7
. Mary Rose married Albert Peterson (a daughter, Carolyn), William Miller (a son, William), and James Pool.
8
. Letters from Harry Crosby to Ted Crosby, Sept. 7 and Sept. 29, 1936. From the latter: “[Dell] was the cause of it all,
after Mother got Bob to send for her, for that woman Dell to go along, we knew would spoil it all, so Marie writes us that
Dell is through with her, and we take it that Dell has departed.” HCC.
9
. The marriage to Marie Grounitz produced a daughter, Elizabeth Ann. The children of Bob’s second marriage are Cathleen Denyse,
Christopher Douglas, George Robert Jr., Stephen Ross, and Junie Malia. The remaining siblings, Kay and Larry, married, respectively,
Edward Mullin (a daughter, Marilyn) and Elaine Couper (a son, John, and a daughter, Molly).
10
. Letter from Harry Crosby to Ted Crosby, Sept. 7, 1936. HCC.
11
.
Catechism of the Catholic Church.
12
. AI, Howard Crosby.
13
. Simon,
The Best of the Music Makers,
p. 147
.
14
. Bob Crosby, RBT.
15
. Letter from Bob Crosby to Ted Crosby, Sept. 21, 1935. HCC.
16
. AI, BobHaggart.
17
. Chilton,
Stomp Off, Let’s Go,
p. 72
.
18
. AI, Bob Haggart.
19
. Ibid.
20
. Bob Crosby, RBT.
21
. Osborne interview, op. cit.
22
. Ibid.
23
. Ibid.
24
. AI, Rosemary Clooney.
25
. Bob Crosby, RBT.
26
. AI, Bob Haggart.
27
. AI, Ralph Sutton.
28
. AI, Ken Barnes.
29
. Ibid.
30
. Ibid.
31
. Ibid.
32
. Ibid.
33
. Ibid.
34
. AI, Rosemary Clooney.
35
.
Joe Franklin Show,
WOR-TV, Dec. 3, 1976.