The Bing Crosby Story

[Music] bing crosby was the definitive all-round entertainer he represents wholesomeness something that's reassuring even from his early days on screen he seemed to be already an elder statesman and get in line off on the road to morocco hang on [Music] a man who adapted to whatever the world was throwing at him at the time one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century bing was loved and admired across the globe people just thought bing was the epitome of the decent american guy who'd made it big on the [Music] bing screen was born harry lillis crosby jr in tacoma washington in 1903. three years later his family would move to spokane washington where young harry would spend his formative years bing was one of a large family seven children his parents were strivers not exactly working class but not exactly middle class either they were on the whole an ordinary a very ordinary american catholic family when he was about six uh he was reading the funnies in the spokesman newspaper there was a feature in it called the bingville bugle which was a kind of parody of hillbilly newsletter and he was laughing his pants off it was about six and a neighbor he sort of saw him laughing and he just called him bingo from bingville and for some reason rather the name just stuck and they they dropped the o and it became bing in 1917 bing crosby saw al jolson perform live an event that would have a lifelong effect on the young bing after playing drums and singing in local high school bands 1925 saw bing form a vocal duo with friend al wrinkler bing knew al rinker from school and bing was singing with a group of local school kids just performing at school dances and that kind of thing and that's when he sort of joined up with al ranker again and they formed a vocal duo no it so happened that al al's sister was the famous singer and she introduced him to paul whiteman america's most celebrated band leader at the time very very famous very very powerful everybody loved his work he thought they might make a sort of nice addition to the band i've got those happy feet weitmann hired crosby for 150 a week and with the addition of further members the group was named the rhythm boys it's remarkable when we think about it today from this small town he goes into the rhythm boys and it had jimmy and tommy dorsey hoagy carmichael and bing crosby in it you just can't imagine that happening today they were rubbing shoulders with you know the jazz greats to just the swing jazz grace at the time as it went on bing's voice and his easy style just sort of rose above the other two the world spring of course of being crosby is the voice it does come down to this extraordinary kind of whiskey deep cello voice that he has you know this lovely baritone that he must have had from a very early age crosby became the star of the rhythm boys and had his own number one hit with the whiteman orchestra in 1928 with a jazz inspired cover of old man river oh man 1930 crosby married his first wife dixie lee the couple would have four children although crosby was quickly becoming a success his personal troubles threatened to derail his career at that time he drank a lot and and was very much a boyo misbehaved in in many ways um and was a bit of a tear away and it was a little bit difficult to discipline him the crunch came when uh bing was involved in a drunk driving um accident and ended up in jail um this was a time when um paul white was actually making a film called the king of jazz and bing was supposed to be in it and what they had to do he had to get him out of jail and he came to the studios in handcuffs each day he misbehaved thoroughly throughout the film apparently and in fact his part was cut out entirely but when people saw the film and knew that bing crosby had been in it he had to it had to be reinstated so being was reinstated in the part despite his misbehavior and it became a big success after appearing in the film the king of jazz bing left the rhythm boys to pursue a solo career and in 1931 he had his first solo success with the number one hit out of nowhere you came to be from out of nowhere he signed me brunswick and made his first proper single which was out of nowhere very aptly named because it was a huge hit and it was as if he'd just sort of been born into the public consciousness out of nowhere was his first number one hit it was kind of an unusually structured song went on to become very popular in later years as well django reinhardt later did a version of it crosby's interest in music recording methods led him to develop a new style of singing first showcasing out of nowhere this style would come to be known as crooning big was always interested in the way that he sounded and in fact in the course of out of nowhere he'd he'd got a special microphone all the microphones were very close and they were sort of state of the art and it was in the third chorus actually that he introduced for the first time a more intimate sound you came to me normally the singers up until that point had been sort of rather declaratory because of course they didn't the microphones and the electronic equipment um wasn't quite up to standard so they would sort of you know even some of them would use megaphones but it was the first time anybody had heard somebody almost breathing a lyric if you're using a microphone you don't have to belt it out to the cheap seats in the back you can really use a much more intimate conversational style you've got the microphone up close so using the microphones in this way really invented a whole new style of singing they call it crooning he didn't like that term but it it's really apt by that time it was he was beginning to become the personality the being everybody knew and loved um and there was no doubt about it that hollywood took note of him as the 1930s unfolded bing's popularity grew and he had his first starring role in the big broadcast after appearing in a few mac senate shorts crosby signed with paramount pictures now folks will regale you with a slight song one of bing's first on-screen successes came with the starring role in 1940s the road to singapore in which he appeared opposite his great friend bob hope do you remember yuba who played on the tuba and made the rumba such a popular beast the old peanut fender was a solid sander not to mention he was easy with movies he was as easy with movies as he was with a microphone having gotten himself into the swing of movies he teamed up with bob hope who had already had some huge successes with comedy films and they started making a series of films called the road 2. [Music] the road move is when credit was successful the road to singapore was the first one he and bob hope absolutely work together uh so easily and so fluently hey look we could have thought of another way to get us here here we go again julian we're off on the road to morocco this taxi is tough on the spine beats the bus beats me where where we're going why we're going after the success of road to singapore and then road to zanzibar a further sequel road to morocco was released in 1942 this series would run to nine films in all these were an enormous success it's very difficult to understand just how big these films were at the time because now they look a bit sort of eggy actually they understood the test of time quite as well as say we carry on films but i think the reason behind their enormous success was that the both stars who were enormous stars of their own right um traded off each other they basically played themselves hey what's the drive-in doing in the middle of the desert i'm no quiz kid come on let's eat well i'll force something hey toss us a couple of java we got our own sugar two tall double dip hamburgers not too well done please and a couple of mile-high beers hey it's moving we gotta grab it hey come back if you watch them again they're not particularly deep but they're not particularly well developed but they thrive on the chemistry between the um the two guys and certainly the two guys and the girl where bob hope would bring a kind of buffoonish easy fast talking quality to it and crosby would be the voice in a way he would be the more laid back slightly more together not necessarily the straight man i think that kind of defines it's too much a comedy double axe i think there's a bit more to it than that but he was kind of certainly the kind of the guy the girl was going to get for any villains we may meet we haven't any fear audiences ate these up they loved them they were funny they were adventurous family-friendly entertainment they worked so well together as a pair and with dorothy lamour they had a lot going for them just found a hole in my shoe and my stocking shows through [Music] he was making records of course all this time and their records were selling and selling and selling they were becoming huge celebrities and they were cultivating this idea of brands you know i think this is one of the first times certainly crosby's case where you know who being was was a brand and it was a brand across records and films and a public life and it made him millions and was selling millions of records you know what he was selling was bigness you're giving bigness to the world bing crosby had become one of america's most popular performers and after the outbreak of world war ii he traveled to entertain the troops the stardom was kind of very well managed i think certainly by him um as looking at the the career grew and the more the film started to come he kind of cultivated the idea of the bing crosby persona uh and what it represented outside of making the films making the records so he very publicly visited the troops during the war he became a kind of emblem of america in a way and what america what they were fighting for because he represented a kind of fireside goodness you know the kind of spokane boy and something that embodied all they were kind of doing a kind of moral outstandingness it turned out that um in a poll he became top of um the people who felt that they provided most of the war of it above president roosevelt above eisenhower and above bob hope his great friend and golfing buddy so he clearly done his bit [Music] crosby's work entertaining the troops also led to a discovery that would change the way music and vocals would be recorded in the process of being in the war and being in the european theater at the time at least if it wasn't him than one of one of his sort of gang as it were discovered in germany um recording equipment that was infinitely superior to anything they had in america and basically sort of just nicked it and brought it back to the states along with a sort of case full of tapes this was to prove really really important in the development of recording in 1942 crosby starred in holiday inn opposite fred astaire here she comes down the street my oh my ain't she sweet why here comes my hot toddy over my dead body the film features the song which would then become his biggest hit white christmas [Music] just like the ones i used to know [Music] where the treetops glisten and [Music] white christmas great opening berlin song it was an enormous hit i mean unbelievable hit up until elton john's new version of canon wind it was the biggest selling single of all time ever in the history of recorded [Music] as much as kind of the the recordings were getting sophisticated i think the films weren't and he was maintaining the kind of bing quality and if you watch holiday inn again it's kind of a bit of a wishy-washy romantic tale when she and fred is there kind of lose the girl and get the girl and chase the girl and neither were particularly sort of virile you know romantic leading men so it's hard to buy into it but you get bing singing and the whole world stops as he sings white christmas may your days [Music] even now it sends a shiver down your spine when your hair is as silly as the film is but this was the time when people really during the war they really wanted something that was comforting and that gave them the old values of family life and the rest of it and the nice film with nice stars and good songs was exactly what they wanted so you can't really blame the films when i see them now i have a laugh but at the same time when it gets to white christmas and the snow falling outside this obvious set is really rather wonderful still white christmas was now the song that was synonymous with crosby we are told that he really can't stand it when i don't blame him frankly or because of course it became the thing that everybody wanted to hear after the success of holiday inn bing sought out more challenging dramatic roles good morning excuse me but could you tell me where i'd find saint dominic's church hey i i'm looking for saint dominic's church in 1944 he starred as a catholic priest in going my way what's your name father o'malley charles francis patrick o'malley in film terms i think the the defining persona is going my way uh which you would win an oscar for in which famously plays a priest who comes to a small town through his sheer you know the sheer magnetism of his bigness he would you know transform the citizens and make them happier you got chord number one chord number two chord number three put those three chords together and we can sing a song i'll hold up the fingers those will be your signals watch the singles now they got on the catcher i'm giving you the signals one two three ready [Music] he appeared as a catholic priest but a rather unorthodox one with a baseball cap and wearing the clothes of his poverty-stricken parishioners incredibly popular because he had this wonderful relaxed style which showed that that the church was something that was able to be absolutely normal to their parishioners not to appear to be ridiculously ennobled by the priesthood there he was in his baseball cap helping the prob the problems of the poor the americans just loved it he was initially reluctant to take on the role of father o'malley because he was a catholic himself he was a little bit nervous about playing a priest but thank goodness he did it was a career-making performance what about your mother well i don't remember much about her she died when i was quite young going my way was nominated for 10 oscars and walked away with seven including a best actor award for crosby [Music] it's a rather schmaltzy film in hindsight but it's certainly the kind of film academies to love that kind of what they thought was kind of life enhancing his message was you know upstanding and heartfelt i think the reason he got it was probably sentimental reasons and also the fact that he showed he had acting chops i mean there's no question about it he acted the part but i think it was probably an antidote it was a corrective to you know the bad periods that people have been through and they wanted a little bit of hope and sunshine and that film provided it and he provided because whatever else happened the being was not a villain well children you're going to see a lot of me in the future i'm going to be around here a great deal you're going to hear the shortest speech ever heard this is a holiday everybody take the day off [Applause] bing reprised his role as father chuck o'malley in the 1945 sequel the bells of saint mary's this time starring with ingrid bergman do you realize what you've done these children are liable to get into mischief and the responsibility is yours what seemed like a good idea did he deserve to be nominated for the second film in which he was played the same character probably not but i mean it was no chance he was going to get it he's one of only a handful of actors who've ever been nominated for the same role in two different films anyway both of those films actually in some catholic countries they were banned because it was thought to be not correct that catholic priest should wear a baseball gap but it was he got an oscar for one was nominated in the other and that was an extraordinary success for him after the after the road movies which were pure comedies do you remember this song and dance man song and dance man that's right in 1946 the musical blue skies saw the pairing of crosby and fred astaire once again sure go ahead in us you see a couple of song and dance men i'm the song i'm the dance he made a film called blue skies it was a sort of classic musical story with a sort of a blood triangle in the middle of it and the guy he wanted was fred astaire fred astaire had more or less stopped he was 47 and he'd more or less stopped making films but he got there was another guy cast i think his name is paul draper bing crosby and this is this is the extent of his power and his sort of um ambition basically got draper sacked and got the staring i came to serenae a very pretty i sang her to sleep with asleep that always makes them collapse astaire said it was going to be his last film as a dancer it nearly was um he did make one much later but it was his sort of swan song in terms of that particular period and they worked incredibly well together crosby showed a lifelong interest in the recording process and actively funded research into continuing technological advancements people don't actually realize about being he was very shrewd operator no question about that he knew all the best people and he wanted them to work for him quite apart from being a great singer and an entertainer he was an extraordinary entrepreneur and he had extraordinary sense of what was the next big thing and recording and the quality of recording was a lifelong obsession with him the voice precedes everything in a way and he was incredibly forward-looking and in terms of the technology and recording you know this is a guy who's end up selling like half a billion records but he was very fastidious almost about how you maintain this and how he could further you know and he he looked very much into and developed himself and put money into recording studios he set up a crosby foundation he researched about how his great baritone voice could be laid down onto tracks he invested in the first real real recording and he had with him people who really wanted to advance radio and television crosby pushed to begin pre-recording his radio shows a development which did not impress his radio broadcaster cbs the radio station cbs he was waiting for did not like the idea recorded work because they didn't think that the quality of recorded songs or material was anything like as good as it was in the live broadcast that was true up to a certain extent until bing came along with this new equipment that had been sort of hijacked from germany he wanted to develop recordings because it would free him as well as all artists up from actually having to be in one place at one time and then have to do it again it's joked that he's wanted to pre-tape radio or tv recordings so that he could go out and play more golf he was a very avid golfer a very good golfer um maybe that was the reason he started but it was really quality for the audience you could edit out the dead bits you could make a better program and you know he was one of the pioneers of this i mean you could record the thing you could edit it you could lay all kinds of stuff over it and then we would freely disseminate it and principally it meant that he could send it out across the three time zones there was no question to change the music industry utterly so in many ways being was not just wonderful or big but somebody much ruder than that a very good businessman who knew exactly how to bring radio up to date and recording up to date and he insisted upon it in 1954 he starred in white christmas a loose remake of his 1942 film holiday inn the title song was re-released with continuing success later the same year bing crosby starred opposite grace kelly in the country girl what'd you have to make that crack about responsibility for why didn't you tell me about that audition this morning frank because i wasn't sure whether i could make it or not i must have walked up and down 47 feet a dozen times before i could make myself go through why didn't you tell him the film where he does kind of suggest there was more to being than bing was the country girl with his first film with grace kelly um which is a kind of it has a kind of a star is born quality to it in which he is kind of the washed up singer he is the washed up star and has to play someone who isn't necessarily as genial as he's played before the most serious part he ever did probably was the country girl where he played a washed-up singer and behaved in the way that he probably had behaved earlier in his career and it was a he got an oscar nomination he didn't win the oscar but it was it was a remarkable turnout for him to actually play what he actually might have become he played basically an alcoholic actor out on his luck who is redeemed by the love of a good woman in spite of his own self-destructive tendencies catching cold that's all i need you're probably smoking too much try and go to sleep frank i want to see the review in the morning paper first you can see it at breakfast you need can't sleep until i know what they thought of me time that they deliver the morning paper around here any home in the afternoon it's quite a tough job i mean it's it's got sort of streaks and sense mentality that actually stands out quite well um but uh one can't help feeling that he is certainly tapping into something of his um earlier days critics really responded to him taking on this darker material it's a tougher guy than we've seen bing crosby play before and he pulled it off well he got an oscar nomination for it all you have to do is get some sleep at the understudy he's he's gonna want to get in here i just listened to him read frank he's no good you'll have to play the matinee no no no bernie just don't stick your neck out listen frank i'm in no mood to cut my throat in public the understudy stinks and you're the only thing i've got around it's not just the mountain hey bernie i've been thinking you got to replace me when you took this job i promised you no pity and no pity it's going to be i don't expect any i'm only warning you get rid of it let me go back to new york he's interesting in it actually it's probably his most you know interesting performance and certainly a sense of um because i think he made it at the time when the the fame and the kind of the career had reached at zenith and was just starting to tail off so he might have been staring into his own kind of life a little bit even when i was the biggest i was afraid although bing was now the most popular performer in america his personal life did not always reflect the jovial and friendly character he portrayed on screen the story goes that what you saw on screen wasn't necessarily what was what he was like he was uh very he was very demanding um he was a perfectionist you know he was he was kind of relatively difficult to work with i think and there are dark stories of his relationships with his children that he was a distant uncommunicative father and you know there are even stories of violence his own marriage broke up rather sadly because his wife became an alcoholic whether she became an alcoholic because of his coldness towards her people who said that he was a very different man from the being um we all knew and loved one of his sons said that they took a long journey to the studio and on the journey just with his son he didn't speak to him at all it was over 100 miles in the car didn't speak to him at all as soon as they reached the studio he became the being everybody loved so this is kind of idea of the you know which is again is not uncommon in um superstars and certainly in in stars who have maintained a very genial personality that there might be more you know that he was sort of someone who's hard as nails kind of underneath that maintaining it and the kids came out and said we wish he was like you know the characters he played because he wasn't the audiences got someone we didn't sometimes [Music] in 1956 crosby starred with grace kelly frank sinatra and louis armstrong in high society [Music] probably high society is one of the most sophisticated musicals there is going it is a wonderful film based on the philadelphia story proper script really interesting characters it does exactly what it says on the packets about sort of conflicts between people in our society and the music is just sensational just the the vision and the sound of seeing true love being sung by bing crosby and grace kelly has sort of just stopped your heart and to give to me love forever it also has one of my favorite songs of any musical which is often called what a swell party this is and have you heard the story of a boy a girl unrequited love sounds like pure soap opera i may cry tune in tomorrow what a swell party this is what frails what frogs what broads what furs what rock they're beautiful well i've never seen such scared these are derived just going for it and it is just a wonderful piece of staged musicality one of the wonders and one of the great joys of crosby's career and sinatra's career is what they did in high society and what it represented have you heard about dear blanche got run down by an avalanche no don't worry she's a game girl you know got up and finished four kids got guts having a nice time grab a line instead of sort of running away from it they had a jewel you know virtually in the film and it's one of the most wonderful songs put on film bing crosby's interest in how music was recorded was sparked again in the late 1950s when he and frank sinatra co-founded united western recording studios hollywood's most state-of-the-art recording space along with sinatra he invested in united western a recording studio in los angeles and just had impeccable acoustics and is still being used today it really helped the singer's voice come to the front then of course because it was state of the art because he had access to all the kinds of um uh equipment that he'd in fact developed or had caused to be developed all the recording styles of the day wanted to use it because he was so far ahead of anything else that was in existence so it could be said that if it hadn't been for for crosby and his entrepreneurship then sinatra would not have had quite the same launch to his career not quite the same facility to create such wonderful sounds to your songs undoubtedly you know um as much as sinatra were kind of was kind of the next generation and was you know his rival i think it was huge amounts of respect and and friendship that formed between them and sinatra was following his trail and all the work that crosby had done with with recording and developing how music would be sung and songs we sung not just on record but also on film was a gift to sinatra to thrive on in 1957 bing married his second wife catherine grant crosby the couple would go on to have three children in 1961 crosby starred in his last row two movie the road to hong kong when two guys pulled together it's teamwork [Music] the last road movie was the route to hong kong with a completely new cast although uh deutsche lamar was given a small cameo because bob thought she should be in it somewhere being thought she was too old for the party anymore but it was peter sillers and joan collins who were the stars of it come on doc we want to get this fella's memory back now will you get on with the therapy no my dear fellow but i tell you what i will do but i'll get on with the therapy first of all we have the special all india close up i test the reading chart now read please from the fourth line down thank you very much i owe you 1300 rupees 1300 a minute ago it was 1200. you should have jumped at it when you had to chance my development doctor there's nothing wrong with my eyes the road to hong kong is perhaps not the best swan song to this series um they were getting a little bit older they got joan collins and he was younger didn't quite fit they weren't sort of acknowledging that their careers had progressed their ages had progressed maybe even joan collins and peter sellers stole a little of the spotlight from banging bob can't you see us in a rickshaw [Music] although the road to hong kong was bing's last on-screen performance in the series bing wanted to make the road to the fountain of youth he did have one last unfulfilled ambition which was to make one final road two movie um the punishative title which was road to the fountain of youth which may tell us more about being crosby than anything else he was again slightly ahead of the game because what he wanted to do was to do it in the style of monty python the fact that he even knew monty python was in terms of the comedy show is very telling the fact that he thought that he could actually pull it off is even more talented [Music] bing was very much a man of the times he was able to adapt and to want to do something in the monty python style would have been absolutely fantastic to see those guys taking on comedy in a new way you can kind of imagine a kind of a kind of stranger kind of more kind of self-aware film more ironic film that might have come you know might he eventually have laughed at bing ness you know he might have kind of because he didn't you know he was kind of shields were always down it was it seemed to lack a bit of self-awareness being crosby but maybe there was a film there that kind of broke through the armor [Music] bing would take a step back from hollywood filmmaking in the 1960s and 70s and instead focus on performing live and appearing on television quite apart from the actual oral stuff in terms of the sound quality of the thing he also managed to transfer that into developing videotape so he he was well ahead of the game there and he created his own television series and used that to be able to he could tape those and then syndicate those all over the world in 1964 crosby starred in the bing crosby show a situational comedy starring being as a middle-aged family man everything else had been live to air and now you could pre-record you could make a better program you could hit different parts of the country different time zones it was a big achievement it's a little bit laughable now and you know it was very kind of very popular at the time but leaning over a piano and you know the fight of the jumpers um you know there's an element of silliness i suppose if we have to blame him for anything it was for creating what we now know as the laugh track um which was if you have a comedy and you you know you've got a gag that falls flat on the floor if you if you have people laughing people forget that it's not funny um and he he basically engineered that as well he was the architect behind using that despite crosby's lack of on-screen appearances in the 1970s his popularity remained high and audiences around the world flocked to see him perform hello you the new butler it's been a long time since i've been the new anything what's happened to uh hudson it was in london in september 1977 that he made his last christmas special which featured david bowie and this one this is my son's favorite do you know this one oh i do indeed it's a lovely [Music] thing [Music] he made his last christmas show and included in that is a duet with david bowie of little drummer boy which is a really lovely piece of work and really extraordinary it's a good one to go out on i think this is such a great tribute to bing crosby before he died he's doing this amazing duet with david bowie who else would take those risks this is a guy that was a radio star in the 1930s coming all the way to being the most modern you possibly could with david bowie [Music] he showed great wisdom you know first in archery he picked people that would be you would think contradictory forces toward what he represented and kind of tried to marry himself to them in some way enjoy the irony and enjoy the the contradictions it presented he remained being and he remained cuddly and and jumpered and kind of at ease but alongside this bowie during one of his more extreme phases is kind of elfin pale skinned creature it's quite an odd sight but the song is rather enduring the sad thing is it wasn't actually transmitted after his death he obviously saw it but he wasn't able to appreciate how it went down [Music] he went from the recording of that last christmas special to spain to play golf and bob hope always says that his doctor told him what you can play you can play but you can only play nine holes because of his failing health and bing crosby bing crosby played 18 holes and at the 18th he had a heart attack and collapsed and died the fuss when he died was astonishing especially from older film goers who remembered him so well [Music] whenever i feel afraid there hasn't been anybody quite like being crosby because there hasn't been anybody who's crossed so many different aspects of recorded music and entertainment so he introduced into kind of cinema as he had that into music a kind of softer quality that people are very attached to the world loved him really because he came to prominence in the 30s and 40s when you really did need a little bit of comforting a little bit of certainty there will never be another voice like ben crosby i think in 500 years people will still be listening to white christmas he's got the voice you

Channel: A Classic St Patricks Day With Bing

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Keywords: Bing Crosby, St Patricks Day, Bing St Patricks, St Patricks day music

Id: BSG_BCXHMSI

Length: 42min 18sec (2538 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2017