Bing Crosby (70 page)

Authors: Gary Giddins

Bing was somewhat less enthralled and, to the writer’s annoyance, kept Carroll at a distance. Their first meeting was a chance
encounter outside Studio B, after a rehearsal. “Glad to know you,” Bing said as Kuhl introduced them. But when he learned
that Carroll was the new writer from New York, Bing said merely, “Ohhhhh? Lots of luck,” and strode off.
²⁰Carroll had already sized up the man, observing him during the rehearsal: “Bing, wearing a porkpie hat, a dark blue outboard
shirt, henna slacks, and black and white golf shoes, was smoking a pipe, doping a race, and running through a new tune, with
Jimmy Dorsey reminding him of it on the saxophone. Nothing could have been more typical.”
²¹

Bing’s clashing clothes, which reflected the fact that he was colorblind, became a running gag, as much a part of the Crosby
persona as Jack Benny’s cheapness — though, in this instance, grounded in reality. Bing could not tell red from green; he
was able to drive because traffic lights were all the same to him — red on top, green on bottom. Carroll recalled once pointing
out to Bing that he was wearing different socks, black and red. Bing looked down and replied, “That’s funny. They both fit.”
Asked on another occasion if he knew the color of his socks, Bing answered, “Dark?”
²²Lines like that are found treasure for a comedy writer, but not necessarily usable. Color-blindness is no joke. The trick
was to make fun of the Hawaiian shirts and array of hats (Bing never wore his rug on the air), the motley of plaids and stripes,
without suggesting a disability.

As they began to work together, Carroll realized that he and Bing shared a fascination with language and a mutual love of
show-business
eccentrics. (Bracken recalled their hilariously trading stories about actor Charlie Butterworth.) Carroll played on those
interests to flesh out Bing’s radio character. For a while Bing resisted speaking more than was necessary; as late as 1946
he argued that listeners wanted to hear him sing, not talk, and he had a habit of severely pruning his dialogue. But as Joe
Bigelow — formerly Bige of
Variety
and by 1946 the Thompson account executive in charge of
KMH
— noted, for all his protests Bing actually liked talking once he got going, especially trading lines with fast comics.
²³Carroll understood that. He began jotting down the odd words and bizarre slang that peppered Bing’s conversation and put
them into the scripts.

“That ain’t English,” Bob Burns observed, “that’s a language called Crosby.”
²⁴A 1938 issue of the sponsor’s house magazine,
Cheesekraft,
published a Bing Crosby glossary: “the full treatment” (a good job), “prayer bones” (knees), “I pass” (I give up), “snozzy
little ketch” (a yacht), “I seem to be playing infield” (I’m all confused), “let’s have a recount” (I’m still confused), “go
in there and pitch” (give them a good show), “a dinger” (a honey), “a whingdinger” (superlative), “fret-tin’ cuticle” (worrying),
“zingy” (quick), “in the groove” (down the alley), “shooting gallery” (movie theater),
²⁵and dozens more, some borrowed from vaudeville and jazz, others of unknown origin, like the one that tickled Miriam Hopkins
about dropping a load of pumpkins, or Carroll’s favorite among Bing’s on-air quips, spoken to trumpeter Wingy Manone after
a solo: “Man, that was dirtier than a Russian horse-doctor’s valise.”
²⁶

Carroll’s routine was straightforward and full-time. He spent the weekend interviewing upcoming guests to get a feel for the
way they spoke, looking for any quirks that could be written into the patter. He explained, “The policy was to talk to highbrows
as if they were athletes and athletes as if they were highbrows.”
²⁷On Monday and Tuesday he wrote the script, delivering complete copies to Bing and Burns, and applicable sections to the guests.
The next day he collected okays and suggestions from the guests. Not until Thursday morning did he receive Bing’s edits, which
Carroll was free to incorporate or ignore. Thursday’s rehearsal was conducted in segments, each timed, but usually not in
order. There was never a complete run-through, so only Bing knew how the entire show would play. Carroll emphasized one reason
the show seemed so informal: what other programs
considered dress rehearsal,
KMH
presented as the actual program, aired live Thursday evening at seven.

For Bing, of course,
KMH
was anything but full-time. He was also making three movies and recording, on average, forty records a year. All of which
he seemed, at times, to treat as necessary intrusions on his primary interests, those of a gentleman sportsman. In that capacity,
too, he made history. The year before he took charge of
KMH,
Bing purchased his first racehorse, Zombie, who placed and showed in two races at Santa Anita, representing Bing’s colors
of blue and gold. At the same time, he hired as his trainer Albert Johnson, a Spokane boy who left a few years before Bing
to make his name as a top jockey, winning the Kentucky Derby in 1922. Bing built stables and an exercise track at Rancho Santa
Fe, and before the year was out he had fifteen horses, and soon after that twenty-one. He was betting and losing heavily,
and his compulsion would worsen before he had it under control. But he earned respect for his serious love of the turf. Trainer
Noble Threewitt recalled him arriving at 4-4:30
A.M
., an hour before the track opened, to pad around the stables, schmooze with the trainers, and read the papers.
²⁸

Thus, Bing was the obvious person to approach when William A. Quigley, a former football star, successful stockbroker, and
occasional racing official, got the idea of establishing a track at Del Mar, not far from Bing’s Rancho Santa Fe getaway.
Bing loved the idea, and the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club was incorporated May 5, 1936. This was to be largely a Hollywood project,
financed and promoted by film stars, whose regular presence at the track would heighten its appeal for the general public.
Bing, the primary stockholder, called for a board meeting the day after incorporation, at Warner Bros.’ studio. Executives
were elected: Bing president, actor Pat O’Brien (the second-largest stockholder) vice president, Everett Crosby secretary-treasurer,
and Oliver Hardy and director Lloyd Bacon officers. The other film people appointed to the executive committee were Gary Cooper,
Joe E. Brown, David Butler, William LeBaron, and Leo McCarey, who soon dropped out, to be replaced by Clark Gable and George
Raft. Remaining directors, drawn from the business world, included millionaire Charles Howard and his son Lindsay Howard.
Quigley was named general manager. When the stock offering failed
to take off, Bing and O’Brien borrowed on life-insurance policies to complete construction of the track. They filed an application
with the California Horse Racing Board for a twenty-five-day meet, beginning July 3, 1937. On the day the world first learned
of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, Bing, in a loose shirt and yachting cap, personally opened the gates and — as newsreel
cameras turned — welcomed customers and collected their tickets. His horse, High Strike, won the first race.

At the same time, Bing pursued his primary love, golf. In 1936 he won the Lakeside Golf Championship, the first of several
such victories. Though he didn’t play on a professional level, he was widely conceded to be one of the best in Hollywood,
his low handicap (two) occasionally contested by those who claimed he was a scratch player; twenty years after Bing’s death,
Bob Hope could be heard complaining that without the handicap they would have been more evenly matched.
²⁹On one occasion, Bing qualified for the national amateur golf championship. Golf expert Toney Penna noted, “If he could have
hit the ball twenty to thirty yards farther, he could have been one of the country’s top amateurs.”
³⁰

Bing’s main contribution to the game was as a popularizer and organizer. Penna (who scored fourth in the 1938 U.S. Open) put
it into his head to create a pro-amateur invitational. Bing was intrigued by the idea of a competition in which Lakeside members
and other low-handicap amateurs could team up with pros. The obvious place to hold it was the course near his home at Rancho
Santa Fe. In February 1937, seven months before Del Mar opened, the Rancho Santa Fe Amateur-Pro — later known throughout the
sporting world as the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am Tournament — made its debut. It was a triumph despite rains that washed
out the first day’s play as well as the bridge leading to a green; firemen and policemen in hip boots piggybacked the players
across the water. Sam Snead won $500 carding a 68. Bing came in with an 87. The Crosby, the first and longest-running celebrity
golf tournament, allocated all proceeds to charities.

All this was grist for Carroll Carroll’s mill, albeit with alterations. Winning ponies, of which Bing had quite a few, were
not as funny as losers, so Bing’s limping nags became a running joke. His obsessive golfing, in Carroll’s hand, was just another
indication of Bing’s laid-back, even lazy, approach to life. Obviously, Bing was never lazy, just
relaxed. Fans, who confused the two, did not get many glimpses of the iron discipline that kept him on track and on time.
His punctuality never wavered; the old days of sheepish arrivals were long past. Film, recording, and radio directors grew
accustomed to arriving in the studio or on the set to find Bing already there. For Bing, a 5:30
A.M
. call did not mean 5:40, and though he apparently never upbraided those who wandered in late, the sight of the leading man
alone on an empty set, reading the newspaper or a racing form, humbled many of his coworkers into tightening their own schedules.

Conversely, Bing left promptly at the designated time, no matter what, even in the middle of a scene. “Tell him exactly when
you wanted him and he’d be there,” Carroll wrote, but the minute the session was over, he was “like a school kid who knew
the bell ought to ring.”
³¹Bing considered punctuality a matter of courtesy. If he was on call to the studio from 6:00 to 4:00 and had another appointment
at 4:30, he figured he ought to be prompt for both. The devil might tempt him with pleasures of the flesh, but never with
idleness. That such exactitude could coexist with the insouciance and imperturbability for which he was renowned dumbfounded
coworkers, especially those leading ladies who felt neglected because he was always pushing off to another appointment. Even
fooling around had its place and time. By categorically following the clock, Bing was never rushed, never harried.

As Carroll fed Bing’s own speech patterns back to him, Bing began to relish the tongue twisters that emerged from the dependable
rhetorical device of mixing highfalutin words with slang. A few weeks into the job, Carroll wrote openings for Bing that even
friends thought were impromptu. For example, the May 7 show:

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Bing Crosby welcoming you to another of our regular Thursday-evening soirees in the
Kraft Music Hall.
And we hope you’re all comfortably settled by your “soiradios” — the Bob Burns influence. At any rate, in addition to the
insidious Burns, Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra, and the Paul Taylor Choristers, we have with us in the Hall this evening
my friend George Raft. We thought maybe the Raft wouldn’t get back from location to be with us tonight, but I’m glad to report
that the smooth and sinister yet romantic Georgie made it. Mr. Toscha Seidel, one of the greatest violinists in
the world, is also with us this evening, I’m proud to say. And Miss Una Merkel, MGM’s very popular and extremely busy young
commediene.
³²

This was followed by patter between Bing and Merkel, with exchanges like:

Bing: How long ago was that?

Una: Goodness, no southern gentleman asks a girl to name dates.

Bing: I’m from Spokane.

Una: That’s far enough south of Alaska to make you a southern gentleman.

And:

Bing: Do you really think it’s wise for a girl to give up school to go on the stager?

Una: What’s the difference? It’s an education. One way, you get smart by degrees. The other way, by stages.

Bing: I wonder what a southern gentleman would say to that?

Una: What do you say to it? Do you think a boy who wants to should go on the stage or stay in school?

Bing: What’s the difference? It’s an education. One way, you get smart by degrees. The other way, by stages.

Una: I just said that.