Authors: Gary Giddins
Part the First
Crackerjack, large peanuts and exceptional popcorn between the acts by David Butler, concessionaire. Very good prizes too.
Part the Second
Entire Company
The above program, subject to change with plenty of notice. No money refunded once the curtain goes up. If it goes up.
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Though blackface was confined chiefly to an end-men number by Venuti and Mercer, the costumes replicated the wry buffoonery
of an old-time minstrel show, with satiny stripes, clashing plaids, and bowlers or top hats. Bing looked especially natty
in a black frock coat, broad-plaid trousers, a close-plaid vest with a watch fob, polka-dot bow tie, and top hat. O’Brien
wore a suit of silver satin. Bessie Burke wore a studded leather belt, a satin blouse, cowboy hat, and chaps of sheep’s wool
with cutouts to display her buttocks. Johnny Burke and Dixie wore matching suits with fitted trousers and waistcoats, bow
ties, and bowlers. The women in the sextet number blended satin, gingham, lace, and outlandish hats. David Butler tied a leopard
skin over rolled-up trousers and cowboy shirt for a number with an unbilled John Scott Trotter.
Within weeks telegrams hastily went out for the club’s second meeting:
THE WESTWOOD HILLS MARCHING AND CHOWDER CLUB NORTH HOLLYWOOD BRANCH ASKS YOU TO ITS 2ND BREAKWAY MINSTREL SHOW TO BE PERPETRATED
AT 10500 CAMARILLO NORTHHOLLYWOOD AT 7 PM JUNE 25TH. BRING YOUR OWN ACT AND COSTUME OR COME AND KNOCK YOURSELF OUT. CALL MISS
ROSS AT NH 5645 WITH ACCEPTANCE OR ALIBI. SUPPER AT MIDNIGHT.
— DIXIE AND BING CROSBY
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This show rounded up most of the same cast, along with Ken Murray, Wesley Ruggles, Jimmy Monaco, Andy Devine, Bill Frawley,
Eddie Sutherland, Skeets Gallagher, and Fred MacMurray. Trotter led a five-piece band that included Tommy Dorsey and Spike
Jones. Now titled
The Breakaway Minstrel Show,
the company performed in a huge tent erected on the Crosby tennis court, with an elaborate proscenium arch and a painted
backdrop.
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The showstopper came early, after an ensemble chorus of “Hello, Hello” and “The Little Ladies, God Bless ‘Em, in good ole
‘Swanee River.’” Lasses Mercer and Chitlins Crosby offered an “erudite analyseration of swing,”
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based on the vaudeville classic “Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean.” Mercer wrote the lyric, an off-the-wall parody of jazz history;
but what dazzled the audience was the smooth running wit of the neovaudevillians delivering it.
JM: Oh, Mr. Crosby [BC hums], Dear Dr. Crosby [BC scats]
Is it true that swing’s another name for jazz? [BC scats]
And the first place it was played
Was a New Orleans Parade
And the Southern Negro gave it all it has?
BC: Oh, Mr. Mercer, Mr. Mercer, Mr. Mercer,
Mr. Mercer, I believe that its foundation came from them
[JM: Are you positive?]
Yeesss. They just slowed the tempo down
And then they really went to town.
JM: Allegretto, Mr. Crosby?
BC: Alligators, Mr. M.
….
BC: Mr. Mercer, [JM: Yes?] Oh, Mr. Mercer, [JM: Hm-hmm?]
Well, I trust that I have made the matter clear.
[JM: It’s really too clear.]
So when someone plays a thing
You’re gonna understand it’s swing
And appreciate the rhythm that you hear.
JM: Oh, Mr. Crosby, [BC: Oh, hear me talking to ya]. No, Mr. Crosby
[BC scats]
I’m afraid that type of rhythm’s not for me.
I prefer my music played
A la Schubert serenade.
BC: Sort of ritardo, Mr. Mercer?
JM: Sort of Lombardo, Mr.
C.
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The number went over so well that Bing and Mercer recorded it six days later for Decca, producing a major hit (hailed by
Time
as “the summer’s most amusing ditty”),
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an unflappable duet that remains a standard for rhythmic joshing on the boundary between vaudeville and jazz. They also recorded
Hoagy Carmichael’s “Small Fry,” a more conventional reverie with southern minstrel badinage, which they performed with Fred
MacMurray (“Fred plays the old dame”) in the tent show, re-creating a scene from the as-yet-unreleased
Sing You Sinners.
Other highlights found Bing, as Gene Krupa Krosby, joining with Kenny Goodman Murray and Lionel Hampton Burke on “Maggie
Blues”; and as Cracklins Crosby, rendering the classic “Nobody” (“Lifted bodily from a Bert Williams record”), which he later
sang successfully on radio; the broadcast performance was issued as a Decca recording.
Bing’s “private” shows, including impromptu productions at his golf and track meets, entranced much of Hollywood, adding to
an allure that impressed his colleagues. In a town plagued by fear, he was seemingly fearless. His persona reflected an independence
as admirable as it was rare. James Cagney had appeared as a guest on
Kraft Music Hall
early in 1937, but it was a year later, while listening to the show at his farm on Martha’s Vineyard, that he experienced
something of an epiphany about Bing. “I knew at once that this was a most extraordinary fella. I actually started to write
a piece about him, ‘The Miracle Known as Crosby,’ but after a page or two, I stopped. I realized he was just beginning, and
would add up to even more than he was.”
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Cagney was one of many
KMH
guests who marveled at his enigmatic grace.
A few weeks after the June Breakaway Minstrel Show, a young journalist named Marie Manovill wrote to several of Bing’s radio
guests, asking them to discuss his good and bad points. Lotte Lehmann observed, “It is very difficult for me to say whether
the charm of his personality or the charm of his songs is more appealing to me.”
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The only correspondent who ventured any criticism was Rose Bampton. She began by remarking on Bing’s ability to work hard
and yet “make everyone about him feel that he is taking life easily, which is quite unique. Especially, since his work is
always done and done well.”
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She pointed to the improvement in his singing as evidence of his labor and credited his “sincerity and absolute honesty”
as additional reasons for his success. She continued:
If one were hunting for bad points, I think his only one would be that perhaps he is too self-effacing. I can recall the occasion
of one broadcast which demanded that Bing learn an arrangement of the sextette of “Lucia.” Bing insisted that he didn’t read
music, that he wasn’t a good musician, yet in spite of all this, inside of fifteen minutes he was singing as nonchalantly
as any opera singer a most difficult arrangement which had been allotted to him.
By this little criticism I do not mean to say that one must be arrogant, but surely Bing should be cognizant a little more
of his own quite unique ability and standing.
But then, perhaps that is just one of the reasons why every artist who is on his program comes away with a feeling of having
made a very sincere new friend, and is just another Crosby fan for ever after.
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Bampton had hit on something. Her “little criticism” was much echoed, privately and in the press, as Bing’s movies became
increasingly routine; observers wondered why he seemed more energetic in pursuing golf and the ponies than in broadening his
range as a performer. The public, of course, was satisfied. Bing was treasured in and out of the business. Hollywood had adopted
him as its favorite crooner back when the Rhythm Boys played the Montmartre Cafe. The Marching and Chowder Club affirmed his
likableness with insiders and amused the public when it learned of the get-togethers, initially through a charity-raising
performance on Tommy Dorsey’s
Raleigh-Kool Show.
The MCC sponsored a quintet: violinist Jack Benny, clarinetist Ken Murray, cornetist Dick Powell, pianist Shirley Ross, and
drummer Bing.
An eager Paramount publicist ran with the ball: the Marching and Chowder Club performed every month (no less) and “turned
back the pages of time to the gay ‘90s” with “approximately 150 stars” (no less). Why stop there? The Floradora Sextette number
alone, he marveled, would “cost $500,000 to put on the screen.”
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Bing may have considered the ballyhoo a mistake, because Paramount quickly retreated with a bulletin that began on a more
ominous note: “The screen colony’s ‘open door’ policy is a thing of the past.”
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This release grieved for the film stars who were harassed by “chiseling hangers-on, blackmailers, souvenir hunters, and gate-crashing
celebrity hunters”; they had no choice but to pare down parties and guest lists. “The West Side [sic] Marching and Chowder
Club,” it noted, hired “special guards to keep out the uninvited.”
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The Westwood revelers retired until 1940.
The mummers shows demonstrate Bing’s capacity for fun, penchant for masks, and love for the venerable traditions of show business.
They also underscore a leadership capacity he exercised more readily in his private life than in his professional one. If
Bing was an unbending force who went his own way in his own time, he did not consider himself or want to be considered the
architect of his career.
Like the indifferent college student who was pushed to the brink of show business by high schoolers, like the singing star
who adopted the vision of his record producer, and like the radio star who had to be cajoled into spontaneity, Bing continued
to heed the advice of those he deemed savvier than himself. Disciplined, inscrutable, and innovative artist that he was, he
pretended to leave the big decisions to others as long as they suited his purposes. For example, at the time of the MCC shows,
he accepted a ten-year contract, without options, to continue as
Kraft Music Hall’s
host. It was the longest commitment offered to anyone in radio history and would ultimately haunt NBC, when Bing made one
of the biggest decisions of his life, to break free in 1946, and a judge ruled that a covenant of that length amounted to
indentured servitude.
Playtime was another story: he called the shots. As Phil Harris recalled, “I knew him well enough to wait for him to call
me.”
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In the late 1930s most of the calls he made were focused on making the Del Mar racetrack a going concern. Toward that end,
the money Bing put up — essential though it was — probably counted for less than his
investment in energy and commitment. He coasted through the filming of
Double or Nothing
as if it were merely a venture to fill spare time. “When not actually working in a scene or learning a song,” a reporter
noted, “he was on the telephone talking to functionaries at the track or at his stable, or he was out on the Paramount campus
rounding up other stars to be Del Mar ‘guest stewards.’”
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On the set he convinced costars to appear on opening day for the next meet. At the track he collected tickets, signed autographs,
entertained, and announced races.
He was no less engaged in the stables. Charlie Whittingham, who trained for him in later years, met him in the early days
at Del Mar. “He’d be out every morning, and I got to know him quite well. Very nice to be around, a regular guy, you know.
Liked the horses and got to know them, because Binglin had quite a good stable. They kidded him about his nags, but he had
decent horses. A lot of times, from the races we’d go over to Bing’s and have a cocktail, sit around and talk. They had a
softball team at Rancho Sante Fe, and he played on it. Pretty good athlete.”
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Though he never trained horses for Bing, Noble Threewitt admired the way he handled himself on the grounds: “Lots of owners
hate to waste their time talking to you. But Bing would visit with anybody. He was just an all-around good guy. The opening
day at Del Mar with him and Pat O’Brien — that was a great, great opening day.”
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Yet in the year that followed that fabled afternoon, Del Mar stumbled badly, failing to attract capacity crowds or a serious
following. John O’Melveny had argued against the whole plan, but Bing had uncharacteristically ignored his attorney’s advice
and invested $45,000 for 35 percent of the stock. For a year and a half, Del Mar lost money. Everything changed with the legendary
meet of August 1938, which was heralded by the most famous track ditty ever composed. Midge Polesie came up with the catchphrase
“Where the Turf Meets the Surf,” inspiring a sixteen-bar anthem — and a longer but rarely heard verse — by Monaco, Burke,
and Bing, played over the loudspeakers before and after every set of races for seven decades and counting. Bing, Pat O’Brien,
and Oliver Hardy plugged it on three NBC shows the week before the 1938 meet.