Bing Crosby 1945-1949
11/2/1932 HCN Elizabeth Yeaman
Lee Tracy somehow gets into more jams with the different producers, yet because he is one of the best actors in Hollywood he continues to be in demand for important roles. No producer, with an eye on the box office, can overlook the merit of performances such as Tracy gave in Blessed Event and Washington Merry-Go-Round. At that rate, the fans will be demanding more of his pictures within a few months. His characterizations mean much more than ordinary good looks and sex appeal. So now Universal has engaged Tracy for the starring role in Private Jones which Russell Mack will direct.
Private Jones was written seven years ago by Richard Schayer, head of the scenario department at Universal. He penned it as a one-act play for presentation at the Writers’ Club. It attracted much favorable comment, and friends urged Schayer to expand it to a full length drama. Schayer was busy and forgot about Private Jones. Then when the studio wanted a story for Tracy, he dug out the old script and now has rewritten it as a full length screen story. The picture will be given a fine production and is planned as one of the important releases on the current Universal program. Tracy may have difficulty keeping out of trouble with the various producers, but he also manages quite well to keep in demand for important assignments.
....
At regular intervals you may be sure that one studio or another will announce the formation of a new comedy team. The latest to loom upon the horizon is composed of Edna May Oliver and Jimmy Gleason. Radio Pictures has decided to team these two after looking at Penguin Pool Murder. Jim Crow, preview reviewer of this department, thought Penguin Pool Murder rather unfunny except for those scenes dominated by Miss Oliver and Gleason. If a comedy team can be funny in an otherwise routine picture, I suppose they might be a great hit in a good one. In all events, Radio is now determined to team them. And Kenneth MacGowan, story editor and associate producer, is searching for a suitable story to be their next vehicle.
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Slim Summerville and ZaSu Pitts, now in the throes of They Had To Get Married, Universal feature comedy, next will be Alaska Bound. The latter is the title of the next comedy in which they will be co-starred, and I have a suspicion that it will be a travesty of films based on polar expeditions. Auto Camp, which was to have been their next picture, has been moved back on the schedule. H.M. Walker, Earle Snell and Clarence Marks are now working on the story of Alaska Bound.
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Alexander Leftwich, a prominent director on the New York stage, will try his hand at directing movies. He has been signed to a contract at Radio Pictures. And his first job will be as co-director with Dudley Murphy on Now You See It. This is the story which exposes the fakes of magicians and their ilk. Adolphe Menjou probably will have the starring role in this picture. The story was written by Fulton Oursler, who penned that capital mystery play, “The Spider.”
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One day on the set of Son Daughter at MGM I rather marveled to see that Helen Hayes, star of the production, was wearing only a suggestion of Chinese makeup. After seeing the elaborate and convincing makeup of Loretta Young and Edward G. Robinson in The Hatchet Man, the extraordinary make-up of Nils Asther in The Bitter Tea of General Yen, and the highly convincing makeup of Sylvia Sidney in Madame Butterfly, I wondered why the MGM makeup department had apparently done so little to transform the features of Miss Hayes. Well, Miss Hayes herself can furnish the answer to that question. With Asther and Miss Sidney both having serious eye trouble as the result of their effort to appear Oriental, Miss Hayes consulted a doctor before she would accept the role of the Chinese maiden. Too much pulling of her eyes was forbidden. But she is such a fine actress that you may be sure she will make up in portrayal what she perhaps may lack in makeup of her fact.
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Little 30-month-old Marilyn Milner is blooming out in some important screen roles. She has been signed for the part of the orphan child in Acquitted with Mae Clarke and Neil Hamilton at Columbia, and from there goes to Educational for one of the leads in a Baby Burlesk, Kid’n Hollywood.
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Clyde Beatty and his chair are due to arrive at Universal within a few days to prepare for the filming of The Big Cage. This is the animal picture which will reveal the dangers encountered by trainers in making performers out of jungle beasts. Beatty’s only weapon used to protect himself from the animals is a chair.
Bing Crosby 1945-1949
ABBREVIATIONS
CE -- California Eagle
CT – Chicago Times
DN -- Los Angeles Daily News
EE -- Los Angeles Evening Express
EH -- Los Angeles Evening Herald
EHE -- Los Angeles Evening Herald Express
FD -- Film Daily
HCN -- Hollywood Citizen News
HDC -- Hollywood Daily Citizen
IDN -- Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News
LAR -- Los Angeles Record
LAPR -- Los Angeles Post-Record
LAX -- Los Angeles Examiner
MPH -- Motion Picture Herald
SDU – San Diego Union
SFC – San Francisco Chronicle
1/1/1945 DN Erskine Johnson
Amidst all the pandemonium (of 1944), lackadaisical Bing Crosby became the boxoffice champion of the year in a simple, homey story about priests, Going My Way. The film, surprising everybody, will gross nearly $12,000,000.
Paramount expected it to be just another Bing Crosby picture. It cost only $987,000 which is confetti in Baghdad on the Pacific.
...
Cary Grant...was Hollywood’s 1944 moneymaking king, along with headman, Louis B. Mayer of MGM and Bing Crosby.
Working on a salary and percentage deal, Grant collected nearly $1,000,000. His percentage of films released over a two year period was $180,000 in one month of 1944 alone. But when you have to pay a tax of $927,000 on $1,000,000, you ain’t a millionaire.
Between radio, records and pictures, Crosby collected about the same.
1/1/1945 HCN Ed Sullivan
Most Amusing Nickname: Der Bingle, attached to Bing Crosby on his London-to-Berlin airer.
1/1/1945 HCN CROSBY TOPS BRITISH POLL OF BOXOFFICE
The Motion Picture Herald’s British poll of money-making international movie stars is led by Bing Crosby.
In order follow Betty Grable, Greer Garson, Deanna Durbin, Bette Davis, Bob Hope, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy and Abbott and Costello.
Best-liked western star is Roy Rogers, while Walt Disney heads the shorts.
1/1/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
The Bob Hope party was really an occasion with everyone there to make it an evening to remember. Dolores and Bob knew the 300 guests well enough to call them by their first names–there were no party-crashers–that’s something in Hollywood. Dixie Crosby, who was always one of the prettiest blondes in Hollywood, came with Bing. Clark Gable was with Fieldsy and Walter Lang and at once become the most sought after unattached male in the room. Cesar Romero, now chief boatswain’s mate, looked very handsome in his uniform and didn’t do badly with the femmes either. Radio was well represented. Jack Benny was one of the first to arrive, smoking one of his famous cigars. His Mary looked “orful” pretty in an Adrian gown. Gracie and George Burns wishing everybody a Happy New Year,, including Edgar Bergen, who was there with attractive Frances Westernman. Lum and Abner, with their pretty wives–we know the boys in Hollywood as Norman Galt and Chet Louck–Freeman Gosden and his bride, and Frances Langford, were just a few of the top names. Lorena Danker, Sally Eilers, the Eddie Sutherlands, Irene and David Selznick, Elsie and David Butler, Edie Gwynn and Lieutenant Buster Murray and, well, so many people it was fun to see and–oh, yes, Winfield Sheehan and Colonel Kimberly. The colonel has more service ribbons than I have ever seen one person wear.
1/2/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
The first Andrews Sisters’ show was heard at home. I am not a devotee of the girls’ type of singing but it was refreshing after the amount of “romantic” warbling to which we are asked to listen. Bing Crosby is a welcome guest on almost any program but when are his horses going to be forgotten? Gags about the nags were run into the ground a long time ago. It is too soon to judge the work of “Gabby” Hayes, there being a perennial problem of suitable lines, on the program as a whole.
1/2/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Bob Hope couldn’t have been funnier when he told about the visit Christmas Eve of Bing Crosby and his four roughneck sons. They all sang Christmas carols and then Lindsay, the youngest, put out his hand for money. Bob gave each of the boys a dollar and then as they were leaving, Lindsay said, “Hey, what about a war bond? We did a job, didn’t we?”
1/3/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
Nobody ever hoped to see it but Jack Benny’s “black tie” party on New Year’s Eve actually brought out Bing Crosby in a tuxedo.
1/3/1945 HCN Swing Time
By Hal Halley
Well, the time is up for another crooner to catch the public fancy. Sinatra, Haymes, and Crosby are doing fine, but they’re old stuff now...Frankie won’t be on the Hit Parade any more. With five years left on his contract, it was broken by mutual agreement.
Speaking of these lads, Bing has come out victor again in Downbeat’s annual poll. Crosby got 2406 votes to 1606 for Frankie and 680 for Dick Haymes.
1/4/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
From the South Pacific, Lieut. Col. Earl O. Thornton Jr., writes that he stepped into his tent to find a four-foot death adder coiled and completely hypnotized by a Bing Crosby radio program.
Let Frankie top that!
1/4/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Bobby Sockers, get ready to swoon as you never swooned before! Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra are talking about making a movie together! If you are still on your feet after that sock announcement, I’ll add that der Bingle and der Frankie have discussed the idea and like it. For some time the aides in both camps have been trying to sell the plan–but it didn’t approach being consummated until the boys got together in a huddle.
Both boys have one outside picture to make on their respective contracts and while no releasing company has been contacted you can bet they will have the pick of the field. Sinatra and Crosby on theater marquees would burn up the box office. The plan now is to have two sets of top song writers–Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen to write the Crosby ditties and Sammy Kahn and Jules Stein the Sinatra tunes.
1/8/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald will be heard in scenes from Going My Way and will receive from Paul Lukas Redbooks’ Annual Motion Picture Award at 7 over KNX.
1/10/1945 HCN Lowell E. Redelings
It’s been a long time since you’ve seen Helen Hayes on the screen. But a New York report asserts that a film test she made on the Q.T. was for Leo McCarey’s forthcoming The Bells of St. Mary’s....So....we shall see....
1/10/1945 DN DIXIE CROSBY SERIOUSLY ILL
Dixie Lee Crosby, wife of Bing Crosby, was stricken with a respiratory infection yesterday and taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she is reported to be in serious condition.
The family physician, Dr. George Hummer, said she was threatened with pneumonia and ordered her placed in an oxygen tent.
Bing accompanied his wife in an ambulance and remained at her bedside in the hospital throughout the afternoon.
1/10/1945 EHE CRITICS PICK BEST LIKED RADIO SHOWS
New York, Jan. 10.—First Certified Survey of the critical press of America to select the All American Radio Program of 1944, has just been completed by Radio Daily, with 1051 editors and writers taking part.
“Information Please” was voted the top ranking commercial radio show of the season.
Bob Hope easily took honors as both Favorite Comedian and Favorite Entertainer, with Jack Benny runner-up in the comedian category and Bing Crosby in the same status as an entertainer. Balloting covered 28 categories in all.
....
Bing Crosby retained his place as favorite male singer of popular songs, drawing the largest individual vote of any All-American Radio Program winner.
1/10/1945 EHE MRS. CROSBY
Bing’s Wife Improves After Collapse
Mrs. Dixie Lee Crosby, wife of the crooner and mother of his four sons, was reported improving today at St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she was rushed after collapsing at her home with a respiratory infection.
“She’s going to be all right,” Bing declared today, after announcing that Mrs. Crosby had spent part of the night in an oxygen tent in an effort to avert pneumonia. He remained at the hospital throughout the night.
The former actress was sped to the hospital late yesterday on orders of her physician, Dr. George Hummer, after she collapsed at the Crosby Holmby Hills home.
Larry Crosby, brother of Bing, stated that Mrs. Crosby had been suffering from a heavy cold and the hospital stay was decided upon because it was feared that pneumonia was incipient.
Hospital attaches refused to release any information regarding Mrs. Crosby’s condition and referred all inquiries to members of the Crosby family.
1/11/1945 LAX Behind the Makeup
By Harry Crocker
Humphrey Bogart, the Brian Levys, Eddie Brackens, Georgia (the peach) Carroll and Kay Kyser and many more turned out to see Bing Crosby receive from Thornton Delehanty a huge national magazine cup for his work in Going My Way. Barry Fitzgerald and director Leo McCarey were also honored. The Crooner, so calm and collected on the fairways and greens, for whom the mike hath no frights, was so trembly he averred he hoped he’d never win an Oscar, he’d be too scared to claim it. Jinx Falkenburg and Voldemar Vetliuguin, Signe Hasso and Spencer Tracy, the Walter Pidgeons, got a laugh out of his statement.
1/11/1945 HCN MRS. CROSBY SAID TO BE IMPROVING
The condition of Mrs. Bing Crosby, 33, wife of the crooner and mother of four sons, was described as “improving” today by a spokesman for the family at the offices of Everett N. Crosby, Ltd., brother and business manager of Bing.
St. Vincent’s Hospital, where Mrs. Crosby, the former Dixie Lee of the films, was taken yesterday after collapsing at her home with a respiratory infection, refused to give any information concerning her condition and Dr. George Hummer, Mrs. Crosby’s physician was out on other calls.
The spokesman at the Crosby offices said that the crooner’s wife had been ailing for some time. He declared that Mrs. Crosby’s physician had informed him that it would be several days before she would be free from complications.
Bing’s brother, Larry, told reporters early today that the crooner’s wife was placed in an oxygen tent for a while last night because of a pneumonia threat.
1/11/1945 DN DIXIE LEE CROSBY ‘MUCH BETTER,’ HOSPITAL REPORTS
Dixie Lee Crosby, wife of Bing Crosby, yesterday was reported “much better” at St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she was taken Tuesday when stricken with a respiratory infection.
Bing, who accompanied his wife to the hospital in an ambulance, took an adjoining room at the hospital to remain near her.
1/11/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
By Hal Carlock
There has been a lot of talk along radio row about the new Bing Crosby show which permits “The Groaner” to sing more songs. There are those who like the idea and then there are those who insist they liked the old format which gave Bing a chance to read more lines with some very fine comedy relief.
Last week, there seemed to be a happy center-of-the-road path being followed. Bing did a little patter and still did a lot of singing. For our money, it was one of the best “Music Hall” shows in a long time.
Tonight’s NBC “Music Hall” program on KFI at 6 finds “Der Bingo” hosting Spike Jones’ City Slickers and featuring a favorite medley from his first feature length motion picture, College Humor.
1/11/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Bing Crosby’s wife, bedded with pneumonia, reported vastly improved today.
1/12/1945 EHE MRS. BING CROSBY IMPROVING, REPORT
Marked improvement in the condition of Mrs. Bing Crosby, wife of the crooner, was reported today by Larry Crosby, Bing’s brother. Administration of penicillin no longer is necessary, nor is the oxygen tent in which Mrs. Crosby was placed several times since she was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital Tuesday with a lung infection, said Crosby.
1/12/1945 LAX MRS. CROSBY STILL IN PERIL
Pneumonia continued to threaten Mrs. Bing Crosby yesterday at St. Vincent’s Hospital.
“Her condition is somewhat better, and she is responding to treatment, but still not out of danger, due to the threat of pneumonia,” was the report issued by her brother-in-law, Everett Crosby.
Mrs. Crosby, the former Dixie Lee of the films, was taken to the hospital Tuesday, after collapsing in the Crosby home in Holmby Hills.
Everett Crosby said she is undergoing intermittent oxygen tent treatments as a pneumonia deterrent.
1/13/1945 HCN Sidney Skolsky
Despite the fact that there is no horse racing and that Bing Crosby gave it up before the ban, Bob Hope still persists with those gags about Crosby and horses.
Bing Crosby and Johnny Mercer had this conversation: “Mercer: “Paramount isn’t treating you right, Bing.” Bing: “How’s that?” Mercer: “They put you in a picture with Bob Hope, and he tells jokes better than you do.” Crosby: “That’s okay.” Mercer: “Then they put you in a picture with Fred Astaire, and he dances better than you. Next thing you know, they’ll be putting you in a picture with Frank Sinatra.”
1/13/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Graceful Paul Draper, whose dancing gets me into any night club or concert hall where he’s appearing, is coming to Hollywood. Mark Sandrich wanted Paul so much that he took off his Christmas holiday and went to New York and signed Draper, who heretofore has played “hard to get” for movies. Mark not only signed him to do the Irving Berlin picture, Blue Skies, but made a deal whereby all of Draper’s movie making will be done on the Paramount lot. In discussing the screenplay, I hear that Draper gets Bing Crosby’s gal in Blue Skies. It’s to be Para’s biggest musical for the coming year.
1/13/1945 LAX Mrs. Crosby Showing Gain
“Mrs. Bing” was doing “pretty good” yesterday.
Dixie Lee, as she was known before becoming the crooner’s wife, was believed out of danger from a pneumonia threat at St. Vincent’s Hospital, which she entered last Tuesday.
The “pretty good” report on her condition came from Larry Crosby, Bing’s brother, who added that Mrs. Crosby no longer is receiving oxygen tent or penicillin treatments.
“Dixie was quite a sick girl for a while,” Larry Crosby said yesterday. “She was unconscious the first couple of days, but we now are confident she’s going to pull through.
“She will remain in the hospital a few days more.”
1/16/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Leo McCarey’s next directorial effort starring Bing Crosby, The Bells of St. Mary’s, now definite for Feb. 15 start .
1/22/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Bing Crosby, in about two weeks, will have his photo in color on FRONT page of New York Daily News! It’s part of nationwide press acclaim for his role in Going My Way.
1/23/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Bing Crosby attributes his wife’s quick recovery to penicillin.
1/25/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Bing Crosby and his guests, the Andrews Sisters, will combine their voices at 6 over KFI in “Don’t Fence Me In.” Patty, LaVerne and Maxine will be heard alone, in “Tears Flowed Like Wine.” Bing, in “Evalina” and “Strange Music.” Bing said that whether John L. Sullivan, the picture is producing, was a success or failure, was a headache as far as he was concerned. “I’m just a quiet guy in a loud shirt trying to get along.” he remarked. “I like my Thursday radio job, with everybody more or less happy.”
1/25/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
By Hal Carlock
Bing Crosby has as his guests on the “Music Hall,” over KFI tonight at 6, the Andrews Sisters. The “Groaner” and the girls will offer their sensational version of “Don’t Fence Me In”; also Petty, LaVerne and Maxine will sing “Tears Flowed Like Wine.”
1/26/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Isn’t this something–Ingrid Bergman and Bing Crosby together? The lovely Swedish star is to be co-starred with the sweet-singing gent, Bing, in Leo McCarey’s The Bells of St. Mary’s. That will be two religious pictures for Ingrid, The Scarlet Lily, which she does for her boss, David Selznick, after Notorious, and The Bells of St. Mary’s, which she does for Charles Koerner at RKO.
Very few stars would take the chance of playing in two religious pictures so close together.
1/29/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
Decca grabbed Xavier Cugat for one recording (“Hasta Manana”) with Bing Crosby before Cugat’s new Columbia contract went into effect.
1/29/1945 LAX Behind the Makeup
By Harry Crocker
Bing Crosby ad-libbed an accurate prophecy in the final sequence for Duffy’s Tavern, in which 18 Paramount stars sing a parody of the hit tune, Swinging on a Star. Along with Dorothy Lamour, Diana Lynn, Betty Hutton, Casss Daley and many others, Sonny Tufts sang a verse in which he kidded himself. As a topper Sonny, who once studied for the Metropolitan, went into an opera routine. “I’d like to swing–I’d like to swing–“ sang Sonny, “I’d like to SWING!” “Stand by, old boy, stand by,” Bing ad-libbed.” Crosby was right. Next day, Sonny was hanged in a scene for The Virginian.
1/29/1945 HCN Swing Time
By Hal Halley
The fourth anniversary of the USO will be celebrated in great style on the Cavalcade of America on NBC, Feb. 5. Bing Crosby and his overseas troupe will do a dramatic version of their recent overseas tour.
1/31/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Gene Lester, the color photographer, has had such fine success with his 16 m.m. movies that word of it reached Board of Education authorities in Washington, D.C.
As a result, he has been commissioned to prepare a 16 m.m. short, Swinging on a Star, based on the hit tune by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen.
The film will be used in schools throughout the country to combat such problems as absences, tardiness, truancy, etc.
And best of all, Bing Crosby, who sang “Swinging on a Star” in Going My Way, will donate his services to sing it again in this educational short.
2/1/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
By Hal Carlock
Bing Crosby’s guest in the Music Hall tonight at 6 over KFI is popular film star Sonny Tufts.
...
Xavier Cugat has four records soon to be released by Decca, which he’s sure will be a sellout. Cugat music alone would assure that, but their success is guaranteed since none other than Bing Crosby is crooning on the discs. They’re introducing “Bahia” which was written by Barrosa, who also penned “Brazil.”
2/1/1945 HCN Swing Time
By Hal Halley
Xavier Cugat has four records soon to be released by Decca, which he’s sure will be a sellout. Cugat music alone would assure that, but their successes is guaranteed since none other than Bing Crosby is crooning on the discs. They’re introducing “Bahia” which was written by Barrosa, who also penned “Brazil.”
2/1/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Bing Crosby and Sonny Tufts, KFI at 6, will sing “Accentuate the Positive” and special lyrics to “Swinging on a Star.” Duke Ellington’s “I Didn’t Know About You” will be sung by Eugenie Baird. “Tabby the Cat” by the Charioteers.
2/2/1945 DN David Hanna
Ingrid Bergman will be Bing Crosby’s costar in Leo McCarey’s production of The Bells of St. Mary. McCarey also is making arrangements to borrow Elizabeth Taylor from MGM for the ingenue spot.
2/4/1945 LAX In Hollywood With Louella O. Parsons
I didn’t believe that Bing Crosby meant it when he said he would see me at 9:30 in the morning at my house for an interview. But I did him wrong. I thought he was the Bing of old and that he would forget all about it, but sure enough, right on the dot, in came Bing, and the whole household went to pieces
The maid came into my office trembling to announce his arrival. My secretary said, “Please, Miss Parsons, let me bring you down a message so I can just look at him.”
And so, amid peeping faces, Bing and I moved into the playroom for a cup of breakfast coffee and our talk.
The most amazing thing is that Bing never has been as sweet and unassuming as now–at a time when he is at the very height of his fame–for, make no mistake about it, he stands alone as the most important star, male or female, on the screen today.
He is No. 1 on the Motion Picture Herald’s 1944 poll; ditto the Film Daily Annual Poll; he is the choice of the New York picture critics, and he won the Red book annual award. In addition, his radio program has gone up several points.
And the “Groaner” is smart enough to know that Going My Way did it.
“I knew that Catholics would like Going My Way, he said, “but the thing that’s pleased me most is that men and women of all denominations have been kind enough to say they loved the picture. It was an easy picture to make,” Bing went on, “because Leo McCarey, the director, would come in in the morning, sit down at the piano, play half the morning, and then we’d shoot. I suppose he was thinking out scenes when he was at the piano. We brought the picture in under budget and under time. I didn’t even know what the story was about when I consented to make a picture with Leo. He said he wanted me to play a ‘hep’ priest. I said, ‘What’s a hep priest?’ ‘Oh, a priest who’s human and hep to the faults of his fellowmen without being too preachy,’ he said.”
But everybody knows about Going My Way, which may win Bing the Academy Award.
He told me with great pride that his four boys had done two days’ work in Duffy’s Tavern with Bob Benchley.
“It isn’t true,” Bing said “that I nipped their career in the bud. It was their mother. She said she’d have no hams in the family, and, believe me, those kids are hams.”
The little fellow, Lindsay, Bing believes, is the most talented, and he was given most of the lines. They call him “The Little King.” The night after they finished the first day’s shooting, the twins said, “We’re not going back unless we get more lines to say.” “Remember you have a contract and you’re going back!” Their father told them. It was then Dixie said, “We’ll have no more of this nonsense.”
“I guess,” Bing grinned, “She thought one ‘ham’ in the family is enough.
“The twins play the cornet, and Gary, the oldest, plays the trombone, and so on Christmas Eve we always go around to the homes of our friends and sing Christmas carols.”
“How do you keep your four boys in line?” I asked Bing.
“Good old spanking routine,” said Bing. “There isn’t a week goes by that one of ‘em doesn’t get a good spanking, but I leave their upbringing mostly to their mother.”
“How about your own picture company?” I asked him.
Bing answered, “If John L. Sullivan makes money, we’ll continue, if it doesn’t, we’ll break up. I believe we will make money, because that new boy, Greg McClure, is so good. Of course, it’s corny in places, but it’s the kind of picture people will like.
“When I was in London,” Bing went on, “the Marquis of Queensberry gave a dinner. They called on me to make a speech, and I called him ‘Lord Rosebery.’ Lord Rosebery is a great horseman. I got my sports mixed up, as well as my lords.
“That night,” said Bing, “there must have been a thousand people in the street in front of the place where the dinner was held, and the police were afraid, because buzz bombs kept coming over. The police asked me to try and disperse the crowd. I walked to the window and said, ‘I’ll sing you a song if you’ll promise to leave, because it’s dangerous for you out here. What do you want me to sing? A little cockney in the crowd called out, ‘Harvey Maria.” I didn’t think ‘Ave Maria’ was the song to sing then, so I sang ‘Pennies From Heaven,’ and I was surprised how orderly they all left, true to their promise.”
Bing’s next picture, he told me, is Bells of St. Mary’s, again with Leo McCarey directing.
“And I’m looking forward to it because he’s the easiest director to work for. Of course, he carries most of the story right in his head, but I have such faith in him that I”m willing to go McCarey way any time.”
2/5/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
It has been said that Bing Crosby is rapidly becoming an American legend. If any present day personality deserves such recognition, Bing is certainly our recommendation.
Today being the Fourth Anniversary of the USO (United Service Organizations) and Bing made such a hit with GIs and officers alike when he toured all over England and France, the “Cavalcade of America” will salute both Crosby and the USO via NBC and KFI tonight at 8:30.
Robert Armbruster and his orchestra supply the musical background and Glenn Wheaton receives credit for writing the script.
2/5/1945 HCN Sidney Skolsky
Judy Garland and Bing Crosby will record for Decca a new Ralph Blaine-Hugh Martin song called “Connecticut.”
2/7/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Robert Cummings was bowled over by the royal welcome Paramount gave him when he showed up on the lot for You Came Along. Eight years ago this same studio fired him. Now he has a dressing room right between Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
2/7/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby have volunteered to do a two-reel subject at 20th for Canada’s Eighth Victory Loan...
2/7/1945 HCN Sidney Skolsky
The Motion Picture Academy have made their nomination for the various “Oscars,” and now there is nothing to do but wait until the night of the affair and see how the industry voted.
However, this is how I believe the “Oscars” will be distributed: The award for the best picture will go to Going My Way. The warmth and charm of this picture has captured Hollywood as it has the country. The runner-up will probably be Wilson, but its vote will be divided because many people who are opposed to it politically, will not judge it strictly on its merit.
The “Oscar” for the best performance by an actor is a complicated thing because Barry Fitzgerald has been nominated for the best performance by a leading actor and also the best performance by a supporting player. Strictly, Fitzgerald was a supporting player, and the “Oscar” for the best performance by a male star in a picture should be a battle between Bing Crosby for Going My Way and Alexander Knox for his portrayal of Wilson. However, no actor ever entered the Academy voting such an overwhelming favorite as Fitzgerald. He is apt to walk off with two “Oscars,” the first time it was ever accomplished.
2/8/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
By Hal Carlock
Musically speaking: Bing Crosby’s guest list tonight at 6 when NBC presents the “Music Hall” on KFI, includes such illustrious names as Vivien Della Chiesa and Fred Lowery. Sounds good, eh?
2/9/1945 DN Here Comes the Waves
Picturized Review (may still from film)
By Virginia Wright
Here Comes the Waves opens on a parody of the national crooner craze. Its satirical view of that popular feminine infirmity–the bobby sox swoon–is funny and fresh. But Bing Crosby’s burlesque of the Sinatra movement exhausts itself after the first few reels.
Unfortunately, Here Comes the Waves dissipates its value as a service film with a thin little story about a pair of twins in love with the crooner.
Producer-director Mark Sandrich has shot some interesting scenes of WAVES at work, but they are pushed through the finale in a montage which permits no more than a hasty survey of their actions.
It isn’t fair to judge this as a recruiting film, probably, for it obviously was not intended as such. As straight comedy, however, it is spotty, the tunes are not exceptional, and slapstick frequently is forced.
Best episodes are in the theater where the crooner makes a personal appearance, with stretcher bearers standing by to carry out the swooners, and later in the Wave recruiting show.
“If Waves Acted Like Sailors” is an amusing sketch played against a series of clever Milt Gross sets with Betty Hutton in typical form singing “There’s a Fella Waitin’ In Poughkeepsie.” The Bing Crosby-Sonny Tufts blackface duet of “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive”–is another pleasant bit. But the film’s two ballads show things considerably.
Betty Hutton does a good job in the dual role of a sedate WAVE and her more impressionable sister. She carries it off so well, incidentally, it’s easy to forget the dignified girl in Betty Hutton.
Crosby, that sterling actor and contender for Hollywood’s highest acting honors, walks in his casual way through his role of a crooner who thought he could escape his feminine following by joining the Navy.
He figured, however, without the persistence of his most devoted fan, the silly twin, who gets him assigned to the job of WAVE recruiting.
As his unwilling assistant in this job Sonny Tufts is adequate.
Written for the screen by Allan Scott, Ken Englund and Zion Myers, with music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, Here Comes the Waves is doublebilled at the Paramount Downtown with Dangerous Passage. At the Paramount Hollywood it is supported only by Jerry Fairbanks’ Who’s Who in Animal Land.
2/9/1945 HCN Here Come the Waves
By Gerry Day
The gentlemen over Paramount way are going around with smiles wreathing their happy faces in pleasant anticipation of the jingle of coins at the Paramount Hollywood and Downtown box offices where Here Come the Waves is now showing.
The film has everything it takes to bring those long lines to the box office. It has, first of all, that croonin’ man, Brother Bing Crosby, aided and abetted by Sonny Tufts, the blond bomber–and not just one, but two Betty Huttons.
OPPOSITE TYPES
There, there grandma, it’s not as bad as you think! One Betty Hutton is a blonde, crooner-crazy high-voltage imp, ‘tis true. But the other is a sensible, quiet redhead.
And then, there are the songs, the tricky “Accentuate the Positive” and two ballads, “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” and “I Promise You,” both destined for popularity.
Der Bingle is right in his element, making the most of every comic situation and tossing off bright lines with delightful nonchalance. One scene alone is worth the price of admission, showing Bing grimly gripping a microphone, swoon-crooning to screaming bobby sockers while ushers carry out the fainting ladies on stretchers. It had the preview audience howling.
As is customary in film musicals, the story is tedious, often slowing the film’s pace. IT concerns a pair of entertainers, twins, Betty Hutton and Betty Hutton, who join the Waves. The blonde Betty is crazy about Bing and meets him through a mutual friend, Sonny Tufts. Bing, however, falls for her sister who doesn’t care for swoon-crooners.
ENLISTS IN NAVY
Bing enlists in the Navy and attempts to ship on a destroyer named for his father. Through a suggestion made by the blonde, he is sent ashore to stage a recruiting show for the Waves.
Believing the show to be Bing’s idea, the redhead Betty spurns his attentions, and Sonny ufts and the blonde heighten her belief to bring an end to the romance. All turns out well, with Bing kissing the redhead goodbye, and Sonny causing the blonde to faint with his goodbye smack.
Betty Hutton confirms the opinion we have always had of her versatile talents by portraying two completely different characters. The photography which combines the two is faultless, often making one forget that the twins are one and the same person!
Sonny Tufts and Bing are sensational in their “Accentuate the Positive” routine, and producer-director Mark Sandrich has injected good laughs and good music which more than compensate for story deficiencies. Here’s a film that aims for the funnybone and hits the spot.
2/9/1945 LAX Here Come the Waves
A Paramount picture, produced and directed by Mark Sandrich, original screenplay by Alan Scott, Ken Englund and Zion Myers. Playing at the Paramount Hollywood and Downtown theaters.
CAST: Bing Crosby, Betty Hutton, Sonny Tufts, Ann Doran.
By Dorothy Manners
All right, so it isn’t the greatest picture in the world for Bing Crosby, following Going My Way. Admit it–and forget it. Here Come the Waves, which opened at both Paramount theaters yesterday, is Bing right back where he started from, singing ‘em sweet and hot, plus a double sock of Betty Hutton as twins, plus Sonny Tufts and more of his oversized brand of cuteness.
Mark Sandrich’s new musical is a combination of music, slapstick and romance strung along the background of WAVE recruiting. Far from being animated propaganda–it turns out jumping and jiving top entertaining.
Bing has a lot of fun for himself in a role that is a slight takeoff on Frankie Sinatra and his squealing bobbysockers. He plays a swoon-crooner who really wants to get away from it all and join the Navy–but he’s ruled out for color blindness in the beginning. Bing, the most casual actor on the screen, is still himself (which is always terrific), even when playing Sinatra.
But the real surprise is Betty Hutton. Yes, she’s the broadside bombshell and Hectic Hutton as one blonde twin. But she crops up with a delightfully serious side, romantic and definitely intriguing, as the more sedate redheaded sister. Just a glimpse of this more serious side of Betty bodes well for her career. Some smart producer s sure to take the hint and turn on the dramatics for la Hutton before long.
Picture spins around the central idea of the twin night club sisters joining the WAVES. The blonde twin is still ma-a-a-d about her “dream boat” (the crooner) and the other can’t see him for mud. She’s aided and abetted in her campaign against him by a gob pal (Sonny Tufts) who also surprises by popping up with a charming singing voice of his own. Interesting, indeed, are the intervening shots of WAVE recruiting and training and the girls and women in this branch of the service deserve every salute they get in and out of this picture.
To the hepcats, of course, Here Come the WAVES will be largely remembered as the home picture of that maddeningly catchy tune “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive. This bit of psychological musical madness by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen has never been done the way Bing and Sonny Tufts put it over. For extra added musical chills, there is Bing repeating on “Black Magic” and introducing two new lovelies, “The Long Way Home,” and “I Promise You.”
Mark Sandrich, who produced and directed, is a cinch to enjoy Here Comes the WAVES even more when the returns from the box office start coming in. It’s a winner for Paramount.
2/9/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
Statues of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are to stand alongside the murderers, kings, queens and other celebrities in Mme. Tussaud’s, the famous London wax works. Paramount has just receives requests for 12 different photographs of each star, also Bing’s and Bob’s exact measurements. Hollywood will get a kick out of one part of the letter. The wax works is particular about getting the right cranial formations and specifies that the photographs show the two stars WITHOUT toupees.
2/11/1945 LAX Good Bing Crosby Decca Records Ad
2/12/1945 EHE Jimmy Starr
Pals tossed a surprise birthday party for Lana Turner at Larry’s....naturally Turhan Bey was very much in evidence, but the guy who stole the show was Bing Crosby....he sang “Happy Birthday” to Lana....imagine having Bing for that–that’s sompin’....
2/13/1945 HCN BING CROSBY SINGS “OLD BLACK MAGIC” BY POPULAR REQUEST
Persistent requests to Paramount Studio made it necessary to include in Here Come the Waves, currently at the Paramount Hollywood and Downtown theaters, one top tune of a year ago. Although the production introduces many new melodies.
For some time, Bing Crosby had been receiving requests for him to sing “That Old Black Magic.” Many of the requests came from Waves; so when he made this picture, it was almost mandatory that he sing this tune.
Sharing stellar honors with Bing in this Mark Sandrich production are Betty Hutton and Sonny Tufts.
The companion feature at the Downtown theater is Dangerous Passage.
2/15/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Bing Crosby’s “Music Hall” guests, KFI at 6, will be Ella Logan, home after five months of entertaining our boys in Europe, and Eddie Heywood, pianist. Bing will open the half hour with “Accentuate the Positive.”
2/16/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Ona Munson will relate incidents in the life of Bing Crosby, KNX at 6.
2/16/1945 EHE Bing Crosby Tops Gallup Poll
Going My Way was nation’s favorite motion picture of 1944 and its crooner star, Bing Crosby, the most popular actor, a poll conducted by Dr. George Gallup’s audience research organization disclosed today. Red-haired Greer Garson was the most popular actress.
2/17/1945 HCN Sidney Skolsky
The “Command Performance” broadcast of “Dick Tracy” with a cast composed of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Dinah Shore and Jimmy Durante, just to mention some of them, was a show of shows.
2/17/1945 LAX Behind the Makeup
By Harry Crocker
CIRCLE—
When director Frank Tuttle started work on Two-Faced Quilligan at 20th Century-Fox, starring William Bendix, with Joan Blondell, it marked the start of his 54th motion picture. It also completed a cycle, for it found Tuttle again working for the man who gave him his start 22 years ago–William LeBaron, for whom Tuttle made Dangerous Money with Bebe Daniels, Tom Moore and William Powell at the old Astoria Studio on Long Island. After acting on his own adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s “Quentin Durward” at Yale, where his dramatic coach was none other than Monty Wooley, and one of his actors was your columnist, Frank turned to press agentry for the famed Diaghileff’s Ballet Russe, starring the great Nijinsky on its first American tour, and for awhile he publicized the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Entering motion pictures as a writer, Tuttle soon became a director and has handled many of the great stars of Hollywood, including Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, Clara Bow, Eddie Cantor, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Warner Baxter, Carole Lombard, Alan Ladd, Fredric March, Jean Arthur, Kay Francis, Buddy Rogers and Veronica Lake.
2/21/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
Frank Sinatra was the object of terrific curiosity when he recorded for that war bond drive at 20th Century-Fox. Betty Grable came over to watch him sing (Harry James was leading the band) and Frankie, in turn, visited Betty’s set, The Dolly Sisters.
Bing Crosby recorded for the same film but without any fooling around. He came in, passed a few quips, sang his song twice, liked the second try, said “That’s it, boys,” and was gone.
2/22/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
The New Rainbow, Inc., formed with Leo McCarey, president, David Butler, vice president; Earl Rettig, secretary and treasurer; Bing Crosby, Buddy DeSylva and Hal Roach Jr., as members, starts off with a bang. Bells of St. Mary’s is their first and The Great American Story their second. While the members of Rainbow, Inc., look the other way when you mention Bob Hope, I happen to know that when Bob is free, he is expected to join his pals in their new set-up.
2/25/1945 LAX In Hollywood With Louella O. Parsons
You can bet every cent you have and be safe that Ingrid Bergman is not leaving the David Selznick fold even though the gossips said she objected to being loaned out to other studios at a terrific amount of money.
When I asked her about it, she said, “The only discussion we’ve ever had was over my doing outside pictures. I want to do one a year, but even if I were loaned out, I want to be sure that Mr. Selznick is near by to give me advice.”
Ingrid had come to see me and had waited for nearly an hour and I was apologetic and couldn’t resist complimenting her on her sweetness and her lack of annoyance at my tardiness in keeping an appointment that had been made for two weeks.
“It’s very gratifying,” I said, “to find an actress with no grand ideas about herself and such a willingness to cooperate.”
“Well, you see,” said Ingrid, laughing, “I was very temperamental in Sweden. When I started out, I thought that was the way to act, and I was very unpopular with the writers and critics because they thought I was difficult. I made up my mind when I came to America I would turn over a new leaf.”
I looked at her closely to see if she were spoofing, for I doubted if this placid, lovable creature was ever disagreeable. She’s too innately well-bred, yet she was so serious when she said it, I couldn’t tell whether she had had a run-in with the Swedish newspaper men or not.
Ingrid has been the despair of David Selznick’s life. She wants to work all the time. A week before she finishes a picture, she walks into his office and says, “What will I do next?”
He says, “I think you’d better take a little rest now,” and Ingrid, who doesn’t want to rest, is bitterly disappointed that she doesn’t walk from one picture to another.
“You shouldn’t make too many pictures–it isn’t good,” I told her.
“I’ve only made seven in the five years I’ve been in America,” she answered, starting to list them on her fingers.
Intermezzo was the first, and Spellbound, the last one she finished. In that list she’s had a pleasant variety, ranging from schoolgirl roles to a woman psychiatrist.
She is very happy over making The Bells of St. Mary’s and the chance to play in a picture with Bing Crosby, whom she admires greatly.
“I’m going to play a nun,” she said, in The Bells of St. Mary’s who is as kindly, fun-loving and human as the priest Mr. Crosby played in Going My Way, in fact, The Bells of St. Mary’s shows Mr. Crosby as the same priest in a different parish.”
This was the first time I’d heard the pictures had the same characters. I had understood they were not related, inasmuch as one was made for Paramount and the other is for RKO.
Notorious, a picture she makes for Selznick, will come between The Bells of St. Mary’s and The Scarlet Lily, in which she plays Mary Magdalene.
“There are only a few lines in the Bible about Mary Magdalene,” she said, “so of course there’s much about the character that’s fiction, but we want to be sure we don’t offend any religion. I never felt,” she went on, “that Father Murphy wrote his book just for Catholics–I felt it was for all denominations.”
Ingrid, herself, was brought up a Lutheran, as are all Swedish children.
We started talking religion while we were discussing her little girl, Pia. Ingrid said she plans to send her daughter to Sunday School.
“In Sweden,” she said, “There’s only one church and all children learn the Bible and religion in school.”
She’s going to send her own little Pia to Sunday School because she wants her to learn religion and later make up her own mind what church she wants to join.
I’ve always been a fan and admirer of Ingrid Bergman. I admit it–since the day she first came to see me at Marsons Farm and picked her first orange. She’s so completely natural and unaffected, and such a fine person–a credit to the motion picture industry.
I like the way she and Dr. Peter Lindstrom have worked out their way of living. Each has his own work, yet each defers to the other’s opinions and ideas, and each shares interest in the other’s careers. That’s the way it should be. If we had more women like Ingrid Bergman we’d have fewer divorces in Hollywood, or in any other town.
2/26/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Ruth Donnelly, a swell character actress, is a happy girl. She has been chosen by Leo McCarey to play the jolly nun in Bells of St. Mary’s, the Bing Crosby-Ingrid Bergman opus.
2/27/1945 LAX Diggin’ Divots
By Mel Gallagher
Between crooner Bing Crosby and ex-state amateur champion Roger Kelly, there was plenty of golf excitement out Lakeside Golf Club last week.
Crosby hummed himself around the par 70 “film player” layout at a 69 clip in piloting Logan Van Zandt into the quarterfinal round of the annual membership four-ball handicap fray.
The Crosby-Van Zandt tandem walloped Bob Muller-Norman McKinnon, 5-4, and then laid way Pat McRae and Jim Leicester, 6-5, to reach the quarters.
Lee Tracy somehow gets into more jams with the different producers, yet because he is one of the best actors in Hollywood he continues to be in demand for important roles. No producer, with an eye on the box office, can overlook the merit of performances such as Tracy gave in Blessed Event and Washington Merry-Go-Round. At that rate, the fans will be demanding more of his pictures within a few months. His characterizations mean much more than ordinary good looks and sex appeal. So now Universal has engaged Tracy for the starring role in Private Jones which Russell Mack will direct.
Private Jones was written seven years ago by Richard Schayer, head of the scenario department at Universal. He penned it as a one-act play for presentation at the Writers’ Club. It attracted much favorable comment, and friends urged Schayer to expand it to a full length drama. Schayer was busy and forgot about Private Jones. Then when the studio wanted a story for Tracy, he dug out the old script and now has rewritten it as a full length screen story. The picture will be given a fine production and is planned as one of the important releases on the current Universal program. Tracy may have difficulty keeping out of trouble with the various producers, but he also manages quite well to keep in demand for important assignments.
....
At regular intervals you may be sure that one studio or another will announce the formation of a new comedy team. The latest to loom upon the horizon is composed of Edna May Oliver and Jimmy Gleason. Radio Pictures has decided to team these two after looking at Penguin Pool Murder. Jim Crow, preview reviewer of this department, thought Penguin Pool Murder rather unfunny except for those scenes dominated by Miss Oliver and Gleason. If a comedy team can be funny in an otherwise routine picture, I suppose they might be a great hit in a good one. In all events, Radio is now determined to team them. And Kenneth MacGowan, story editor and associate producer, is searching for a suitable story to be their next vehicle.
....
Slim Summerville and ZaSu Pitts, now in the throes of They Had To Get Married, Universal feature comedy, next will be Alaska Bound. The latter is the title of the next comedy in which they will be co-starred, and I have a suspicion that it will be a travesty of films based on polar expeditions. Auto Camp, which was to have been their next picture, has been moved back on the schedule. H.M. Walker, Earle Snell and Clarence Marks are now working on the story of Alaska Bound.
....
Alexander Leftwich, a prominent director on the New York stage, will try his hand at directing movies. He has been signed to a contract at Radio Pictures. And his first job will be as co-director with Dudley Murphy on Now You See It. This is the story which exposes the fakes of magicians and their ilk. Adolphe Menjou probably will have the starring role in this picture. The story was written by Fulton Oursler, who penned that capital mystery play, “The Spider.”
....
One day on the set of Son Daughter at MGM I rather marveled to see that Helen Hayes, star of the production, was wearing only a suggestion of Chinese makeup. After seeing the elaborate and convincing makeup of Loretta Young and Edward G. Robinson in The Hatchet Man, the extraordinary make-up of Nils Asther in The Bitter Tea of General Yen, and the highly convincing makeup of Sylvia Sidney in Madame Butterfly, I wondered why the MGM makeup department had apparently done so little to transform the features of Miss Hayes. Well, Miss Hayes herself can furnish the answer to that question. With Asther and Miss Sidney both having serious eye trouble as the result of their effort to appear Oriental, Miss Hayes consulted a doctor before she would accept the role of the Chinese maiden. Too much pulling of her eyes was forbidden. But she is such a fine actress that you may be sure she will make up in portrayal what she perhaps may lack in makeup of her fact.
....
Little 30-month-old Marilyn Milner is blooming out in some important screen roles. She has been signed for the part of the orphan child in Acquitted with Mae Clarke and Neil Hamilton at Columbia, and from there goes to Educational for one of the leads in a Baby Burlesk, Kid’n Hollywood.
....
Clyde Beatty and his chair are due to arrive at Universal within a few days to prepare for the filming of The Big Cage. This is the animal picture which will reveal the dangers encountered by trainers in making performers out of jungle beasts. Beatty’s only weapon used to protect himself from the animals is a chair.
Bing Crosby 1945-1949
ABBREVIATIONS
CE -- California Eagle
CT – Chicago Times
DN -- Los Angeles Daily News
EE -- Los Angeles Evening Express
EH -- Los Angeles Evening Herald
EHE -- Los Angeles Evening Herald Express
FD -- Film Daily
HCN -- Hollywood Citizen News
HDC -- Hollywood Daily Citizen
IDN -- Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News
LAR -- Los Angeles Record
LAPR -- Los Angeles Post-Record
LAX -- Los Angeles Examiner
MPH -- Motion Picture Herald
SDU – San Diego Union
SFC – San Francisco Chronicle
1/1/1945 DN Erskine Johnson
Amidst all the pandemonium (of 1944), lackadaisical Bing Crosby became the boxoffice champion of the year in a simple, homey story about priests, Going My Way. The film, surprising everybody, will gross nearly $12,000,000.
Paramount expected it to be just another Bing Crosby picture. It cost only $987,000 which is confetti in Baghdad on the Pacific.
...
Cary Grant...was Hollywood’s 1944 moneymaking king, along with headman, Louis B. Mayer of MGM and Bing Crosby.
Working on a salary and percentage deal, Grant collected nearly $1,000,000. His percentage of films released over a two year period was $180,000 in one month of 1944 alone. But when you have to pay a tax of $927,000 on $1,000,000, you ain’t a millionaire.
Between radio, records and pictures, Crosby collected about the same.
1/1/1945 HCN Ed Sullivan
Most Amusing Nickname: Der Bingle, attached to Bing Crosby on his London-to-Berlin airer.
1/1/1945 HCN CROSBY TOPS BRITISH POLL OF BOXOFFICE
The Motion Picture Herald’s British poll of money-making international movie stars is led by Bing Crosby.
In order follow Betty Grable, Greer Garson, Deanna Durbin, Bette Davis, Bob Hope, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy and Abbott and Costello.
Best-liked western star is Roy Rogers, while Walt Disney heads the shorts.
1/1/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
The Bob Hope party was really an occasion with everyone there to make it an evening to remember. Dolores and Bob knew the 300 guests well enough to call them by their first names–there were no party-crashers–that’s something in Hollywood. Dixie Crosby, who was always one of the prettiest blondes in Hollywood, came with Bing. Clark Gable was with Fieldsy and Walter Lang and at once become the most sought after unattached male in the room. Cesar Romero, now chief boatswain’s mate, looked very handsome in his uniform and didn’t do badly with the femmes either. Radio was well represented. Jack Benny was one of the first to arrive, smoking one of his famous cigars. His Mary looked “orful” pretty in an Adrian gown. Gracie and George Burns wishing everybody a Happy New Year,, including Edgar Bergen, who was there with attractive Frances Westernman. Lum and Abner, with their pretty wives–we know the boys in Hollywood as Norman Galt and Chet Louck–Freeman Gosden and his bride, and Frances Langford, were just a few of the top names. Lorena Danker, Sally Eilers, the Eddie Sutherlands, Irene and David Selznick, Elsie and David Butler, Edie Gwynn and Lieutenant Buster Murray and, well, so many people it was fun to see and–oh, yes, Winfield Sheehan and Colonel Kimberly. The colonel has more service ribbons than I have ever seen one person wear.
1/2/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
The first Andrews Sisters’ show was heard at home. I am not a devotee of the girls’ type of singing but it was refreshing after the amount of “romantic” warbling to which we are asked to listen. Bing Crosby is a welcome guest on almost any program but when are his horses going to be forgotten? Gags about the nags were run into the ground a long time ago. It is too soon to judge the work of “Gabby” Hayes, there being a perennial problem of suitable lines, on the program as a whole.
1/2/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Bob Hope couldn’t have been funnier when he told about the visit Christmas Eve of Bing Crosby and his four roughneck sons. They all sang Christmas carols and then Lindsay, the youngest, put out his hand for money. Bob gave each of the boys a dollar and then as they were leaving, Lindsay said, “Hey, what about a war bond? We did a job, didn’t we?”
1/3/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
Nobody ever hoped to see it but Jack Benny’s “black tie” party on New Year’s Eve actually brought out Bing Crosby in a tuxedo.
1/3/1945 HCN Swing Time
By Hal Halley
Well, the time is up for another crooner to catch the public fancy. Sinatra, Haymes, and Crosby are doing fine, but they’re old stuff now...Frankie won’t be on the Hit Parade any more. With five years left on his contract, it was broken by mutual agreement.
Speaking of these lads, Bing has come out victor again in Downbeat’s annual poll. Crosby got 2406 votes to 1606 for Frankie and 680 for Dick Haymes.
1/4/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
From the South Pacific, Lieut. Col. Earl O. Thornton Jr., writes that he stepped into his tent to find a four-foot death adder coiled and completely hypnotized by a Bing Crosby radio program.
Let Frankie top that!
1/4/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Bobby Sockers, get ready to swoon as you never swooned before! Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra are talking about making a movie together! If you are still on your feet after that sock announcement, I’ll add that der Bingle and der Frankie have discussed the idea and like it. For some time the aides in both camps have been trying to sell the plan–but it didn’t approach being consummated until the boys got together in a huddle.
Both boys have one outside picture to make on their respective contracts and while no releasing company has been contacted you can bet they will have the pick of the field. Sinatra and Crosby on theater marquees would burn up the box office. The plan now is to have two sets of top song writers–Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen to write the Crosby ditties and Sammy Kahn and Jules Stein the Sinatra tunes.
1/8/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald will be heard in scenes from Going My Way and will receive from Paul Lukas Redbooks’ Annual Motion Picture Award at 7 over KNX.
1/10/1945 HCN Lowell E. Redelings
It’s been a long time since you’ve seen Helen Hayes on the screen. But a New York report asserts that a film test she made on the Q.T. was for Leo McCarey’s forthcoming The Bells of St. Mary’s....So....we shall see....
1/10/1945 DN DIXIE CROSBY SERIOUSLY ILL
Dixie Lee Crosby, wife of Bing Crosby, was stricken with a respiratory infection yesterday and taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she is reported to be in serious condition.
The family physician, Dr. George Hummer, said she was threatened with pneumonia and ordered her placed in an oxygen tent.
Bing accompanied his wife in an ambulance and remained at her bedside in the hospital throughout the afternoon.
1/10/1945 EHE CRITICS PICK BEST LIKED RADIO SHOWS
New York, Jan. 10.—First Certified Survey of the critical press of America to select the All American Radio Program of 1944, has just been completed by Radio Daily, with 1051 editors and writers taking part.
“Information Please” was voted the top ranking commercial radio show of the season.
Bob Hope easily took honors as both Favorite Comedian and Favorite Entertainer, with Jack Benny runner-up in the comedian category and Bing Crosby in the same status as an entertainer. Balloting covered 28 categories in all.
....
Bing Crosby retained his place as favorite male singer of popular songs, drawing the largest individual vote of any All-American Radio Program winner.
1/10/1945 EHE MRS. CROSBY
Bing’s Wife Improves After Collapse
Mrs. Dixie Lee Crosby, wife of the crooner and mother of his four sons, was reported improving today at St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she was rushed after collapsing at her home with a respiratory infection.
“She’s going to be all right,” Bing declared today, after announcing that Mrs. Crosby had spent part of the night in an oxygen tent in an effort to avert pneumonia. He remained at the hospital throughout the night.
The former actress was sped to the hospital late yesterday on orders of her physician, Dr. George Hummer, after she collapsed at the Crosby Holmby Hills home.
Larry Crosby, brother of Bing, stated that Mrs. Crosby had been suffering from a heavy cold and the hospital stay was decided upon because it was feared that pneumonia was incipient.
Hospital attaches refused to release any information regarding Mrs. Crosby’s condition and referred all inquiries to members of the Crosby family.
1/11/1945 LAX Behind the Makeup
By Harry Crocker
Humphrey Bogart, the Brian Levys, Eddie Brackens, Georgia (the peach) Carroll and Kay Kyser and many more turned out to see Bing Crosby receive from Thornton Delehanty a huge national magazine cup for his work in Going My Way. Barry Fitzgerald and director Leo McCarey were also honored. The Crooner, so calm and collected on the fairways and greens, for whom the mike hath no frights, was so trembly he averred he hoped he’d never win an Oscar, he’d be too scared to claim it. Jinx Falkenburg and Voldemar Vetliuguin, Signe Hasso and Spencer Tracy, the Walter Pidgeons, got a laugh out of his statement.
1/11/1945 HCN MRS. CROSBY SAID TO BE IMPROVING
The condition of Mrs. Bing Crosby, 33, wife of the crooner and mother of four sons, was described as “improving” today by a spokesman for the family at the offices of Everett N. Crosby, Ltd., brother and business manager of Bing.
St. Vincent’s Hospital, where Mrs. Crosby, the former Dixie Lee of the films, was taken yesterday after collapsing at her home with a respiratory infection, refused to give any information concerning her condition and Dr. George Hummer, Mrs. Crosby’s physician was out on other calls.
The spokesman at the Crosby offices said that the crooner’s wife had been ailing for some time. He declared that Mrs. Crosby’s physician had informed him that it would be several days before she would be free from complications.
Bing’s brother, Larry, told reporters early today that the crooner’s wife was placed in an oxygen tent for a while last night because of a pneumonia threat.
1/11/1945 DN DIXIE LEE CROSBY ‘MUCH BETTER,’ HOSPITAL REPORTS
Dixie Lee Crosby, wife of Bing Crosby, yesterday was reported “much better” at St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she was taken Tuesday when stricken with a respiratory infection.
Bing, who accompanied his wife to the hospital in an ambulance, took an adjoining room at the hospital to remain near her.
1/11/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
By Hal Carlock
There has been a lot of talk along radio row about the new Bing Crosby show which permits “The Groaner” to sing more songs. There are those who like the idea and then there are those who insist they liked the old format which gave Bing a chance to read more lines with some very fine comedy relief.
Last week, there seemed to be a happy center-of-the-road path being followed. Bing did a little patter and still did a lot of singing. For our money, it was one of the best “Music Hall” shows in a long time.
Tonight’s NBC “Music Hall” program on KFI at 6 finds “Der Bingo” hosting Spike Jones’ City Slickers and featuring a favorite medley from his first feature length motion picture, College Humor.
1/11/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Bing Crosby’s wife, bedded with pneumonia, reported vastly improved today.
1/12/1945 EHE MRS. BING CROSBY IMPROVING, REPORT
Marked improvement in the condition of Mrs. Bing Crosby, wife of the crooner, was reported today by Larry Crosby, Bing’s brother. Administration of penicillin no longer is necessary, nor is the oxygen tent in which Mrs. Crosby was placed several times since she was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital Tuesday with a lung infection, said Crosby.
1/12/1945 LAX MRS. CROSBY STILL IN PERIL
Pneumonia continued to threaten Mrs. Bing Crosby yesterday at St. Vincent’s Hospital.
“Her condition is somewhat better, and she is responding to treatment, but still not out of danger, due to the threat of pneumonia,” was the report issued by her brother-in-law, Everett Crosby.
Mrs. Crosby, the former Dixie Lee of the films, was taken to the hospital Tuesday, after collapsing in the Crosby home in Holmby Hills.
Everett Crosby said she is undergoing intermittent oxygen tent treatments as a pneumonia deterrent.
1/13/1945 HCN Sidney Skolsky
Despite the fact that there is no horse racing and that Bing Crosby gave it up before the ban, Bob Hope still persists with those gags about Crosby and horses.
Bing Crosby and Johnny Mercer had this conversation: “Mercer: “Paramount isn’t treating you right, Bing.” Bing: “How’s that?” Mercer: “They put you in a picture with Bob Hope, and he tells jokes better than you do.” Crosby: “That’s okay.” Mercer: “Then they put you in a picture with Fred Astaire, and he dances better than you. Next thing you know, they’ll be putting you in a picture with Frank Sinatra.”
1/13/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Graceful Paul Draper, whose dancing gets me into any night club or concert hall where he’s appearing, is coming to Hollywood. Mark Sandrich wanted Paul so much that he took off his Christmas holiday and went to New York and signed Draper, who heretofore has played “hard to get” for movies. Mark not only signed him to do the Irving Berlin picture, Blue Skies, but made a deal whereby all of Draper’s movie making will be done on the Paramount lot. In discussing the screenplay, I hear that Draper gets Bing Crosby’s gal in Blue Skies. It’s to be Para’s biggest musical for the coming year.
1/13/1945 LAX Mrs. Crosby Showing Gain
“Mrs. Bing” was doing “pretty good” yesterday.
Dixie Lee, as she was known before becoming the crooner’s wife, was believed out of danger from a pneumonia threat at St. Vincent’s Hospital, which she entered last Tuesday.
The “pretty good” report on her condition came from Larry Crosby, Bing’s brother, who added that Mrs. Crosby no longer is receiving oxygen tent or penicillin treatments.
“Dixie was quite a sick girl for a while,” Larry Crosby said yesterday. “She was unconscious the first couple of days, but we now are confident she’s going to pull through.
“She will remain in the hospital a few days more.”
1/16/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Leo McCarey’s next directorial effort starring Bing Crosby, The Bells of St. Mary’s, now definite for Feb. 15 start .
1/22/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Bing Crosby, in about two weeks, will have his photo in color on FRONT page of New York Daily News! It’s part of nationwide press acclaim for his role in Going My Way.
1/23/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Bing Crosby attributes his wife’s quick recovery to penicillin.
1/25/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Bing Crosby and his guests, the Andrews Sisters, will combine their voices at 6 over KFI in “Don’t Fence Me In.” Patty, LaVerne and Maxine will be heard alone, in “Tears Flowed Like Wine.” Bing, in “Evalina” and “Strange Music.” Bing said that whether John L. Sullivan, the picture is producing, was a success or failure, was a headache as far as he was concerned. “I’m just a quiet guy in a loud shirt trying to get along.” he remarked. “I like my Thursday radio job, with everybody more or less happy.”
1/25/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
By Hal Carlock
Bing Crosby has as his guests on the “Music Hall,” over KFI tonight at 6, the Andrews Sisters. The “Groaner” and the girls will offer their sensational version of “Don’t Fence Me In”; also Petty, LaVerne and Maxine will sing “Tears Flowed Like Wine.”
1/26/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Isn’t this something–Ingrid Bergman and Bing Crosby together? The lovely Swedish star is to be co-starred with the sweet-singing gent, Bing, in Leo McCarey’s The Bells of St. Mary’s. That will be two religious pictures for Ingrid, The Scarlet Lily, which she does for her boss, David Selznick, after Notorious, and The Bells of St. Mary’s, which she does for Charles Koerner at RKO.
Very few stars would take the chance of playing in two religious pictures so close together.
1/29/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
Decca grabbed Xavier Cugat for one recording (“Hasta Manana”) with Bing Crosby before Cugat’s new Columbia contract went into effect.
1/29/1945 LAX Behind the Makeup
By Harry Crocker
Bing Crosby ad-libbed an accurate prophecy in the final sequence for Duffy’s Tavern, in which 18 Paramount stars sing a parody of the hit tune, Swinging on a Star. Along with Dorothy Lamour, Diana Lynn, Betty Hutton, Casss Daley and many others, Sonny Tufts sang a verse in which he kidded himself. As a topper Sonny, who once studied for the Metropolitan, went into an opera routine. “I’d like to swing–I’d like to swing–“ sang Sonny, “I’d like to SWING!” “Stand by, old boy, stand by,” Bing ad-libbed.” Crosby was right. Next day, Sonny was hanged in a scene for The Virginian.
1/29/1945 HCN Swing Time
By Hal Halley
The fourth anniversary of the USO will be celebrated in great style on the Cavalcade of America on NBC, Feb. 5. Bing Crosby and his overseas troupe will do a dramatic version of their recent overseas tour.
1/31/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Gene Lester, the color photographer, has had such fine success with his 16 m.m. movies that word of it reached Board of Education authorities in Washington, D.C.
As a result, he has been commissioned to prepare a 16 m.m. short, Swinging on a Star, based on the hit tune by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen.
The film will be used in schools throughout the country to combat such problems as absences, tardiness, truancy, etc.
And best of all, Bing Crosby, who sang “Swinging on a Star” in Going My Way, will donate his services to sing it again in this educational short.
2/1/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
By Hal Carlock
Bing Crosby’s guest in the Music Hall tonight at 6 over KFI is popular film star Sonny Tufts.
...
Xavier Cugat has four records soon to be released by Decca, which he’s sure will be a sellout. Cugat music alone would assure that, but their success is guaranteed since none other than Bing Crosby is crooning on the discs. They’re introducing “Bahia” which was written by Barrosa, who also penned “Brazil.”
2/1/1945 HCN Swing Time
By Hal Halley
Xavier Cugat has four records soon to be released by Decca, which he’s sure will be a sellout. Cugat music alone would assure that, but their successes is guaranteed since none other than Bing Crosby is crooning on the discs. They’re introducing “Bahia” which was written by Barrosa, who also penned “Brazil.”
2/1/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Bing Crosby and Sonny Tufts, KFI at 6, will sing “Accentuate the Positive” and special lyrics to “Swinging on a Star.” Duke Ellington’s “I Didn’t Know About You” will be sung by Eugenie Baird. “Tabby the Cat” by the Charioteers.
2/2/1945 DN David Hanna
Ingrid Bergman will be Bing Crosby’s costar in Leo McCarey’s production of The Bells of St. Mary. McCarey also is making arrangements to borrow Elizabeth Taylor from MGM for the ingenue spot.
2/4/1945 LAX In Hollywood With Louella O. Parsons
I didn’t believe that Bing Crosby meant it when he said he would see me at 9:30 in the morning at my house for an interview. But I did him wrong. I thought he was the Bing of old and that he would forget all about it, but sure enough, right on the dot, in came Bing, and the whole household went to pieces
The maid came into my office trembling to announce his arrival. My secretary said, “Please, Miss Parsons, let me bring you down a message so I can just look at him.”
And so, amid peeping faces, Bing and I moved into the playroom for a cup of breakfast coffee and our talk.
The most amazing thing is that Bing never has been as sweet and unassuming as now–at a time when he is at the very height of his fame–for, make no mistake about it, he stands alone as the most important star, male or female, on the screen today.
He is No. 1 on the Motion Picture Herald’s 1944 poll; ditto the Film Daily Annual Poll; he is the choice of the New York picture critics, and he won the Red book annual award. In addition, his radio program has gone up several points.
And the “Groaner” is smart enough to know that Going My Way did it.
“I knew that Catholics would like Going My Way, he said, “but the thing that’s pleased me most is that men and women of all denominations have been kind enough to say they loved the picture. It was an easy picture to make,” Bing went on, “because Leo McCarey, the director, would come in in the morning, sit down at the piano, play half the morning, and then we’d shoot. I suppose he was thinking out scenes when he was at the piano. We brought the picture in under budget and under time. I didn’t even know what the story was about when I consented to make a picture with Leo. He said he wanted me to play a ‘hep’ priest. I said, ‘What’s a hep priest?’ ‘Oh, a priest who’s human and hep to the faults of his fellowmen without being too preachy,’ he said.”
But everybody knows about Going My Way, which may win Bing the Academy Award.
He told me with great pride that his four boys had done two days’ work in Duffy’s Tavern with Bob Benchley.
“It isn’t true,” Bing said “that I nipped their career in the bud. It was their mother. She said she’d have no hams in the family, and, believe me, those kids are hams.”
The little fellow, Lindsay, Bing believes, is the most talented, and he was given most of the lines. They call him “The Little King.” The night after they finished the first day’s shooting, the twins said, “We’re not going back unless we get more lines to say.” “Remember you have a contract and you’re going back!” Their father told them. It was then Dixie said, “We’ll have no more of this nonsense.”
“I guess,” Bing grinned, “She thought one ‘ham’ in the family is enough.
“The twins play the cornet, and Gary, the oldest, plays the trombone, and so on Christmas Eve we always go around to the homes of our friends and sing Christmas carols.”
“How do you keep your four boys in line?” I asked Bing.
“Good old spanking routine,” said Bing. “There isn’t a week goes by that one of ‘em doesn’t get a good spanking, but I leave their upbringing mostly to their mother.”
“How about your own picture company?” I asked him.
Bing answered, “If John L. Sullivan makes money, we’ll continue, if it doesn’t, we’ll break up. I believe we will make money, because that new boy, Greg McClure, is so good. Of course, it’s corny in places, but it’s the kind of picture people will like.
“When I was in London,” Bing went on, “the Marquis of Queensberry gave a dinner. They called on me to make a speech, and I called him ‘Lord Rosebery.’ Lord Rosebery is a great horseman. I got my sports mixed up, as well as my lords.
“That night,” said Bing, “there must have been a thousand people in the street in front of the place where the dinner was held, and the police were afraid, because buzz bombs kept coming over. The police asked me to try and disperse the crowd. I walked to the window and said, ‘I’ll sing you a song if you’ll promise to leave, because it’s dangerous for you out here. What do you want me to sing? A little cockney in the crowd called out, ‘Harvey Maria.” I didn’t think ‘Ave Maria’ was the song to sing then, so I sang ‘Pennies From Heaven,’ and I was surprised how orderly they all left, true to their promise.”
Bing’s next picture, he told me, is Bells of St. Mary’s, again with Leo McCarey directing.
“And I’m looking forward to it because he’s the easiest director to work for. Of course, he carries most of the story right in his head, but I have such faith in him that I”m willing to go McCarey way any time.”
2/5/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
It has been said that Bing Crosby is rapidly becoming an American legend. If any present day personality deserves such recognition, Bing is certainly our recommendation.
Today being the Fourth Anniversary of the USO (United Service Organizations) and Bing made such a hit with GIs and officers alike when he toured all over England and France, the “Cavalcade of America” will salute both Crosby and the USO via NBC and KFI tonight at 8:30.
Robert Armbruster and his orchestra supply the musical background and Glenn Wheaton receives credit for writing the script.
2/5/1945 HCN Sidney Skolsky
Judy Garland and Bing Crosby will record for Decca a new Ralph Blaine-Hugh Martin song called “Connecticut.”
2/7/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Robert Cummings was bowled over by the royal welcome Paramount gave him when he showed up on the lot for You Came Along. Eight years ago this same studio fired him. Now he has a dressing room right between Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
2/7/1945 HCN The Hollywood Scene
By Lowell E. Redelings
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby have volunteered to do a two-reel subject at 20th for Canada’s Eighth Victory Loan...
2/7/1945 HCN Sidney Skolsky
The Motion Picture Academy have made their nomination for the various “Oscars,” and now there is nothing to do but wait until the night of the affair and see how the industry voted.
However, this is how I believe the “Oscars” will be distributed: The award for the best picture will go to Going My Way. The warmth and charm of this picture has captured Hollywood as it has the country. The runner-up will probably be Wilson, but its vote will be divided because many people who are opposed to it politically, will not judge it strictly on its merit.
The “Oscar” for the best performance by an actor is a complicated thing because Barry Fitzgerald has been nominated for the best performance by a leading actor and also the best performance by a supporting player. Strictly, Fitzgerald was a supporting player, and the “Oscar” for the best performance by a male star in a picture should be a battle between Bing Crosby for Going My Way and Alexander Knox for his portrayal of Wilson. However, no actor ever entered the Academy voting such an overwhelming favorite as Fitzgerald. He is apt to walk off with two “Oscars,” the first time it was ever accomplished.
2/8/1945 DN Radio Fanfare
By Hal Carlock
Musically speaking: Bing Crosby’s guest list tonight at 6 when NBC presents the “Music Hall” on KFI, includes such illustrious names as Vivien Della Chiesa and Fred Lowery. Sounds good, eh?
2/9/1945 DN Here Comes the Waves
Picturized Review (may still from film)
By Virginia Wright
Here Comes the Waves opens on a parody of the national crooner craze. Its satirical view of that popular feminine infirmity–the bobby sox swoon–is funny and fresh. But Bing Crosby’s burlesque of the Sinatra movement exhausts itself after the first few reels.
Unfortunately, Here Comes the Waves dissipates its value as a service film with a thin little story about a pair of twins in love with the crooner.
Producer-director Mark Sandrich has shot some interesting scenes of WAVES at work, but they are pushed through the finale in a montage which permits no more than a hasty survey of their actions.
It isn’t fair to judge this as a recruiting film, probably, for it obviously was not intended as such. As straight comedy, however, it is spotty, the tunes are not exceptional, and slapstick frequently is forced.
Best episodes are in the theater where the crooner makes a personal appearance, with stretcher bearers standing by to carry out the swooners, and later in the Wave recruiting show.
“If Waves Acted Like Sailors” is an amusing sketch played against a series of clever Milt Gross sets with Betty Hutton in typical form singing “There’s a Fella Waitin’ In Poughkeepsie.” The Bing Crosby-Sonny Tufts blackface duet of “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive”–is another pleasant bit. But the film’s two ballads show things considerably.
Betty Hutton does a good job in the dual role of a sedate WAVE and her more impressionable sister. She carries it off so well, incidentally, it’s easy to forget the dignified girl in Betty Hutton.
Crosby, that sterling actor and contender for Hollywood’s highest acting honors, walks in his casual way through his role of a crooner who thought he could escape his feminine following by joining the Navy.
He figured, however, without the persistence of his most devoted fan, the silly twin, who gets him assigned to the job of WAVE recruiting.
As his unwilling assistant in this job Sonny Tufts is adequate.
Written for the screen by Allan Scott, Ken Englund and Zion Myers, with music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, Here Comes the Waves is doublebilled at the Paramount Downtown with Dangerous Passage. At the Paramount Hollywood it is supported only by Jerry Fairbanks’ Who’s Who in Animal Land.
2/9/1945 HCN Here Come the Waves
By Gerry Day
The gentlemen over Paramount way are going around with smiles wreathing their happy faces in pleasant anticipation of the jingle of coins at the Paramount Hollywood and Downtown box offices where Here Come the Waves is now showing.
The film has everything it takes to bring those long lines to the box office. It has, first of all, that croonin’ man, Brother Bing Crosby, aided and abetted by Sonny Tufts, the blond bomber–and not just one, but two Betty Huttons.
OPPOSITE TYPES
There, there grandma, it’s not as bad as you think! One Betty Hutton is a blonde, crooner-crazy high-voltage imp, ‘tis true. But the other is a sensible, quiet redhead.
And then, there are the songs, the tricky “Accentuate the Positive” and two ballads, “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” and “I Promise You,” both destined for popularity.
Der Bingle is right in his element, making the most of every comic situation and tossing off bright lines with delightful nonchalance. One scene alone is worth the price of admission, showing Bing grimly gripping a microphone, swoon-crooning to screaming bobby sockers while ushers carry out the fainting ladies on stretchers. It had the preview audience howling.
As is customary in film musicals, the story is tedious, often slowing the film’s pace. IT concerns a pair of entertainers, twins, Betty Hutton and Betty Hutton, who join the Waves. The blonde Betty is crazy about Bing and meets him through a mutual friend, Sonny Tufts. Bing, however, falls for her sister who doesn’t care for swoon-crooners.
ENLISTS IN NAVY
Bing enlists in the Navy and attempts to ship on a destroyer named for his father. Through a suggestion made by the blonde, he is sent ashore to stage a recruiting show for the Waves.
Believing the show to be Bing’s idea, the redhead Betty spurns his attentions, and Sonny ufts and the blonde heighten her belief to bring an end to the romance. All turns out well, with Bing kissing the redhead goodbye, and Sonny causing the blonde to faint with his goodbye smack.
Betty Hutton confirms the opinion we have always had of her versatile talents by portraying two completely different characters. The photography which combines the two is faultless, often making one forget that the twins are one and the same person!
Sonny Tufts and Bing are sensational in their “Accentuate the Positive” routine, and producer-director Mark Sandrich has injected good laughs and good music which more than compensate for story deficiencies. Here’s a film that aims for the funnybone and hits the spot.
2/9/1945 LAX Here Come the Waves
A Paramount picture, produced and directed by Mark Sandrich, original screenplay by Alan Scott, Ken Englund and Zion Myers. Playing at the Paramount Hollywood and Downtown theaters.
CAST: Bing Crosby, Betty Hutton, Sonny Tufts, Ann Doran.
By Dorothy Manners
All right, so it isn’t the greatest picture in the world for Bing Crosby, following Going My Way. Admit it–and forget it. Here Come the Waves, which opened at both Paramount theaters yesterday, is Bing right back where he started from, singing ‘em sweet and hot, plus a double sock of Betty Hutton as twins, plus Sonny Tufts and more of his oversized brand of cuteness.
Mark Sandrich’s new musical is a combination of music, slapstick and romance strung along the background of WAVE recruiting. Far from being animated propaganda–it turns out jumping and jiving top entertaining.
Bing has a lot of fun for himself in a role that is a slight takeoff on Frankie Sinatra and his squealing bobbysockers. He plays a swoon-crooner who really wants to get away from it all and join the Navy–but he’s ruled out for color blindness in the beginning. Bing, the most casual actor on the screen, is still himself (which is always terrific), even when playing Sinatra.
But the real surprise is Betty Hutton. Yes, she’s the broadside bombshell and Hectic Hutton as one blonde twin. But she crops up with a delightfully serious side, romantic and definitely intriguing, as the more sedate redheaded sister. Just a glimpse of this more serious side of Betty bodes well for her career. Some smart producer s sure to take the hint and turn on the dramatics for la Hutton before long.
Picture spins around the central idea of the twin night club sisters joining the WAVES. The blonde twin is still ma-a-a-d about her “dream boat” (the crooner) and the other can’t see him for mud. She’s aided and abetted in her campaign against him by a gob pal (Sonny Tufts) who also surprises by popping up with a charming singing voice of his own. Interesting, indeed, are the intervening shots of WAVE recruiting and training and the girls and women in this branch of the service deserve every salute they get in and out of this picture.
To the hepcats, of course, Here Come the WAVES will be largely remembered as the home picture of that maddeningly catchy tune “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive. This bit of psychological musical madness by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen has never been done the way Bing and Sonny Tufts put it over. For extra added musical chills, there is Bing repeating on “Black Magic” and introducing two new lovelies, “The Long Way Home,” and “I Promise You.”
Mark Sandrich, who produced and directed, is a cinch to enjoy Here Comes the WAVES even more when the returns from the box office start coming in. It’s a winner for Paramount.
2/9/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
Statues of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are to stand alongside the murderers, kings, queens and other celebrities in Mme. Tussaud’s, the famous London wax works. Paramount has just receives requests for 12 different photographs of each star, also Bing’s and Bob’s exact measurements. Hollywood will get a kick out of one part of the letter. The wax works is particular about getting the right cranial formations and specifies that the photographs show the two stars WITHOUT toupees.
2/11/1945 LAX Good Bing Crosby Decca Records Ad
2/12/1945 EHE Jimmy Starr
Pals tossed a surprise birthday party for Lana Turner at Larry’s....naturally Turhan Bey was very much in evidence, but the guy who stole the show was Bing Crosby....he sang “Happy Birthday” to Lana....imagine having Bing for that–that’s sompin’....
2/13/1945 HCN BING CROSBY SINGS “OLD BLACK MAGIC” BY POPULAR REQUEST
Persistent requests to Paramount Studio made it necessary to include in Here Come the Waves, currently at the Paramount Hollywood and Downtown theaters, one top tune of a year ago. Although the production introduces many new melodies.
For some time, Bing Crosby had been receiving requests for him to sing “That Old Black Magic.” Many of the requests came from Waves; so when he made this picture, it was almost mandatory that he sing this tune.
Sharing stellar honors with Bing in this Mark Sandrich production are Betty Hutton and Sonny Tufts.
The companion feature at the Downtown theater is Dangerous Passage.
2/15/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Bing Crosby’s “Music Hall” guests, KFI at 6, will be Ella Logan, home after five months of entertaining our boys in Europe, and Eddie Heywood, pianist. Bing will open the half hour with “Accentuate the Positive.”
2/16/1945 HCN Radio
By Zuma Palmer
Ona Munson will relate incidents in the life of Bing Crosby, KNX at 6.
2/16/1945 EHE Bing Crosby Tops Gallup Poll
Going My Way was nation’s favorite motion picture of 1944 and its crooner star, Bing Crosby, the most popular actor, a poll conducted by Dr. George Gallup’s audience research organization disclosed today. Red-haired Greer Garson was the most popular actress.
2/17/1945 HCN Sidney Skolsky
The “Command Performance” broadcast of “Dick Tracy” with a cast composed of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Dinah Shore and Jimmy Durante, just to mention some of them, was a show of shows.
2/17/1945 LAX Behind the Makeup
By Harry Crocker
CIRCLE—
When director Frank Tuttle started work on Two-Faced Quilligan at 20th Century-Fox, starring William Bendix, with Joan Blondell, it marked the start of his 54th motion picture. It also completed a cycle, for it found Tuttle again working for the man who gave him his start 22 years ago–William LeBaron, for whom Tuttle made Dangerous Money with Bebe Daniels, Tom Moore and William Powell at the old Astoria Studio on Long Island. After acting on his own adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s “Quentin Durward” at Yale, where his dramatic coach was none other than Monty Wooley, and one of his actors was your columnist, Frank turned to press agentry for the famed Diaghileff’s Ballet Russe, starring the great Nijinsky on its first American tour, and for awhile he publicized the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Entering motion pictures as a writer, Tuttle soon became a director and has handled many of the great stars of Hollywood, including Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, Clara Bow, Eddie Cantor, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Warner Baxter, Carole Lombard, Alan Ladd, Fredric March, Jean Arthur, Kay Francis, Buddy Rogers and Veronica Lake.
2/21/1945 EHE Harrison Carroll
Frank Sinatra was the object of terrific curiosity when he recorded for that war bond drive at 20th Century-Fox. Betty Grable came over to watch him sing (Harry James was leading the band) and Frankie, in turn, visited Betty’s set, The Dolly Sisters.
Bing Crosby recorded for the same film but without any fooling around. He came in, passed a few quips, sang his song twice, liked the second try, said “That’s it, boys,” and was gone.
2/22/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
The New Rainbow, Inc., formed with Leo McCarey, president, David Butler, vice president; Earl Rettig, secretary and treasurer; Bing Crosby, Buddy DeSylva and Hal Roach Jr., as members, starts off with a bang. Bells of St. Mary’s is their first and The Great American Story their second. While the members of Rainbow, Inc., look the other way when you mention Bob Hope, I happen to know that when Bob is free, he is expected to join his pals in their new set-up.
2/25/1945 LAX In Hollywood With Louella O. Parsons
You can bet every cent you have and be safe that Ingrid Bergman is not leaving the David Selznick fold even though the gossips said she objected to being loaned out to other studios at a terrific amount of money.
When I asked her about it, she said, “The only discussion we’ve ever had was over my doing outside pictures. I want to do one a year, but even if I were loaned out, I want to be sure that Mr. Selznick is near by to give me advice.”
Ingrid had come to see me and had waited for nearly an hour and I was apologetic and couldn’t resist complimenting her on her sweetness and her lack of annoyance at my tardiness in keeping an appointment that had been made for two weeks.
“It’s very gratifying,” I said, “to find an actress with no grand ideas about herself and such a willingness to cooperate.”
“Well, you see,” said Ingrid, laughing, “I was very temperamental in Sweden. When I started out, I thought that was the way to act, and I was very unpopular with the writers and critics because they thought I was difficult. I made up my mind when I came to America I would turn over a new leaf.”
I looked at her closely to see if she were spoofing, for I doubted if this placid, lovable creature was ever disagreeable. She’s too innately well-bred, yet she was so serious when she said it, I couldn’t tell whether she had had a run-in with the Swedish newspaper men or not.
Ingrid has been the despair of David Selznick’s life. She wants to work all the time. A week before she finishes a picture, she walks into his office and says, “What will I do next?”
He says, “I think you’d better take a little rest now,” and Ingrid, who doesn’t want to rest, is bitterly disappointed that she doesn’t walk from one picture to another.
“You shouldn’t make too many pictures–it isn’t good,” I told her.
“I’ve only made seven in the five years I’ve been in America,” she answered, starting to list them on her fingers.
Intermezzo was the first, and Spellbound, the last one she finished. In that list she’s had a pleasant variety, ranging from schoolgirl roles to a woman psychiatrist.
She is very happy over making The Bells of St. Mary’s and the chance to play in a picture with Bing Crosby, whom she admires greatly.
“I’m going to play a nun,” she said, in The Bells of St. Mary’s who is as kindly, fun-loving and human as the priest Mr. Crosby played in Going My Way, in fact, The Bells of St. Mary’s shows Mr. Crosby as the same priest in a different parish.”
This was the first time I’d heard the pictures had the same characters. I had understood they were not related, inasmuch as one was made for Paramount and the other is for RKO.
Notorious, a picture she makes for Selznick, will come between The Bells of St. Mary’s and The Scarlet Lily, in which she plays Mary Magdalene.
“There are only a few lines in the Bible about Mary Magdalene,” she said, “so of course there’s much about the character that’s fiction, but we want to be sure we don’t offend any religion. I never felt,” she went on, “that Father Murphy wrote his book just for Catholics–I felt it was for all denominations.”
Ingrid, herself, was brought up a Lutheran, as are all Swedish children.
We started talking religion while we were discussing her little girl, Pia. Ingrid said she plans to send her daughter to Sunday School.
“In Sweden,” she said, “There’s only one church and all children learn the Bible and religion in school.”
She’s going to send her own little Pia to Sunday School because she wants her to learn religion and later make up her own mind what church she wants to join.
I’ve always been a fan and admirer of Ingrid Bergman. I admit it–since the day she first came to see me at Marsons Farm and picked her first orange. She’s so completely natural and unaffected, and such a fine person–a credit to the motion picture industry.
I like the way she and Dr. Peter Lindstrom have worked out their way of living. Each has his own work, yet each defers to the other’s opinions and ideas, and each shares interest in the other’s careers. That’s the way it should be. If we had more women like Ingrid Bergman we’d have fewer divorces in Hollywood, or in any other town.
2/26/1945 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Ruth Donnelly, a swell character actress, is a happy girl. She has been chosen by Leo McCarey to play the jolly nun in Bells of St. Mary’s, the Bing Crosby-Ingrid Bergman opus.
2/27/1945 LAX Diggin’ Divots
By Mel Gallagher
Between crooner Bing Crosby and ex-state amateur champion Roger Kelly, there was plenty of golf excitement out Lakeside Golf Club last week.
Crosby hummed himself around the par 70 “film player” layout at a 69 clip in piloting Logan Van Zandt into the quarterfinal round of the annual membership four-ball handicap fray.
The Crosby-Van Zandt tandem walloped Bob Muller-Norman McKinnon, 5-4, and then laid way Pat McRae and Jim Leicester, 6-5, to reach the quarters.
Labels: Adolphe Menjou, Helen Hayes, Lee Tracy, ZaSu Pitts
posted by GDH at 9:35 PM
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