Bing crosby biography white christmas

Crosby's family also held a small private funeral for the singer in Culver City, California, which was attended by Bob Hope and Rosemary Clooney, among a few other close friends of Crosby's from Hollywood. Crosby was laid to rest next to his first wife, Dixie Lee. The couple had been married from to when she died of ovarian cancer. Crosby was survived by his four sons from his first marriage, Gary, Lindsay, Phillip and Dennis; as well as by his second wife, Kathryn, and their three children, Nathaniel, Harry and Mary Frances.

Several years after his death, Crosby's reputation as the mellow, cool paternal type was shattered by allegations made by his son Gary. He claimed in his tell-all memoir Going My Own Way that Bing was a cruel father who used to physically abuse his sons. Gary's brothers were divided on the book. Phillip played down these claims, but Lindsay supported Gary's stories.

As the new millennium began, a public effort ignited to remember Crosby and restore some of his legacy. Regardless of what he did or didn't do in his personal life, Crosby changed the sound and style of popular music. His songs are a part of the American soundtrack, and can still be heard on the radio, on television programs and in films. We strive for accuracy and fairness.

If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Charli XCX. Carrie Underwood. The Death of Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley. Bob Dylan. Taylor Swift. Crosby also ensured behind the scenes that Armstrong received equal billing with his white co-stars. Armstrong appreciated Crosby's progressive attitudes on race, and often expressed gratitude for the role in later years.

He learned how to pronounce German from written scripts and read propaganda broadcasts intended for German forces. The nickname "Der Bingle" was common among Crosby's German listeners and came to be used by his English-speaking bings crosby biography white christmas. In a poll of U. The June 18,issue of Life magazine stated, "America's number one star, Bing Crosby, has won more fans, made more money than any entertainer in history.

Today he is a kind of national institution. His biggest best seller is "White Christmas" 2, impressions of which have been sold in the U. The day after he sings a song over the air—any song—some 50, copies of it are sold throughout the U. Time and again Crosby has taken some new or unknown ballad, has given it what is known in trade circles as the 'big goose' and made it a hit single-handed and overnight Precisely what the future holds for Crosby neither his family nor his friends can conjecture.

He has achieved greater popularity, made more money, attracted vaster audiences than any other entertainer in history. And his star is still in the ascendant. His contract with Decca runs until His contract with Paramount runs until Records which he made ten years ago are selling better than ever before. The nation's appetite for Crosby's voice and personality appears insatiable.

To soldiers overseas and to foreigners he has become a kind of symbol of America, of the amiable, humorous citizen of a free land. Crosby, however, seldom bothers to contemplate his future. For one thing, he enjoys hearing himself sing, and if ever a day should dawn when the public wearies of him, he will complacently go right on singing—to himself.

The biggest hit song of Crosby's career was his recording of Irving Berlin 's " White Christmas ", which Crosby introduced on a Christmas Day radio broadcast in A copy of the recording from the radio program is owned by the estate of Bing Crosby and was loaned to CBS Sunday Morning for their December 25,program. The song appeared in his films Holiday Innand—a decade later—in White Christmas Crosby's record hit the charts on October 3,and rose to number 1 on October 31, where it stayed for 11 weeks.

A holiday perennial, the song was repeatedly re-released by Decca, charting another 16 times. It topped the charts again in and a third time in January The song remains the bestselling single of all time. His recording was so popular that Crosby was obliged to re-record it in using the same musicians and backup singers; the original master had become damaged due to its frequent use in pressing additional singles.

Inafter Crosby died, the song was re-released and reached No. In the wake of a solid decade of headlining mainly smash hit musical comedy films in the s, Crosby starred with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour in six of the seven Road to musical comedies between and Lamour was replaced with Joan Collins in The Road to Hong Kong and limited to a lengthy cameocementing Crosby and Hope as an on-and-off duo, despite never declaring themselves a "team" in the sense that Laurel and Hardy or Martin and Lewis Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were teams.

When they appeared solo, Crosby and Hope frequently made note of the other in a comically insulting fashion. They performed together countless times on stage, radio, film, and television, and made numerous brief and not so brief appearances together in movies aside from the "Road" pictures, Variety Girl being an example of lengthy scenes and songs together along with billing.

Inhe starred in High Timea collegiate comedy with Fabian Forte and Tuesday Weld that predicted the emerging gap between Crosby and the new younger generation of musicians and actors who had begun their careers after World War II. Collins was used in place of their longtime partner Dorothy Lamour, whom Crosby felt was getting too old for the role, though Hope refused to do the film without her, and she instead made a lengthy and elaborate cameo appearance.

He received critical acclaim and his third Academy Award nomination for his performance as an alcoholic entertainer in The Country Girl.

Bing crosby biography white christmas: “White Christmas,” written by the

The Fireside Theater was his first television production. The series of minute shows was filmed at Hal Roach Studios rather than performed live on the air. The "telefilms" were syndicated to individual television stations. Crosby was a frequent guest on the musical variety shows of the s and s, appearing on various variety shows as well as numerous late-night talk shows and his own highly rated specials.

Crosby was associated with ABC's The Hollywood Palace as the show's first and most frequent guest host and appeared annually on its Christmas edition with his wife Kathryn and his younger children, and continued after The Hollywood Palace was eventually canceled. In the early s, Crosby made two late appearances on the Flip Wilson Showsinging duets with the comedian.

Their duet was released in as a single 45 rpm record and reached No. At the end of the 20th century, TV Guide listed the Crosby-Bowie duet one of the 25 most memorable musical moments of 20th-century television. Crosby was one of the first singers to exploit the intimacy of the microphone rather than use the loud, penetrating vaudeville style associated with Al Jolson.

Crosby and Armstrong remained warm acquaintances for decades, occasionally singing together in later years, e. In Crosby's performances, the presence of jazz phrasing, jazz rhythm and jazz improvisation varied depending on the piece of music, but those were elements that Crosby frequently used. However, while Crosby can be called a jazz singer, he was not strictly only a jazz singer as he modeled the style and techniques to a broad scope of music that he performed, ranging from Jazz to Country to even such material as operetta arias.

During the early portion of his solo career about —Crosby's emotional, often pleading style of crooning was popular. But Jack Kapp, manager of Brunswick and later Decca, talked Crosby into dropping many of his jazzier mannerisms in favor of a clear vocal style. Crosby credited Kapp for choosing hit songs, working with many other musicians, and most important, diversifying his repertoire into several styles and genres.

Kapp helped Crosby have number one hits in Christmas musicHawaiian musicand country musicand top hits in Irish musicFrench musicrhythm and bluesand ballads. Crosby elaborated on an idea of Al Jolson's: phrasing, or the art of making a song's lyric ring true. All that matters to him is the words, and that's the only thing that ought to for you, too.

Critic Henry Pleasants wrote in [While] the octave B flat to B flat in Bing's voice at that time [s] is, to my ears, one of the loveliest I have heard in forty-five years of listening to bings crosby biography white christmas, both classical and popular, it dropped conspicuously in later years. From the mids, Bing was more comfortable in a bass range while maintaining a baritone quality, with the best octave being G to G, or even F to F.

In a recording he made of ' Dardanella ' with Louis Armstrong inhe attacks lightly and easily on a low E flat. This is lower than most opera basses care to venture, and they tend to sound as if they were in the cellar when they get there. Crosby's was among the most popular and successful musical acts of the 20th century. Billboard magazine used different methodologies during his career, but his chart success remains impressive: chart singles, including roughly 41 number 1 hits.

Crosby had separate charting singles every year between and ; the annual re-release of "White Christmas" extended that streak to He had 24 separate popular singles in alone. Statistician Joel Whitburn at Billboard determined that Crosby was America's most successful recording act of the s and again in the s. The number of Bing Crosby record sales varies.

Organizations that audit record sales do not have an official tally, but some claim sales are notable, namely: InCrosby was honored as "First Citizen of Record Industry" based on having sold million discs. According to different sources, Bing Crosby's sales number varies between: million, [ 64 ] million, [ 65 ] or even 1 billion, making him one of the best-selling singers in history.

For 15 years,—Crosby was among the top 10 acts in box-office sales, and for five of those years — he topped the world. A survey in found that with 1,, movie tickets sold, Crosby was the third-most-popular actor of all time, behind Clark Gable 1,, and John Wayne 1,, Crosby received 23 gold and platinum records, according to the book Million Selling Records.

The Recording Industry Association of America did not institute its gold record certification program until when Crosby's record sales were low. Beforegold records were awarded by record companies. They made one film appearance together in Road to Rio singing "You Don't Have to Know the Language", and sang together on radio airwaves throughout the s and s.

He has been inducted into the halls of fame for both radio and popular music. Crosby's popularity around the world was such that Dorothy Masukathe best-selling African recording artist, stated that, "Only Bing Crosby the famous American crooner sold more records than me in Africa. Presenter Mike Douglas commented in a interview, "During my days in the Navy in World War III remember walking the streets of Calcutta, India, on the coast; it was a lonely night, so far from my home and from my new wife, Gen.

I needed something to lift my spirits. As I passed a Hindu sitting on the corner of a street, I heard something surprisingly familiar. I came back to see the man playing one of those old Vitrolas, like those of RCA with the horn speaker. I stopped and smiled in grateful acknowledgment. The Hindu nodded and smiled back. The whole world knew and loved Bing Crosby.

According to Shoshana Klebanoff, Crosby became one of the richest men in the history of show business. He had investments in real estate, mines, oil wells, cattle ranches, race horses, music publishing, baseball teams, and television. Crosby made a fortune from the Minute Maid Orange Juice Corporation, in which he was a principal stockholder. During the Golden Age of Radioperformers had to create their shows live, sometimes even redoing the program a second time for the West Coast time zone.

Crosby had to do two live radio shows on the same day, three hours apart, for the East and West Coasts. The live production of radio shows was reinforced by the musicians' union and ASCAPwhich wanted to ensure continued work for their members. Suddenly Crosby saw an enormous advantage in prerecording his radio shows. The scheduling could now be done at the star's convenience.

He could do four shows a week, if he chose, and then take a month off. But the networks and sponsors were adamantly opposed. The public wouldn't stand for 'canned' radio, the networks argued. There was something magic for listeners in the fact that what they were hearing was being performed, and heard live everywhere, at that precise instant.

Some of the best moments in comedy came when a line was blown and the star had to rely on wit to rescue a bad situation. Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Phil Harris, and, yes, Crosby were masters at this, and the networks weren't about to give it up easily. Crosby's insistence eventually factored into the further development of magnetic tape sound recording and the radio industry's widespread adoption of it.

Crosby left the network and remained off the air for seven months, creating a legal battle with his sponsor Kraft that was settled out of court. Crosby returned to broadcasting for the last 13 weeks of the — season. The Mutual Network, on the other hand, pre-recorded some of its programs as early as for The Shadow with Orson Welles. Murdo MacKenzie of Bing Crosby Enterprises had seen a demonstration of the German Magnetophon in June —the same device that Jack Mullin had brought back from Radio Frankfurt with 50 reels of tape, at the end of the war.

The 6. Alexander M. Poniatoff ordered Ampexwhich he founded into manufacture an improved version of the Magnetophone. Crosby hired Mullin to start recording his Philco Radio Time show on his German-made machine in August using the same 50 reels of I. Farben magnetic tape that Mullin had found at a radio bing crosby biography white christmas at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt while working for the U.

Army Signal Corps. The advantage was editing. As Crosby wrote in his autobiography:. By using tape, I could do a thirty-five- or forty-minute show, then edit it down to the twenty-six or twenty-seven minutes the program ran. In that way, we could take out jokes, gags, or situations that didn't play well and finish with only the prime meat of the show; the solid stuff that played big.

We could also take out the songs that didn't sound good. It gave us a chance to first try a recording of the songs in the afternoon without an audience, then another one in front of a studio audience. We'd dub the one that came off best into the final transcription. It gave us a chance to ad-lib as much as we wanted, knowing that excess ad-libbing could be sliced from the final product.

If I made a mistake in singing a song or in the script, I could have some fun with it, then retain any of the fun that sounded amusing. In the evening, Crosby did the whole show before an audience. If he muffed a song then, the audience loved it—thought it was very funny—but we would have to take out the show version and put in one of the rehearsal takes.

Sometimes, if Crosby was having fun with a song and not really working at it, we had to make it up out of two or three parts. This ad-lib way of working is commonplace in the recording studios today, but it was all new to us. One time Bob Burns, the hillbilly comic, was on the show, and he threw in a few of his folksy farm stories, which of course were not in Bill Morrow's script.

Today they wouldn't seem very off-color, but things were different on radio then. They got enormous laughs, which just went on and on. We couldn't use the jokes, but Bill asked us to save the laughs. A couple of weeks later he had a show that wasn't very funny, and he insisted that we put in the salvaged laughs. Thus the laugh-track was born.

Crosby started the tape recorder revolution in America. In his film Mr. MusicCrosby is seen singing into an Ampex tape recorder that reproduced his voice better than anything else. Also quick to adopt tape recording was his friend Bob Hope. Crosby gave one of the first Ampex Model recorders to his friend, guitarist Les Paulwhich led to Paul's invention of multitrack recording.

His organization, the Crosby Research Foundation, held tape recording patents and developed equipment and recording techniques such as the laugh track that are still in use.

Bing crosby biography white christmas: "White Christmas" is a

Mullin continued to work for Crosby to develop a videotape recorder VTR. Television production was mostly live television in its early years, but Crosby wanted the same ability to record that he had achieved in radio. Mullin had not yet succeeded with videotape, so Crosby filmed the series of minute shows at the Hal Roach Studios, and the "telefilms" were syndicated to individual television stations.

Crosby continued to finance the development of videotape. Bing Crosby Enterprises gave the world's first demonstration of videotape recording in Los Angeles on November 11, Developed by John T. Mullin and Wayne R. Johnson sincethe device aired what were described as "blurred and indistinct" images, using a modified Ampex tape recorder and standard quarter-inch 6.

After it began broadcasting, the station was sold within a year to Northern Pacific Radio and Television Corporation. Crosby was a fan of thoroughbred horse racing and bought his first racehorse in Two years later, Crosby became a founding partner of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and a member of its board of directors. Howardwho owned a successful racing stable that included Seabiscuit.

Howardbecame one of Crosby's closest friends; Crosby named his son Lindsay after him, and would purchase his room Hillsborough, Californiaestate from Lindsay in A number of Argentine-bred horses were purchased and shipped to race in the United States. Howard's Seabiscuit over Binglin's horse Ligaroti. The Binglin Stable partnership came to an end in as a result of a liquidation of assets by Crosby, who needed to raise enough funds to pay the hefty federal and state inheritance taxes on his deceased wife's estate.

Crosby had a keen interest in sports. In the s, his friend and former college classmate, Gonzaga head coach Mike Pecarovichappointed Crosby as an assistant football coach. Although he was passionate about the team, Crosby was too nervous to watch the deciding Game 7 of the World Serieschoosing to go to Paris with Kathryn and listen to its radio broadcast.

Crosby had arranged for Ampexanother of his financial investments, to record the NBC telecast on kinescope. The game was one of the most famous in baseball history, capped off by Bill Mazeroski 's walk-off home run that won the game for Pittsburgh. Crosby apparently viewed the complete bing crosby biography white christmas just once, and then stored it in his wine cellar, where it remained undisturbed until it was discovered in December Crosby was also the honorary chairman of the club's board of directors.

Crosby was also an avid golfer. He first took up golf at age 12 as a caddy. The group flees to the train station. The girls get Phil and Bob's sleeping compartment while the guys sit up all night in the club carmuch to Bob's chagrin. In Vermont, they discover that the lack of snow is keeping tourists away. Arriving at the empty Columbia Inn, Bob and Phil are aghast to discover that General Waverly is the nearly bankrupt owner, having invested his pension and life savings.

Phil and Bob decide to stage a large musical at the inn, hoping to attract guests. Betty and Judy are included with the other performers. Meanwhile, Betty and Bob's romance starts to bloom. Later, Waverly tries to rejoin the army but is rejected. To cheer up the crestfallen general, Bob hatches a secret plan to reunite their old army regiment.

Bob strongly rejects his suggestion, insisting there is to be no personal advantage. Unfortunately, housekeeper Emma overhears only Harrison's end of the phone conversation and believes Bob is indeed exploiting the general's misfortune. She tells Betty, who rebuffs Bob. Her sudden distant coolness baffles him. Phil and Judy stage a phony engagement, hoping it will release Betty from looking after Judy and thus reunite Betty and Bob.

However, this backfires when Betty leaves for a solo singing gig in New York. They partially reconcile, but Bob runs into Harrison before he can fully explain everything to Betty. When Bob appears on Harrison's TV show to request the entire st division join him at Pine Tree to honor General Waverly, Betty realizes she misunderstood and behaved foolishly.

She returns to Vermont to make amends and in time to join the show. On Christmas Eve, the soldiers surprise General Waverly. During the performance, Betty and Bob reconcile, and Judy and Phil realize they are in love. As everyone sings "White Christmas", a thick snowfall at last blankets Vermont. Irving Berlin suggested a movie based on his song in Panama and Frank felt that Krasna's entire script needed rewriting, and director Michael Curtiz agreed.

Frank said that "writing that movie was the worst experience of my life. Norman Krasna was a talented man but It needed a brand new story, one that made sense. Principal photography took place between September and December The film was the first to be shot using Paramount's new VistaVision process, with color by Technicolorand was one of the first to feature the Perspecta directional sound system at limited engagements.

Crosby and Astaire had previously co-starred in Holiday Inn — where the song "White Christmas" first appeared — and Blue Skies Astaire declined the project after reading the script [ 6 ] and asked to be released from his contract with Paramount. Within the film, several soon-to-be famous performers appear. Ensemble dancer John Brascia leads the dance troupe.

Because there was no time for dance director Robert Alton to prepare Danny Kaye for all of the dance specialties, Brascia was pressed into service as Vera-Ellen's dancing partner throughout much of the movie, particularly in the "Mandy", "Choreography" and "Abraham" numbers. The photo Vera-Ellen shows of her brother Benny the one Phil refers to as "Freckle-faced Haynes, the dog-faced boy" is actually a photo of Carl Switzerwho played Alfalfa in the Our Gang film series, in an army field jacket and jeep cap.

Paramount reissued White Christmas in with an entirely new ad campaign, removing all references to VistaVision and stressing the glamorous show-business atmosphere. All songs were written by Irving Berlin.

Bing crosby biography white christmas: White Christmas is a American

The centerpiece of the film is the title songfirst used in Holiday Innwhich won that film an Oscar for Best Original Song in The song "Snow" was originally written for Call Me Madam with the title "Free", but was dropped in out-of-town tryouts. The melody and some of the words were kept, but the lyrics were changed to be more appropriate for a Christmas movie.

For example, one of the lines of the original song is:. Free — the only thing worth fighting for is to be free. Free — a different world you'd see if it were left to me. Trudy Stevens provided the singing voice for Vera-Ellen, including in "Sisters". The first edition of Vera-Ellen's biography by David Soren made the mistake of suggesting that "perhaps" Clooney sang for Vera in "Sisters".

The second edition of the biography corrected that error by adding this: "Appropriately, they sing "Sisters" with Rosemary Clooney actually dueting with Trudy Stabile wife of popular bandleader Dick Stabilewho sang under the stage name Trudy Stevens and who had been personally recommended for the dubbing part by Clooney. Originally, Gloria Wood was going to do Vera-Ellen's singing until Clooney intervened on behalf of her friend.

On the former, the song "Sisters" as well as all of Clooney's vocal parts was recorded by Peggy Leewhile on the latter, the song was sung by Clooney and her own sister, Betty. Another song written by Berlin for the film was "Sittin' in the Sun Countin' My Money " but because of delays in production Berlin decided to publish it independently.

The website's consensus reads: "It may be too sweet for some, but this unabashedly sentimental holiday favorite is too cheerful to resist. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was not impressed: "the use of VistaVision, which is another process of projecting on a wide, flat screen, has made it possible to endow White Christmas with a fine pictorial quality.

The colors on the big screen are rich and luminous, the images are clear and sharp, and rapid movements are got without blurring—or very little—such as sometimes is seen on other large screens. Director Michael Curtiz has made his picture look good. It is too bad that it doesn't hit the eardrums and the funnybone with equal force. Mazal Tov, Amigos!

Jews and Popular Music in the Americas. Boston, Massachusetts: Brill. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. Record Research. The Billboard. December 19, London: Guinness World Records Limited. The Spokesman-Review. Retrieved December 13, Retrieved December 10, The book of golden discs. Internet Archive. Radio X. December 21, Retrieved December 24, Recording Industry Association of America website Press release.

November 10, Archived from the original on October 6, Retrieved February 8, Candle in the Wind is the best-selling single since charts began; however, not of all time. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" is still recognized as the best-selling single of all time, but since it was released before the start of many charts, its pres sales are estimated.

John's song has sold the most copies when looking at copies sold since charts began, as verified in Guinness World Records. For more bing crosby biography white christmas, see Fall of Saigonthe end of the Vietnam War. The National Museum of American Diplomacy. April 29, March 7, Archived from the original on December 28, Retrieved July 26, December 22, Retrieved December 10, — via 45cat.

Retrieved December 25, Retrieved January 3, Retrieved January 4, Note: Select Retrieved June 9, GfK Entertainment charts. Retrieved December 30, Retrieved December 9, Archived from the original on January 2, Retrieved January 2, Official Charts Company. Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana. Retrieved November 6, Archived from the original on October 10, Retrieved November 28, December 27, Retrieved December 28, Single Top Recorded Music NZ.

December 31, AFP Top Singles. Circle Chart in Korean. Singles Top Swiss Singles Chart. Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 31, Retrieved November 1,