Bing Crosby Page 5
Nothing better symbolized the family’s ambivalence about Dad’s spending than the acquisition of a “talking machine” during their first Spokane autumn, days after Kate enrolled her three oldest boys in nearby Webster Grade School. (The Holy Land did not yet have a parochial elementary school.) Harry arrived home late one evening with a huge box — a gift, he claimed, from a man who owed him favors. Beaming, he unpacked an Edison Phonograph, a machine that played cylinders with a wind-up lever and amplified them through a bell-like horn. He also brought out recordings of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and — to soften his wife — “The Merry Widow Waltz.” Kate mellowed, and the extravagance was happily accepted. But her concern about Harry’s easy way with a buck was not easily allayed; the wariness died hard in her, and she passed it on to her children. Even toward the end of his life, when Bing boasted of his father buying the neighborhood’s first phonograph, he allowed that his old man had probably used the grocery money.
The marvelous machine, patented nearly three decades earlier by Thomas Edison, whose hopes for it were no grander than for a Dictaphone, filled the house with trebly, tinny, yet vividly exuberant and often exotic sounds. Radio, as an entertainment medium, was more than twenty years in the future. But for now they had this pipeline to the world and its music. By the time the Edison and its cylinders were replaced by a phonograph that played platters, Dad had a collection ranging from the Peerless Quartet to The Mikado to such singers as John McCormack (“Mother Machree,” McCormack’s theme, was one of his favorites), Harry Lauder, Henry Burr, Denis O’Sullivan, and Al Jolson. Of the Irish tenors, Bing preferred McCormack: “I knew all his songs and I thought he was a wonderful singer with great appeal, great sincerity, and a quality in his voice like a bird.” 7 But the sound that mesmerized the boy was the Broadway yawp of the dynamic Jewish minstrel, Al Jolson, whose intensity shattered Spokane’s calm surface.
Harry had reason to feel secure about his prospects. A year earlier Spokane’s Heiber Brewery, a modern plant with an annual capacity of 110,000 barrels of brew and malt, had switched hands to three partners, John Lang, William Huntley, and Charles Theis. 8 They bought it — and two plots of real estate — for $300,000. Lang, a canny German-born businessman transplanted from San Francisco by way of Tacoma, changed the firm’s name to Inland Brewing & Malting Co., bought another six adjacent lots, built a cold-storage plant and bottling works, and opened a wholesale agency in Moscow, Idaho. During this expansion, he hired Harry as bookkeeper. Though modestly paid, Harry was attached to a growing business in a growing community. True, many deplored the shameful product; the company offered home delivery to every part of the city in “plain wagons, plain cases.” 9 Even Harry hid his spirits. But the days of temperance fanatics like Carrie Nation were gone, or so most people thought.
The family settled readily into the neighborhood. As Kate recalled, “All around us were young married couples, congenial and all of a sort in tastes, economic position and general outlook. Nobody was wealthy. Everybody was happy.” 10 In the fall of 1908, she walked young Harry to the Webster School and registered him in first grade, though he was only five, the proper age for kindergarten. Webster did not offer kindergarten, so perhaps she lied about his age, impatient to get him out from under her feet. Yet Harry had plainly usurped his mother’s attentions. Whatever else charmed Kate about her jug-eared, towheaded youngest boy, she cannot have failed to see herself mirrored in his face.
The older boys were different, easier to describe: Larry was bookish, soft-spoken, owlish in glasses not unlike his father’s; Everett was pugnacious, a provocateur with little interest in school and defiantly sure of himself; Ted was quiet, a loner, a diligent and imaginative child who wrote stories and studied electronics. The three older boys looked like their father: they had the rounded, fleshy Crosby face and small, dark eyes. Harry, too, had his father’s thin nose and thinning scalp. Still, he was decidedly a Harrigan, the only boy to inherit his mother’s cool, prominent, hooded blue eyes; her prim lips; and the triangular jaw she got from her mother. Even the way his right cheek folded at the mouth in an irrepressible smirk linked him to Kate. In her later photographs, that smirk is as close as she got to smiling.
The Harrigan moodiness was also familiar, as were his quickness to take offense and his indisputable charm. Everyone who knew young Harry would speak of his constant singing and whistling that heralded his arrival. He was given more leeway than his brothers, his father conceded. “We were both so lenient that it’s no wonder our other boys called Bing ‘Mother’s and Dad’s pet.’ Not that he was spoiled. He got his tannings. But he — well, he was different in a way. Made it sort of hard to spank him much.” 11
In third grade he was informally and indelibly renamed. It was 1910, the year a local matron, Mrs. John Bruce Dodd, founded a movement to establish a national Father’s Day. Harry, six years old, discovered a full-page feature in Sunday’s Spokesman-Review, “The Bingville Bugle.” Written and illustrated by humorist Newton Newkirk, of the Boston Post, the “Bugle” was a broad parody of a hillbilly newsletter, with gossipy tidbits, minstrel quips, creative spelling, mock ads, and hayseed caricatures. Harry Lowe told writer Quentin Reynolds that his boy pestered grown-ups to read it to him. He’d point to the page and plead, “Bing! Bing!” until someone gave in. 12
One older boy he did not have to pester much was fifteen-year-old Valentine Hobart, who lived two doors away. Valentine liked Harry and shared his enthusiasm for the “Bugle,” which the Spokesman-Review dispersed not in the comics section (its drawings served primarily as teasers for the lengthy text) but in a supplement filled with stories by Jack London, H. Rider Haggard, O. Henry, W. W. Jacobs, and other popular writers. The “Bugle” motto boasted, THE LEADING PAPER OF THE COUNTRY — BRIGHT, BREEZY, BELLICOSE, BUSTLING, and augured with remarkable accuracy the yokel humor that Arkansas-born comedian Bob Burns popularized on Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall in the 1930s. It incorporated back-fence scuttlebutt (“There was a light in the front parlor of the Perkins’ residence last Satterday ev’g until as late as 9:30 P.M.… Tom staid a little mite later than usual on this occashion, didn’t he Sadie?”); “pomes” by “well knowed pome writer, Miss Sally Hoskins”; recipes for items such as harness grease; drama reviews (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Played by Real Actor Folks, was Give in the Town Hall to a Large and Intelligent Audience”); and hard news (“Hank Dewberry had a turrible experience with his red bull thet he will remember with loathing as long as he lives”). 13
Harry had an infectious and appreciative laugh, and Hobart took a shine to him, calling him Bingo from Bingville. 14 Shorn of its last vowel, the improbable nickname stuck. Other versions of its origin were later publicized. One had him named for a floppy-eared character in the parody named Bingo, though Newkirk never actually drew such a creature. A Paramount Pictures press release explained that as a boy, Bing played cowboys and Indians, cocking his fingers like a gun and shouting, “Bing bing bing,” a tale reprinted for decades to come. Everett, a fount of misinformation, replaced the cowboy story that he helped popularize with a third version, in which Bing’s name was earned with a baseball bat, which he used to knock out clean hits called “bingles.” 15
Bing was sensitive about the genesis of his name. Though notoriously free with what Huck Finn called “stretchers” and indifferent to most accounts of his life and career, he corrected Paramount’s press release (which perpetuated numerous errors he let stand) in order to ground “The Bingville Bugle” in his history. But he never discussed the more intriguing issue of why a grown man cultivates a childhood nickname. In The Bank Dick, W. C. Fields considers a name: “Og Oggleby. Sounds like a bubble in a bath.” What then does Bing sound like: the direct hit on a spitoon? The NBC chimes? The collision of two martinis? If nothing else, it conveys the affection of its bestowers.
After Hobart named him, only his mother persisted in calling him Harry. In school he signed his work Harry, but even his teachers took to calling him Bing. T
he name would be used by his wives and lovers, colleagues and partners, family and friends all his life. From the outset of his career, it seemed as natural and fitting and finally as commonplace as Tom, Dick, or Elvis. The name disarms, flatters the wary, demands a certain conviviality of all who approach. Bing. El Bingo. Le Bing. Bing Kuo Shi Bi. Der Bingle. Rarely has a nickname so aptly defined the person it identified. He was Bing at all times, except before the law and the church. He reserved Harry for his alter ego in a running 1940s radio skit (a character of the “Moonlight Bay” era, he explained, his father’s generation) and occasions of high seriousness, like meeting the Pope. And he handed it down to his fourth and fifth sons.
Bing was a solid if unremarkable student at Webster, popular and able to hold his own in and out of the classroom, even though he was a year younger than his classmates. To the dismay of his teachers, he did not have to work hard to do well and sometimes appeared to do no work at all. He was considered bright but lazy. A good friend, Francis Corkery (who would become president of Gonzaga University), thought of him as happy-go-lucky, too carefree to be a true leader; he recalled that Bing was always ready to go along when the gang raided fruit trees for apples and cherries. Francis and Bing had jackknives and whittled together. Corkery remembered him as good-natured and always singing. Though shy with girls, Bing was outgoing with boys and good at sports, despite his small stature. In fourth grade Frank and Bing played on the Webster School baseball team. In his dark jersey with striped sleeves and leggings, Bing stands in the front row of a team picture, hands on hips, eager and poised.
Gertrude Kroetch, Bing’s fourth-grade teacher, remembered his class practicing ovals in penmanship. She had set a rhythm, counting fours. All the kids did the ovals except Bing, who, finger cocked and one eye closed, shot his classmates one by one with an imaginary gun. Not wanting to interrupt her counting, Miss Kroetch pantomimed her own gun and fired it at Bing, who began to “make those ovals furiously,” 16 His mother recalled an afternoon when he was sent home from school with a note. Bing had disrupted the class with his “whispered remarks and pantomime.” The next time it happened, he was sent to the principal. “What did [the principal] do?” Kate asked him. “He dealt with me,” said Bing. “And?” “That’s all. I think I get the idea now.” 17 The principal had bent Bing over a chair and whacked him with a yardstick.
Corporal punishment was hardly unknown to him, notwithstanding the parental favoritism. If Dad tended to disappear when a licking was to be administered, Kate was willing; and the children feared her hefty wooden hairbrush and strap. Her implacable authority earned Kate a level of respect denied Harry, but something less than love, perhaps because her approval was so often linked to her ambitions. She was always searching for a star. When Kate thought Ted might become a priest, she relieved him of chores; when she decided Catherine could succeed on Broadway, she insisted on years of piano lessons no matter the cost. The children claimed to venerate her for being steadfast and sensible, yet privately they found her manipulative and severe. One way or another, she was setting up each of them to disappoint her. In later years four of her children — Bing emphatically not among them — conceded that despite their admiration and respect for their mother, they never truly loved her. 18
In addition to meting out punishment, Kate allocated chores, settled disputes, and governed family traditions. Mary Rose considered her an extraordinary woman but noted that for all the bother over birthdays, they were observed with a cake and never a party. Kate disbursed Harry’s wages, and when they weren’t sufficient, she emphasized his failure by dramatically resorting to a teapot, her emergency bank. “My father didn’t make a great deal of money,” Bing said. “My mother raised us on his small salary and we all got through college somehow.” 19 Perhaps he hoped to instill in his own children the reverence he felt toward her when he, too, used a strap, with terrible results, as he repeatedly acknowledged. Kate, after all, earned him his success: “My mother was such a wonderful woman and she did so many good things and so much good work and she wanted success and happiness for me. Maybe the Lord, to make her happy, had good things happen to me.” 20
Harry had no illusions about who ruled the roost. Asked to comment on his world-renowned son in 1940, he volunteered:
My wife really knows much more about him than I do. Not that he’s a stranger to me! But Mother — well, you know how boys act toward their mothers. I guess I’ve always been the easy-going father. Bing takes after me in that respect. Nobody can rush him either. I remember the times I’d come home from work and how often I’d be greeted with the story of some disturbing antic of his during the day. My wife always would say, “Now, Harry, you must speak to Bing. He’s been very hard to manage today.” I’d look very indignant, promise some sort of punishment, then watch Kate do the disciplining. I just couldn’t bring myself to punish Bing — or any of the boys. 21
Bing considered Harry’s serenity his primary legacy. “Whether inherited or not,” Bing once said, “his ability to relax has helped me in a life which has had its share of pressure. I don’t worry seriously about anything.” 22
A block west of the Crosby home lived Helen and Agnes Finnegan, sisters who taught Bing in fifth and sixth grades, respectively. Helen remembered him as roly-poly and likable, and was proud to claim that he played his first stage role in her class, as a singing jumping bean, one of twelve (Corkery was another) who vaulted across the stage on pogo sticks in a presentation called Beebee. In sixth and seventh grades, Bing was introduced to two venerable theatrical conventions, often revisited during his career; he appeared in blackface for a school benefit and in a pink-and-white-checkered dress for a Christmas play adapted from the Ladies’ Home Journal. His fine voice was much admired. “We think Hollywood has ruined Harry’s voice,” Helen Finnegan complained to a reporter in 1946. “He sang much better before he became a crooner.” 23 Agnes remembered him as clean but sloppy, with his shirttail out, always chewing pencils or gum or both. He had straw-colored hair, a creamy complexion, outsize ears, china-blue eyes, and a tendency toward chubbiness.
Music was always heard at home. As Harry’s record collection increased, Bing memorized the latest songs. “I had a constant succession of them in my head. And I had to whistle or sing to get them out.” 24 The phonograph was always on, except after supper on Sunday, when the family gathered in the living room to sing. Accompanied by Harry on mandolin or guitar, and by a glowing fire in winter, Kate’s contralto fused with Harry’s tenor on “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” “Sweet Adeline,” “In the Good Old Summer Time,” and “Mother Machree,” among others. Harry conducted a male quartet that included himself, Bing, Larry, and Ev. Ted, an inveterate tinkerer, kept his distance from the harmonizing but a few years later made his own valiant contribution by building a crystal radio that picked up new songs from a station in Seattle.
The girls took turns at the piano, recently transported from the house in Tacoma. Harry paid fifteen dollars for cartage, the price of a new suit he was obliged to sacrifice. It was a present for Kate, who wanted the girls to learn how to play and needed cheering up. Her childless sister, Annie, had written to boast how well her husband was doing and rubbed salt in the wound by offering to adopt Kay (Catherine). 25 Only in her children was Kate richer than Annie, yet she made it clear she appreciated the offer and was inclined to consent. This time, Harry put his foot down. They were not so poor that they had to farm out one of their children. By way of saying no, thank you, he reclaimed her piano. Kay quickly revealed musical talent and promised to be a beauty. Kate envisioned stardom for her.
It wasn’t Dad, but a member of Kate’s family — her youngest brother, George, then a robust man in his early thirties — who became Bing’s first idea of an exemplary performer. An enthusiastic amateur, George made frequent visits from the coast. Bing adored him and spent many hours at his side. In later years, when Bing reminisced about George, his voice would rise a couple of tones and the phrases would tumble o
ut with a cantering dispatch:
My mother had a brother, George Harrigan, a great singer in the Tacoma-Seattle area. He was a court reporter in the local legislature and also in the courts in Seattle and Tacoma, and of course his theme song was “Harrigan,” taken from the Cohan song. And he was the biggest favorite singing around that area that ever occurred there. He was a great guy and had a terrific voice — big, high, loud, powerful tenor. Anytime he appeared, everybody’d holler, “Harrigan,” and he’d go: “H-A-double R-I-G-A-N spells Harrigan / Divil a man can say a word agin me,” and I learned a lot just watching him. He could tell stories in any dialect you ever heard of. He should have gone into show business, but he married young, had about five or six children, and never could get away. He’d have been a sensational star with his ability to do dialect stories and sing. He was six foot two, black hair with blue eyes. Handsome man. 26
During Christmas 1912 Kate, nearing forty, revealed that for the first time in six years she was pregnant. The timing was propitious. Inland Brewery’s tank capacity increased by another 25,000 barrels, and Harry received a raise and a new title — cashier. Spokane felt flush. Five years before, Barnum & Bailey’s circus elephants refused to step onto the steel Monroe Street Bridge, which collapsed shortly afterward. Now its replacement was completed and was touted as the longest concrete span in the country. Spokane boasted sixty-two miles of paved streets, 600 miles of concrete walks, thirty-five public schools, ten hospitals and asylums, 112 churches. The Spokane-Coeur d’Alene interurban electric railway, leaving every few minutes, transported thousands of swimmers and picnickers to Liberty Lake, the area’s most popular resort. The fabulous Davenport Hotel, designed by architect Kirtland Cutter at a cost of $3 million, opened its doors in 1914, attracting celebrities and royalty with its glass pillars and lobby birds, plumbing that siphoned drinking water to every room, and a washing machine to polish silver money.