Friday, August 3, 2012

BING AND JOAN CAULFIELD

The marriage of Bing and Dixie Crosby had its ups and downs as any marriage may have. What added to the ups and down is Bing Crosby was the most widely recognized person in the world in the 1940s and poor Dixie was a closet alcoholic. It was the 1940s, and people did not talk about their problems or feelings as they do now. It seemed like looking back at the marriage of Bing and Dixie, Bing buried himself into his work and Dixie became sort of a recluse. However, there has always been a rumor that Bing and actress Joan Caulfield had an affair.

Joan Caulfield was an unknown 22-year-old actress when she got the call in 1945 to play the leading lady in Bing Crosby's motion picture Blue Skies. Mark Sandrich, who was preparing to produce and direct the movie, discovered Caulfield in the rushes of her first Paramount movie, Miss Susie Slagle’s. He was so impressed by her beauty that he wanted to cast her as a song-and-dance star in the Crosby musical -- if Joan could dance. Joan let her enthusiasm overwhelm her honesty and assured Sandrich she could indeed dance. She couldn't. Sandrich sent her to Carmalita Maracci’s dance school at her own expense in the hope that her role could be salvaged.

Sandrich died suddenly on March 4, 1945, at the age of 44, before filming could begin. His replacements were much less sympathetic toward Joan, especially since Crosby's co-star and choreographer, tap-dancer Paul Draper, also wanted Joan out. He did not want a leading lady with two left feet, even if they were pretty feet. Joan's name disappeared from the cast sheets and press releases. Meanwhile, Draper began auditioning other actresses for Joan's part.


Then, suddenly, Joan was reinstated, Draper was fired, the script was rewritten and Fred Astaire was coaxed to replace Draper. Why were these extraordinary steps taken for an unknown actress? (Joan's first movie, Miss Susie Slagle’s, would not be released until 1946.) Obviously, someone very powerful had taken an interest in Joan and was determined to keep her in that movie. That someone most likely was Bing Crosby, who had just won the Oscar for his role as Father O'Malley in Going My Way. Not only was he Hollywood's leading box-office attraction, Bing was also a major stockholder in Paramount.

Most likely Bing met Joan late in 1944 during the filming of Paramount's all-star movie version of the radio show Duffy's Tavern. Bing, Joan and the four Crosby boys all made an appearance in this film. He and Joan became friends and were seen in public together socially. They recorded the radio version of Bing's movie Sing You Sinners for the Lux Radio Theatre on April 6, 1945.

That Joan and Bing had grown close was widely rumored around Hollywood. Moreover, neither Blue Skies nor Miss Susie Slagle’s had been released when Paramount announced that Bing's next movie, Welcome Stranger, would also co-star Caulfield. Clearly a special relationship had developed between the two. In 1954 Joan admitted to a relationship with a "top film star" who was also a married man with children who eventually chose his wife and children over her.


That this "top film star" was Bing Crosby was confirmed by actress Patricia Neal, who shared a cruise ship to England with Caulfield in 1948. At the time Neal was having her own affair with a much older married actor, Bing's friend Gary Cooper. Like Bing, Coop eventually decided to stay with his family too. Neal wrote:

She [Joan Caulfield] was a lovely girl and we had some good talks. She, too, was in love with an older married man who was quite as famous as Gary [Cooper]. She confided to me that she desperately wanted to marry Bing Crosby. We were in the same boat in more ways than one, but I could not tell her so." (Neal, As I Am, Simon and Schuster, 1988, p109)

Bing requested permission from the Catholic hierarchy to divorce his wife, Dixie, so he could marry Caulfield. The church denied his request and Bing remained with Dixie until her death in 1952. In 1950 Joan married Hollywood producer Frank Ross. They divorced nine years later. She married her dentist in 1960. They divorced in 1966. She never remarried. Each marriage produced a son. Joan died of cancer on June 18, 1991.

To be honest, is an affair really any of our business? Probably not, but it is what good stories are made up. Hopefully the rumors will be confirmed or put to rest when author Gary Giddin's second book on Bing Crosby comes out in the near future...

13 comments:

  1. Giddins has already confirmed the affair in correspondence as well as ther footnotes of volume one. It was common knowledge at time. Bing has dozens of affairs, you act as if Caulfield was a rare occurence. Mona Freeman told me plenty about Bing and she was also one of his MANY paramours.

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    1. Geez, I wish I didn't know that Mona was on Bing's list. Was their fling after Caulfield?

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    2. Mona Freeman dated Bing after Dixie died.

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  2. So you know Mona Freeman? I profiled her in one of my blog articles, and I was wondering how she was doing.

    Well, until I get confirmation that Bing did have all of these affairs as you elluded to, it is just rumors to me. I have not read or researched to find out otherwise.

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  3. To bad these two did not get together. It probably would have worked.

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  4. They came pretty close to getting married.

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  5. Poor Dixie. When "Smash Up" (Susan Hayward's first Oscar nomination) came out, everyone in Hollywood knew that it was a barely disguised story of Dixie's alcoholism and Bing's philandering. Marsha Hunt had the Joan Caulfield role.

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  6. While Bing and Joan Caulfield did have an affair, I do not think Bing was a philandering. The marriage of Bing and Dixie has a lot of issues.

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  7. Still doesn't diminish Bing in my eyes. He was something.

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  8. Bing did philander quite a bit, especially in his early years. Some said that after he performed, women would go to his dressing room to rip their clothes off. Still he's nothing compared to Bob Hope when it comes to skirt chasing. But who wouldn't want to sleep with the man of such silky smooth voice and whistling skill that is comparable only to a bird?

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  9. Bing had a beautiful wife and 4 sons. Why couldn't he be satisfied with that? Dixie's drinking may have been because of his philandering.

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    1. I think Bing's affair with Joan Caulfield was due to Dixie's drinking. In the 1930s, they were both heavy drinkers as Bing's star rose - Dixie faded into the background. Bing was not there and being raised by a strict Irish mother, he did not have the coping mechanism to deal with an illness of alcoholism. Was Bing a great husband - probably not, but I feel the stories of Bing being a philanderer is false.

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    2. Bing discovered marijuana in his early days with Paul Whiteman and reputedly prefered it to alcohol. He encouraged Dixie, and later his sons, to smoke instead of drink, as he believed cannabis was less damaging to the body and the brain (and he was ahead of his time and he was right). Evidently his admonishments were unsuccessful. One of Bing's smoking buddies was Louis Armstrong...boy, I would have loved to have gotten stoned with those two!

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