BING ON FILM: WHITE CHRISTMAS - PART TWO

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. The song "What Can You Do with a General?" was originally written for an un-produced project called Stars on My Shoulders.

Trudy Stevens provided the singing voice for Vera-Ellen, who did not have a suitable singing voice. It was not possible to issue an "original soundtrack album" of the film, because Decca Records controlled the soundtrack rights, but Clooney was under exclusive contract with Columbia Records. Consequently, each company issued a separate "soundtrack recording": Decca issuing Selections from Irving Berlin's White Christmas, while Columbia issued Irving Berlin's White Christmas. On the former, the song "Sisters" (as well as all of Clooney's vocal parts) was recorded by Peggy Lee, while on the latter, the song was sung by Rosemary Clooney and her own sister, Betty.

Berlin wrote "A Singer, A Dancer" for Crosby and his planned co-star Fred Astaire but when he was unavailable, Berlin re-wrote it as "A Crooner – A Comic" for Crosby and Donald O'Connor, but when O'Connor left the project so did the song. 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.] Crosby and Kaye also recorded another Berlin song ("Santa Claus") for the opening WWII Christmas Eve show scene, but it was not used in the final film. Their recording of the song survives though, and the song is cute but not great.

One of the greatest moments of the film is a bit Bing and Danny Kaye did off the cuff. According to Rosemary Clooney, Bing and Danny’s “Sisters” performance was not originally in the script. They were clowning around on the set, and director Michael Curtiz thought it was so funny that he decided to film it. In the scene, Crosby’s laughs are genuine and unscripted, and he was unable to hold a straight face. Clooney said the filmmakers had a better take where Crosby didn’t laugh, but the version with Crosby laughing was one that they used.

I find myself always comparing White Christmas to Holiday Inn, and I think that is unfair. The movies were done a decade apart and movie musicals were much different in 1954 than 1942. I prefer Holiday Inn, but I have a much better appreciation for White Christmas now that I have seen the film in a move theater. From the understated performance of Dean Jagger as the retired general to the superb dancing of Vera-Ellen to the banter of Crosby and Kaye, White Christmas is really a great film. Yes, the film is sentimental and cheesy at times. While I went to see the film in a theater my wife and kids ran errands, and I am glad. I had tears in eyes at the end when the general was recognized and realized he was not forgotten. I think that is a sign of a great movie that a movie made more than 60 years ago can still evoke emotion in 2017. At the end of the movie screening, the audience stood up and applauded, and I smiled to myself and thought of what a great Christmas gift this film was and is. Thanks again Bing!

MY RATING: 10 OUT OF 10

BING ON FILM: WHITE CHRISTMAS - PART ONE

I had the the great opportunity to see 1954’s White Christmas in a movie theater a couple of days before Christmas in 2017. I actually fulfilled one of my bucket list items by seeing a Bing Crosby movie in a theater. I had never had the pleasure of seeing one like that before. I have to admit that White Christmas has never been my favorite Crosby film. I thought the story was contrite, and I did not care for the pairing of Bing with funny man Danny Kaye. However, upon seeing this movie in the theater, I have a completely new appreciation for the film.

The beloved classic that everyone watches during the holiday season is a lot different from what was proposed in the beginning. At first, Bing Crosby turned down the role due to the recent death of his wife Dixie Lee. However, Bing knew working on a musical with Irving Berlin tunes was destined to be a hit so he signed. Bing had co-star approval, and had wanted Fred Astaire for the role of his Army buddy. Crosby and Astaire had previously starred in Holiday Inn (1942) and Blue Skies (1946) earlier. Astaire read the script, but he then turned it down. The last movie that Astaire had made for Paramount was the 1950 disastrous musical Let’s Dance with Betty Hutton, and by 1954 Astaire was really being choosy on what roles he was accepting at that point. Next Bing wanted to work with dancer Donald O’ Connor again. Donald had played Bing’s younger brother in an earlier Paramount musical Sing You Sinners in 1938, and Bing and Donald had work together on radio shows since then. O’Connor was all set to be in the film, until he broke his ankle right before film rehearsals were set to begin. This sent Paramount scrambling, and they came up with the idea of pairing Bing with comedian Danny Kaye.

Even though Kaye was third choice for the film, he had this to say about Bing:

"I loved to work with him. I had the feeling he was my close personal friend. The real truth is that everybody knows Bing, but no one knows him. Through the years, he has created a legendary character that is so vivid, no one knows where the legend begins and the real Crosby leaves off. I thought I knew Bing--thought I knew all about him until we started to make White Christmas. Then I realized I actually didn't know the man at all. The truth of the matter is, there isn't a lazy bone in Bing's body. He works harder than any man I've met--but he does it with an easy casualness that makes him look lazy." (The Danny Kaye Story pg 198).

The movie plot, as flimsy as it may be, does has some serious overtones. By 1954, World War II had been over for almost a decade, and the film touches on what happens to soldiers after the fighting is over. Like many of Irving Berlin’s movie musicals, the plot of White Christmas is basically a vehicle to move from song to song. Many of Berlin’s standards are present like “Blue Skies”, “Heat Wave”, “Abraham” and of course the title song that was sung in the first minutes of the movie by Bing, and then by the group at the end. The new songs that Berlin wrote for the film were good but not up to par with the songs he was writing two decades earlier. My favorite of these new songs was the torchy number “Love You Didn’t Do Right For Me” which was sung in the movie by Rosemary Clooney. Other new songs like “Snow” and “Sisters” have also become standards....  TO BE CONTINUED...

BING CROSBY'S MOST BELOVED YEARS

Bing Crosby was one of the most popular figures of the 20th century. His record sales were in the hundreds of millions, his movies were blockbusters, his weekly radio show topped the ratings. The way Crosby sang paved the way for Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin and many others. A new biography called Swinging on a Star: The War Years 1940 -1946, out now, focuses on Crosby's life and career in the 1940s when the crooner's star shone the brightest. Written by jazz and film critic Gary Giddins, the book is the second in a multi-volume project chronicling Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr.

Crosby was a singer first and foremost; his appeal started with his voice. "He had wonderful high notes. He had amazing low notes. He was like a cello when he was really in good voice," Giddins says.

Early in the decade, Crosby created the template for the multimedia entertainment superstar. He was seemingly everywhere, but despite the singer's enormous fame, he was humble and self-effacing, which made audiences embrace Crosby as one of their own.

"He really did come across as somebody — even though he's smarter than you are, and more talented than you are — as somebody that you really might know. As somebody who might live down the block," Giddins says. "That was one of the things he did on radio. He really gave the vernacular American voice back to Americans at a time when the networks wanted these mid-Atlantic 'How Now Brown Cow' kind of speakers."

In 1972, Crosby told a British television interviewer that when he began acting in movies, producers tried to improve his looks. They said that Crosby's ears stuck out too far, and got the makeup artist to pin them back with glue. Nevertheless, Crosby became a matinee idol. He won an Oscar for best actor in the 1944 film Going My Way. In the film, Crosby plays a parish priest in New York's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood who works miracles with the human heart, transforming a gang of street toughs into a boys' choir.

In his 1942 film Holiday Inn, Crosby sings an Irving Berlin song that would solidify his fame for years to come. "White Christmas," which remains the best-selling single of all time, struck a nerve with millions of Americans whose husbands, sons and lovers were fighting on a distant continent and dreaming of spending the holidays at home. Three years later, Crosby made a song, "It's Been A Long, Long Time," about the end of World War II, without explicitly mentioning war.

Crosby recorded between 50 and 70 singles per year in the 1940's. During World War II, he hosted golf tournaments and gave benefit concerts to sell war bonds and recorded special programs for the Armed Forces Radio Network. Just months after the D-Day invasion, Crosby traveled to France to entertain the troops wherever they were. Giddins says the singer's devotion to those fighting was tireless, and the public loved him for it. In a 1948 poll, Americans declared Bing Crosby the "most admired man alive."

"Nothing moved me more than when I was sitting in the Crosby house, going through his letters, and seeing how many parents, wives, siblings of dead soldiers felt they had to write to Crosby," Giddens says. "'How much my son or brother or husband loved you. How happy you made him when you went over there. I just want to say God Bless you.' Crosby was beloved."

SOURCE

SPOTLIGHT ON BOB BURNS

According to my wife, I like anything that was made before 1950. I guess to a degree, that is true. I do gravitate to anything nostalgic or sentimental, but there are some older stars that I just never really get. It's not that I do not like them, I just do not understand their appeal. One of those forgotten so-called nostalgic stars was radio comedian Bob Burns. Burns played a novelty musical instrument of his own invention, which he called a "bazooka". During World War II, the US Army's handheld anti-tank rocket launcher was nickamed the "bazooka".

He was born Robin Burn on August 2, 1890 in Greenwood, Arkansas. When he was three years old, his family moved to Van Buren, Arkansas. As a boy, Burns played trombone and cornet in the town's "Queen City Silver Cornet Band". At 13, he formed his own string band.  Practicing in the back of Hayman's Plumbing Shop one night, he picked up a length of gas pipe and blew into it, creating an unusual sound. With modifications, this became a musical instrument he named a "bazooka" (after "bazoo", meaning a windy fellow, from the Dutch bazuin for "trumpet"). A photograph shows him playing his invention in the Silver Cornet Band. Functioning like a crude trombone, the musical bazooka had a narrow range, but this was intentional. Burns also studied civil engineering and worked as a peanut farmer, but by 1911 was primarily an entertainer.

During World War I Burns enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He sailed to France with the Marine 11th Regiment. As a sergeant, he became the leader of the Marine Corps's jazz band in Europe. Burns made another "bazooka" from stove pipes and a whiskey funnel, which he sometimes played with the Corps band. After the war, Burns returned to the stage, often playing the bazooka as part of his act. He used it as a prop when telling hillbilly stories and jokes. Burns became known as The Arkansas Traveler and The Arkansas Philosopher. His stage persona was a self-effacing, rustic bumpkin with amusing stories about "the kinfolks" back home in Van Buren.

In 1930, Burns auditioned for a major Los Angeles radio station. He had prepared a 10 minute performance, but was asked to do 30 minutes, which he filled out with improvised stories and bazooka tunes. The managers did not care for his prepared material, but were impressed by his improvised material. Burns was hired. He appeared on an afternoon show, "The Fun Factory", as a character called "Soda Pop".

In 1935, on a visit to New York, Burns asked bandleader and radio star Paul Whiteman for an audition. Whiteman put Burns on his nightly show, the Kraft Music Hall, which was broadcast nationally; Burns was a big hit. Burns also became a regular on Rudy Vallee's show The Fleischmann Hour. Burns returned to Los Angeles in 1936, where Kraft Music Hall was now hosted by Bing Crosby. Burns was a regular, playing the bazooka and telling tall tales about his fictional hillbilly relatives, Uncle Fud and Aunt Doody.

Bob Burns was the host of The 10th Academy Awards held on March 10, 1938 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Originally scheduled to be held on March 3, 1938, the ceremony was postponed due to heavy flooding in Los Angeles. In 1941, Burns was given his own radio show, called The Arkansas Traveler (1941-43) and he followed that up with The Bob Burns Show (1943-47).

His last performance was on January 30, 1955, on The Ed Sullivan Show (then called Toast of the Town). Bob left show business in the earlt 1950s though. A wealthy man from his land investments, Burns spent his final years on his 200-acre model farm in Canoga Park, California. Married three times, Bob Burns also had three children. (At one time he was married to entertainer Judy Canova). Burns sadly died of kidney cancer in Encino, California on February 2, 1956, at the age of 65. He is not very well remembered today, but his homespun humor was part Will Rogers and part Jed Clampett. Even though I never thought he was overly funny, he was a popular fixture, especially in radio in the late 1930s and early 1940s...

BOOK REVIEW: BING CROSBY - SWINGING ON A STAR

On October 30th I got an early Christmas present when author Gary Giddin's long awaited second volume of his biography of Bing Crosby came out. It took me about two weeks to finish, but it was a great biography. It took a long time for Gary to come out with this second volume. The first volume, Pocketful Of Dreams came out in 2001. The reading community has changed a lot in 17 years, and I worry that this new volume will not do as well as it deserves to do. The life of Bing Crosby is quite remarkable, and Bing Crosby deserves to be remembered more than he is.

The positive parts of "Swinging On A Star - The War Years" is the amount we learn about Bing Crosby. I pride myself in knowing a lot about Der Bingle, but Gary Giddins wrote about things I never knew about. He eluded to an affair Bing had with singer Trudy Erwin, but he doesn't really delve into that. Towards the end of the book he writes about the affair Bing had with actress Joan Caulfield, which I knew about but did not know the personal details about. What amazed me the most was the amount of work Bing tirelessly did for the war effort during World War II. Audiences knew about the work that Bob Hope during the war, mostly because Hope probably told everyone, but Bing Crosby kept a lot of his work for the soldiers to himself. I also never knew about the struggles Bing was having at home during the 1940s. His wife Dixie Lee was destroying herself with alcohol, and to read Bing's own words in regards to his wife is both eye opening and touching.

There is not much wrong with the 600 plus page book on Bing, but at some points author Gary Giddins could have benefited with a better editor. Some of the long stories on people such as director Leo McCarey were way too long and slows down the book. Director McCarey is important to Bing's career, but I don't think he deserves the pages he got in this book. The only other complaint I have is the ending of the book. It ends abruptly like the publisher just picked a point and made Gary end it there. I know there are hopes for a third volume, but a better ending would have been more gratifying for the reader.

However, Gary Giddins has a way to make you truly feel like you are a part of his books. I read an online review, and the particular reviewer complained about the amount Giddins devoted to the diary of two Crosby fans that literally followed Bing around through the years. I wished there was more from the sisters, and their diaries on Bing would make a fascinating book. At times I felt anger towards Bing when Gary wrote about Bing's parenting of his sons or his affair with Joan Caulfield. I felt sadness when Gary wrote about Bing's wife drinking herself to death and to some of the dying soldiers Bing entertained overseas. Any book that Gary writes is not only enlightening but truly engrossing.

Gary Giddins was asked recently about a third volume of Bing Crosby's life, and he basically says it depends on sales of volume 2, which makes me nervous. Is there an audience for Bing Crosby in 2018? I wish there was but I am not optimistic. You do not really have to be a Bing Crosby fan to love the book. My wife likes Bing Crosby, because I introduced her to him but she is hardly a major fan. Every day when I read another chapter of the book, I would tell my wife something I learned, and she actually got really into it. So please spread the word about this book, and please support Gary Giddins' writings. The book is pretty close to a masterpiece!

MY RATING: 10 OUT OF 10

NOTE: You can purchase the book here.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: BING AND LOUIS ARMSTRONG

Bing had a lifelong admiration for jazz great Louis Armstrong (1901-1971). Despite the racial tensions in Hollywood back then. Bing tried to work with Amrstrong as much as possible. These photos show there was definitely a mutual admiration society going on...

AVAILABLE NOW: BING CROSBY - SWINGING ON A STAR

I received my copy of Gary Giddins 2nd biography of Bing Crosby earlier this week, and I am on page 200 of the 700 page book. I will write a review when I am done, but please pick your copy up now!

"The best thing to happen to Bing Crosby since Bob Hope," (WSJ) Gary Giddins presents the second volume of his masterful multi-part biography

Bing Crosby dominated American popular culture in a way that few artists ever have. From the dizzy era of Prohibition through the dark days of the Second World War, he was a desperate nation's most beloved entertainer. But he was more than just a charismatic crooner: Bing Crosby redefined the very foundations of modern music, from the way it was recorded to the way it was orchestrated and performed.

In this much-anticipated follow-up to the universally acclaimed first volume, NBCC Winner and preeminent cultural critic Gary Giddins now focuses on Crosby's most memorable period, the war years and the origin story of White Christmas. Set against the backdrop of a Europe on the brink of collapse, this groundbreaking work traces Crosby's skyrocketing career as he fully inhabits a new era of American entertainment and culture. While he would go on to reshape both popular music and cinema more comprehensively than any other artist, Crosby's legacy would be forever intertwined with his impact on the home front, a unifying voice for a nation at war. Over a decade in the making and drawing on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to numerous archives, Giddins brings Bing Crosby, his work, and his world to vivid life--firmly reclaiming Crosby's central role in American cultural history.

To purchase a copy click HERE

AUDIO ASPIRIN: ONCE IN A WHILE

BING ON FILM: RHYTHM ON THE RANGE - PART TWO

Rhythm On The Range ambles along, and basically it was the story about a poor man falling for a rich socialite. Bing’s 1934 movie We’re Not Dressing had a similar plot. One of Rhythm On The Range’s most curious moments was the speech given by Lucile Gleason as Penelope 'Penny' Ryland, who owned the rodeo that Bing worked for. As an amazing coincidence, she was also the aunt of Frances Farmer’s character. The speech was about pioneer women and how women should have their own mind to make their own decisions. However, at the end of the movie when she thinks that her niece ran off with Bing, she chastises Bing for taking her niece away. I know that was 1936 and way before the #Me Too movement was even thought about, but as a viewer some 80 years later I find the whole scene annoying. It slowed down the film a bit and did not really further the plot. I have seen Lucille Watson in other roles, but in my opinion her role and acting in this movie was the worst part of the film.

As I wrote earlier, the music and the singing is the top draw of the film. Although for most musicals, only one songwriting works on the film, in Rhythm On The Range numerous songwriters contributed to the film. Three great songs that spotlighted Bing’s soaring vocals were written for the film: “I Can’t Escape From You (written by Richard Whiting and Leo Robin), “Empty Saddles (written by Billy Hill), and “Round Up Lullaby” (Gertrude Ross and Charles Badger Clark). Another great song that was a favorite song of mine for years was “I’m An Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande”, which was written by a young Johnny Mercer. It was one of Mercer’s first hits in Hollywood, and the version filmed for the movie was one of the most charming pieces of the film as the whole cast joined into the song. Martha Raye had a great solo effort with a song that became her signature tune until Ella Fitzgerald made it her own. "(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)" written by Sam Coslow) was performed by Martha and accompanied by Bob Burns on his Bazooka, Louis Prima, and The Sons of the Pioneer. It was another high point of the film. Bing recorded most of the song for Decca Records, and there was even a song that Bing recorded called “The House That Jack Built For Jill” that was supposed to be in the film but was omitted from the released film.

Like some of the critics said in 1936, Rhythm On The Range was no western movie. John Wayne had nothing to be nervous about. However, the movie captured Bing really having fun. I have seen enough Bing Crosby movies enough times to notice what movies he had fun doing, and it really looked like Bing had fun on this flick. The movie was a great showcase for Bing’s talent, which was still being discovered in 1936. I highly recommend this breezy film for a fun afternoon viewing, and Bing Crosby definitely puts the rhythm into Rhythm On The Range!

MY RATING: 9 OUT OF 10

BING ON FILM: RHYTHM ON THE RANGE - PART ONE

Some of Bing Crosby’s movies from the 1930s are pretty forgettable. The plots are light and even the movie run times are short – some do not even surpass the 90 minute mark. We all know that the main draw of the films was Bing Crosby and his singing. It was singing that was new to popular music and new to movie musicals as a whole. Bing’s 1936 film Rhythm On The Range may not be an epic cinematic adventure, but it was enjoyable, fun, and it featured some great Bing moments! I had not watched the film in years, but I was home sick with a cold and figured it would be a great chance to revisit the movie.

Based on a story by Mervin J. Houser, the film is about a cowboy who meets a beautiful young woman while returning from a rodeo in the east, and invites her to stay at his California ranch to experience his simple, honest way of life. Rhythm on the Range was Crosby's only western film (apart from the 1966 remake of Stagecoach. Bing starred as Jeff Larabee, a simple man who would rather sleep under the stares than be burdened by city living. It was not really a stretch for Bing, because Bing loved the outdoors and western life that he even had a ranch built in Elko, Nevada in the 1940s. So basically, Bing played himself or at least one facet of whom he was.

In addition to Bing Crosby, troubled actress Frances Farmer was cast as Bing’s leading lady. Farmer played Doris Halliday. She was the daughter of a big New York millionaire who left her fiancé at the altar, so she could try to live her life the way she wanted to. Things like that just did not happen in 1936! Frances Farmer was brought to Hollywood after having a successful Broadway career in the early 1930s. Frances soon found herself co-starring with Hollywood’s biggest star Bing Crosby and then loaned out for the Howard Hawks film Come And Get It (also from 1936), where she was given the challenging dual roles of mother and daughter. Hawks called her “the greatest actress I have ever worked with”. However, depression and alcoholism caused Farmer’s star power to fade, and she spent most of her later years in and out of mental hospitals. You would not think that Bing and Frances Farmer would be compatible as star and co-star, but they were very good together. They made the romance seem believable, even though I found Farmer’s acting to be somewhat wooden.

Rounding out the cast was comedian Bob Burns, who I have to say I never got. I did not think he was that funny or even interesting. Was he trying to replace Will Rogers as a “down home” comedian? I never was too sure. Bob Burns plays Bing’s best friend and fellow rodeo employee. Making her debut in the film was the great Martha Raye. Raye plays a woman that Bob Burns’ character meets on the train, and she instantly falls for him. Raye’s character is pretty forgettable, but she is really bubbly and enjoyable in this debut role. Bing worked well with Martha Raye’s comedy, and they would make a few movies together. (Martha Raye would also appear on Bing’s 50th Anniversary Special on television in 1977.) There are also great cameos in the film like musician Louis Prima, future singing cowboy Roy Rogers, and the singing group The Sons Of The Pioneers...

TO BE CONTINUED...

BING GOES TO PRISON

It was the night before the ‘Song of the Dawn’ was to be filmed that things went ‘a little awry’. Bing had developed a reputation within the Whiteman clan as a fun-loving boozer and womanizer – and this night he was arrested for drunken driving. Bing was jailed for 30 days and singer-actor John Boles – a Warner Brothers leading man – was brought-in to sing the part. However – for several of the other numbers in King of Jazz featuring the Rhythm Boys Whiteman arranged to have Crosby brought to the studio under police guard and returned to jail after each day’s shooting ended! When the film was completed Whiteman left Hollywood and went on a national tour.

The police experience had a sobering effect on the young Crosby and he began to take his career more seriously – particularly with regard to the potential of musical movies. The group went to work in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub with Gus Arnheim’s orchestra. There was also another reason for Bing to stay where they were – Miss Wilma Wyatt, a singer known as Dixie Lee! In September 1930 they married and their unity initiated some ‘interesting’ responses! News stories had comments such as ‘Rising young Fox star weds obscure crooner’ or, as Bing put it ‘Miss Big marries Mr Little’.

Dixie had played half-a-dozen movies for Fox but soon gave up that career and supported Bing in his. As a result he worked on improving his breath control and started singing fewer rhythmic numbers and more romantic ballads. Things now moved on at speed. He left the Rhythm Boys after he missed a show and the group were briefly put on the blacklist by the musicians union and CBS Radio heard him and offered Bing a network contract. Wife, brother and Bing moved to New York and, in September 1931 began a nightly 15 minute broadcast over the CBS Radio Network. As singer-pianist, author and record producer Larry Carr once so aptly put it:

“After six long years of learning and honing his craft, he was an overnight success!”

SOURCE

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: BING AND HIS TELEVISION FRIENDS

Bing Crosby started out in radio and movies, but when television became the most popular entertainment medium in the 1950s, Bing dabbled on it quite often. He had the opportunity to work with a lot of great people on television, and here he is with some of his television friends...

Carol Burnett

Julie Andrews

Engelbert Humperdinck

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin

Perry Como

Flip Wilson

REMEMBERING: GLORIA JEAN (1926-2018)

Child actress Gloria Jean passed away on September 1, 2018.She was an American actress and singer who starred or co-starred in 26 feature films between 1939 and 1959, as well as making numerous radio, television, stage, and nightclub appearances.

After moving to Scranton, Pennsylvania, Gloria Jean sang on radio with Paul Whiteman's band. When she was 12, "she was engaged by a smallish New York opera company and became the youngest member of an opera troupe in the United States." Gloria Jean was being trained as a coloratura soprano, when her voice teacher, Leah Russel, took her to an audition held by Universal Pictures movie producer Joe Pasternak in 1938. Pasternak had guided Deanna Durbin to stardom, and with Durbin now advancing to ingénue roles, Pasternak wanted a younger singer to make the same kind of musicals. Up against hundreds of others, Gloria Jean won the audition.

Under contract to Universal, she was given the leading role in the feature The Under-Pup (1939) and became instantly popular with moviegoers. Universal's publicity department initially claimed the singer was 11 years old instead of 13; her actual age was not well known for many decades. For her next two vehicles, she co-starred with Bing Crosby in If I Had My Way (1940) and starred in the well-received A Little Bit of Heaven (also 1940), which reunited her with many from the Under-Pup cast. Her best-known picture is her fourth, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), in which she co-starred with W. C. Fields.

Gloria Jean made a successful transition to young adult roles. Her dramatic tour de force, as a blind girl being menaced by an escaped killer, was filmed as one of four vignettes for Julien Duvivier's Flesh and Fantasy(1943). Her performance won raves at the film's advance preview, and her segment was the best-received of the four. However, Universal removed the half-hour sequence and shelved it until 1944, when it was expanded into a feature-length melodrama, Destiny. She co-starred with Olsen and Johnson in the big-budget Ghost Catchers (1944), and in her last two Universal features, released in 1945, she was teamed with singer-actor Kirby Grant.

She resumed her movie career as a freelance performer appearing in United Artists, Columbia Pictures, and Allied Artists productions, the best-known being Copacabana (1947) with Groucho Marx. Some stage and television work followed in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as four feature films. Wonder Valley (1953), produced on location in Arkansas, was Gloria Jean's first color movie and is now a lost film. Her next feature was Air Strike (1955), a minor military drama.

After Air Strike Gloria Jean was hired by the owner of the Tahitian restaurant in Studio City, California, as a hostess, greeting and seating dinner guests. She enjoyed the experience and occasionally ran the restaurant in her employer's absence. Show-business patrons were surprised that a film star was now involved in restaurant work, resulting in sympathetic feature stories in the national press. Veteran Hollywood producer Edward Finney, himself a Gloria Jean fan, saw one of these reports and hired her to star in the lightweight comedy Laffing Time (filmed in 1959, re-released as The Madcaps in 1964). Jerry Lewis also read that Gloria Jean was working in a restaurant, and signed her for a singing role in his latest production, The Ladies Man (1961).Lewis removed almost all of her footage from the finished film; she appears only as an extra and has no dialogue. It was her last theatrical motion picture.

After her retirement from Redken, Gloria Jean lived in California with her sister, Bonnie. After Bonnie died in 2007, she moved to Hawaii, where lived with her son and his family. Very late in life she suffered health problems, including two serious falls that slowed her mobility, and an impaired heart condition. She died of heart failure and pneumonia in 2018.

Her authorized biography, Gloria Jean: A Little Bit of Heaven, was published in 2005. A tribute website, GloriaJeanSings.com, followed, again with Gloria Jean's cooperation. Her Internet presence includes a series of videos showing the actress as she appeared in recent years...

SPOTLIGHT ON BEVERLY WASHBURN

Here is a great story on child actress Beverly Washburn. She played an orphan opposite Bing in 1951's Here Comes The Groom...

Beginning her career as a talented child actress, Beverly Washburn appeared in some classic 1950s films including “Hans Christian Andersen” (1952), “Shane” (1953) and “Old Yeller” (1957) as well as dozens of classic TV shows. She also worked alongside Hollywood’s most popular actors and her list of favorites is long (see www.beverlywashburn.com).

While she appeared in several “Wagon Train” episodes, her favorite was The Tobias Jones Story where Lou Costello plays a drunk accused of murder – not only a rare dramatic role for the comedian but one of his final acting appearances.

“I was a big Abbott & Costello fan, so it was a thrill to work with Lou,” said Washburn from Las Vegas where she has lived for over 20 years. “I just loved him, he was such as sweet man. But he was so used to ad-libbing in the comedy routines that he actually found it hard to stick to the script. When he forgot a line, he would look into the camera and say, ‘So how are ya?’ which always made me giggle.”


Washburn recalls rehearsing a scene where she had to push Costello’s intoxicated character into a wagon. “He leaned back and said ‘push my biscuits’ (buttocks) into the wagon as hard as I could. I’d never heard that expression before! While he was a joy to work with, I do remember there was a kind of sadness about him which I only later realized was because he never really got over his young son drowning." Costello died a few months after filming.

In Here Comes the Groom (1951), Washburn plays Bing Crosby’s adopted daughter. “People always ask me was he mean because of the bad wrap he got over the years from the stories told by his son from his first marriage,” she said. “But he was so kind to me. He gave me a beautiful doll one Christmas and I was on his Christmas card list for years. He signed a couple of photographs for me and wrote ‘For Beverly, hope to play in your next picture’ on one and ‘To my co-star Beverly’ on another. Those are mementos from my career that I still treasure.”

She also appeared in episodes of the Warner Bros. ABC detective series, 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye. She appeared twice on the CBS western series, The Texan starring Rory Calhoun, as Henrietta Tovers in "No Tears for the Dead" (1958) and as Greta Banden in "Badman" (1960). She appeared in the debut episode of NBC's Wagon Train but not in the lead role. Her episodes included the episodes "The Willy Moran Story" (1957), "The Tobias Jones Story" (1958), and as Milly Sharp "The Cassie Vance Story" (1963).

In the 1970s, she appeared in three episodes of Quinn Martin's The Streets of San Francisco crime drama with Karl Malden': "Most Feared in the Jungle" (1973), "Letters from the Grave" (1975), and as Michelle Rhodes in "Let's Pretend We're Strangers" (1977). One of her later television appearances was in the 1984 episode "Remembrance of Things Past" of CBS's Scarecrow and Mrs. King. Her most recent role was that of the character Brenda in the 2007 film Hard Four, which also features Ed Asner, Paula Prentiss, Dabney Coleman, and Ed Begley, Jr. In 2015, she appeared as Reyna Belasco Rosenthal in R. Christian Anderson's feature film When the World Came to San Francisco.

In her book, “Reel Tears: The Beverly Washburn Story, Take Two” re-released in 2013 by BearManor Media, Beverly shares many more stories from her career. She says she has been “blessed to work with so many wonderful people in the entertainment business.”

“It hasn’t all be roses, as I talk about in my book,” she adds, “but I have a lot of fond memories for sure.”

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