SPOTLIGHT ON GARY CROSBY

I have taken a look at three of the sons Bing Crosby had with his first wife, Dixie Lee. However, I hesitated to profile Bing's oldest son Gary Crosby. As a lifelong fan of Der Bingle, I have been bitter against Gary for the scathing book he wrote about his father in 1983. However, now nearly 40 years later, it is what it is. Bing had a very difficult relationship with his four sons especially Gary. Despite that book, Gary's life was a life worth living, and I feel his life should not be forgotten.

Gary Crosby was born on June 27, 1933 in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University. He entered the entertainment business and performed in a harmony singing group, The Crosby Boys, with his three brothers, Philip, Lindsay, and Dennis, during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. As a teenager, he sang with his father on numerous records songs, and two of them "Sam's Song" and "Play a Simple Melody",  became the first double-sided gold record in history.  He also recorded duets with Louis Armstrong and at least one 45-single with Sammy Davis Jr.. He also performed on several variety programs, including ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom and NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In the mid-1950s, Gary also had his own radio program, the Gary Crosby Show on CBS. The musical variety program debuted June 6, 1954, as a summer replacement for Bing Crosby's show.

As an actor, Crosby appeared in many television programs. On March 20, 1955, he appeared on the Jack Benny Program Season 5, Episode 13. Later, he was briefly under contract to 20th Century-Fox in the late 1950s. He appeared in a number of supporting roles for the studio, normally comedies in which Crosby played a soldier: Mardi Gras (1958) with Pat Boone; Holiday for Lovers (1959), as Carol Lynley's love interest; A Private's Affair (1959), with Sal Mineo; The Right Approach (1961) with Frankie Vaughan. Gary spent a small stint in the military where he was stationed with Elvis Presley whom he would make Girl Crazy with in 1965.

He is perhaps best-remembered for his recurring roles as Eddie the scheming bellhop on The Bill Dana Show and Officer Edward "Ed" Wells on NBC's Adam-12 from 1968–75, as well as appearances on several other shows produced by Jack Webb's Mark VII Limited (including an episode of Dragnet 1969 and five episodes of Emergency!). In addition to the aforementioned, he also appeared in three episodes of The Rockford Files.

In the 1970s, he appeared occasionally on game shows such as Match Game and Tattletales as a guest panelist. He married and divorced three times; he had one stepchild as a result. A lifelong alcoholic, Gary jumped at the change to write about his famous father. The children of other famous stars such as Christina Crawford (daughter of Joan Crawfrod) had made millions off of the tell-all tales of growing up famous.

In 1983, six years after his father's death, Crosby published an autobiography, Going My Own Way, which revealed the effects of his alcoholism and his difficult childhood as a result of his mother's alcoholism and his father's emotional and physical abuse. Some, especially his brother Phillip, said the abuse was not as severe as Crosby described. Gary himself reportedly admitted the book was a big exaggeration to make money.

In the late 1980s, Gary gained peace in his life and became sober. At the time of his death, he was planning a duets album with his father like Natalie Cole had done with her father Nat King Cole. Gary Crosby died of lung cancer in Burbank, California on August 24,1995, and is interred at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery. Just like Gary Crosby made peace with his father, I feel I need to make peace with Gary's book. Who know how anyone would have turned out if they had Gary's life. The important thing is that he finally had peace at the end...

BEACH BOY BING AND ELVIS

In the summer of 1993, the vocal group SWV was cruising along at number one with their song “Weak,” when a reggae band from England bumped them out of the top spot with a remake of a 60‘s classic. UB40 hit the top with a noted tune from a movie featuring a big name singer set in Hawaii from 31 years earlier. In turn, that movie drew its title and theme song from another movie featuring a big name singer which was also set in Hawaii, filmed 25 years before that.

Bing Crosby’s biggest hit of 1937 was a movie song, “Sweet Leilani.” It was the number three song of the year, behind Count Basie’s “One O’clock Jump” and Benny Goodman’s “Sing Sing Sing.” It was awarded the Oscar for Best Original Song that year, the only Academy Award taken by the movie Waikiki Wedding. Another song from that film was a 1937 top 5 for Crosby, “Blue Hawaii.”

“Blue Hawaii” became the launching pad for Elvis Presley’s eighth movie. Elvis made 33 films, and most would follow the template of the new feature. Big on scenery, lush with both flora and fauna; they may have been short on plot, but usually had a marketable soundtrack album, and with any luck, a hit single. In this case, the Blue Hawaii soundtrack spent 79 weeks on the charts, 20 at number one. As a matter of fact, by Billboard chart standards, it was the second most successful album of the decade of the sixties, topped only by the West Side Story soundtrack.

“Can’t Help Falling In Love” fell into line with those big post-Army Elvis hits, drawing melodic inspiration from a 1780 French love song, “Plasir D’Amour.” Songwriting cousins Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore teamed with Broadway song crafter George David Weiss to fit the melody to their romantic lyrics. At the time Blue Hawaii was hitting the theaters, this writing team already had the biggest single in the nation, with their adaptation of a 1920’s South African melody in the form of the Token’s single, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

The March, 1961 sessions for the “Blue Hawaii” soundtrack took place in Hollywood at Radio Recorders. The island sound required extra hands on the session; a couple of ukulele players, harmonica, and Alvino Rey on steel guitar. Two separate versions of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” were recorded, a movie version, and one for single release. Over the course of time, the song went platinum, but in early 1962, it peaked out at number two behind “Peppermint Twist” by Joey Dee and the Starliters.

In the 70’s and 80’s, Al Martino, Andy Williams and Corey Hart charted with their cover versions of “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” UB40 had experience making hits out of other peoples catalog songs. Their first charted record was Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine,” entering the top 40 in 1984, but going all the way to number one in 1988 when they did a longer dance-oriented mix with an added rap. Five years later, UB40’s biggest success was their cover of “Can‘t Help Falling In Love,” and they did Elvis one better, taking it all the way to the top.

Songwriter George David Weiss worked on a number of movie scores and stage musicals, and co-wrote “What A Wonderful World,” recorded in 1968 by Louis Armstrong. The song was a hit in the UK, but in the US, the head of Armstrong’s label didn’t like it and wouldn’t promote it, so in its first release it sold fewer than 1,000 copies stateside. Another twenty years would pass before the movie Good Morning Vietnam introduced the song to new ears, and it hit the Billboard top 40.

Hugo and Luigi produced hits for RCA records, including Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ The Night Away” and “Another Saturday Night,” and “I Will Follow Him” by Little Peggy March. And whenever you get a little bit louder with the Isley Brothers’ “Shout,” part of the credit goes to Hugo and Luigi...

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BING TALKS ABOUT ELVIS

Today would have been the 76th birthday of Elvis Presley. Although Elvis is dubbed the king of Rock n Roll, Bing is the king of popular music. Here is an interesting audio interview Bing did with his biographer Pete Martin in 1957, and they talk about Elvis Presley...