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.

BOOK REVIEW: BING CROSBY'S LAST SONG

Bing Crosby's Last Song is not a biography of the last song crooner Bing Crosby ever recorded. Bing is actually only mentioned two or three times in the book. The 1998 novel is a very poignant story of Daly Racklin, a middle aged man of Irish descent living in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh in 1968. This story begins with a difficult conversation between Daly and his doctor... his doctor has just given him bad news about his heart condition. Daly's time is short and as is often the case when a person receives news such as this, he begins some serious self-examination and soul searching. This examination takes him on a path through not only his own life but the lives of his friends and family in his old crumbling Irish neighborhood.

Through Daly's interactions with other characters in the story... his family, friends and people in the neighborhood, the reader learns what kind of man Daly really is.. what 'stuff' he is made of. Daly is, like his father before him, an attorney; and also like his father, he is the 'strong one', the responsible one... the one everyone in the neighborhood goes to for help because he always takes care of his own. He takes care of everyone else but it soon becomes clear through the course of the story, that there doesn't seem to be anyone for DALY to turn to. And honestly, as the story went on, it seemed that perhaps Daly actually did not know HOW to allow people to help him. He didn't seem to be able to allow people to get close to him... perhaps that was his flaw and his 'cross to bear'. He was lonely... and now dying... and still couldn't figure out how to make that human connection.

This story of Daly Racklin WAS a sad one. He examined what sort of person he had been in his lifetime by holding his own life up next to his father's life...as a kind of yardstick. For all the loneliness he felt, I do believe that ultimately he was at peace with himself and everything he had tried to do for others in his life.

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, and I learned a lot about the different sections of the city - namely Oakland. I was not even around in 1968, so it held a particular fascination for me. I got a very different mental picture of the city as it was in 1968 and this made me consider what the Urban Renewal, mandated by the federal government after World War II, actually meant to the people in many of these ethnic neighborhoods. Some of the Irish dialect is hard to follow, but the book really draws you into life in a close knit Irish neighborhood. I highly recommend this sentimental novel...

MY RATING: 9 OUT OF 10

BOOK REVIEW: BING AND CATHOLICISM

Book Highlights High Profile Catholics
By Barbara Stinson Lee

SALT LAKE CITY – "The Look of Catholics: Portrayals in Popular Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War" by writer and historian Anthony Burke Smith, traces such public faces from Bing Crosby to Mel Gibson. Some of them are good and others questionable, from directors John Ford, Leo McCarey and Frank Capra to publisher Henry Luce, who gave special coverage to Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

One of the first stars given the best of the care is Bing Crosby, who portrayed Father O’Malley in a series of movies in the 1940s. The character first was seen in his seminary days in Cincinnati, then as a priest who played baseball with the boys in the school to which he was assigned. Fr. O’Malley also carefully sat by the side of his predecessor, played by Barry Fitzgerald. Crosby was one of the first movie-priests who made it possible to bring Catholicism to the big screen.

Crosby was followed by Spencer Tracy, James Cagney and Charles Boyer, among others. "But in addition to the local character of the Catholic experience, Catholicism also increasingly assumed a national, pan-ethnic dimension after World War I," the book states. "The Catholic bishops, for instance, established their own National Catholic Welfare Conference in 1919, an institutional vehicle intended to offer the American hierarchy a collective voice on issues of national importance. Among the most prominent features was its Social Action Department, headed by the Reverend John A Ryan, the noted Catholic social reformer who had written the Bishops’ Program of Social Reconstruction of 1919, an early and far-sighted call for social reforms, including a living wage, the right of workers to organization and a form of Social Security."

McCarey, though Catholic, didn’t emphasize religion in the films he directed. His own early career in movies entailed a stint at Keystone Studios, which was founded by Mack Sennet, an Irish Canadian who migrated to the United States and eventually landed in Los Angeles. McCarey directed Charles Chase in a series of successful slapstick comedies at the Roach Studios, including "His Wooden Wedding" (1925), which allowed him to develop his talents as a comic filmmaker. In 1926, he became vice president of the Roach Operation, overseeing all film production. In this position, McCarey proved instrumental developing the team of Laurel and Hardy. In 1929, he left the Roach Studio and signed a contract with Paramount, so by the time McCarey became a director of feature-length films in the 1930s, he already had years of experience honing his comic skills in a film milieu shaped by ethics and immigrants.

One of the elements this book lacks is a balance between male and female actors. Women like Irene Dunne, Jenny Rise Stevens, Helen Hayes and Loretta Young are mentioned, but they are few, compared to the male actors, producers, directors and scene designers featured in the book. And they are almost always lumped together with one or two other women. It is hard to believe that there was a lack of romances, comedies and just plain funny women to balance the men.

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