BING CROSBY ON BING CROSBY

Here are some great quotes from Bing Crosby through the years. He talks about many things from family to his career. I think it is very fascinating...


HIS OSCAR WIN:
"I'd been nominated, so I knew there was a chance, but I just thought it was a kind of popularity award. I'd done some charitable things, a lot of shows, benefits, I was a golfer and that was that. It was a war year and all the good talent was away and I figured they reckoned "give it to this guy -- he's not a bad fellow." (Thompson, p111)

FIRST WIFE DIXIE LEE:
"She was a very fine woman. I was devoted to her. She was very timid, terribly shy. It was awfully difficult to get her to make any kind of public appearance and that was the reason she never did anything more in show business. She just hated the exposure and the necessity to work with strangers .... When she did get to know anybody she was a marvelous friend and a great deal of fun." (Thompson, p172)


FATHERHOOD:
"My situation as a father is maybe a bit more complicated than that which faces most dads. Raising the sons of a movie star presents special problems. When the children of people prominent in show business go to school or to entertainments or to parties, the solid, well-grounded kids they meet at those places pay them no special attention, but there's always a bunch of bubble-heads who make a fuss over a boy whose father or mother's name is known in the entertainment world. "With all the money your old man's got, you'll never have to work," they tell him. Or, "you mean you've got only one car?" and they ladle out the old goo. If the kid who gets this treatment is a little susceptible -- as some of mine are -- such guff can spoil them. My slant on such buttering up is this: there's an old Italian proverb which says, "Never kiss a baby unless he's asleep...." When I want to be especially flattering to one of my offspring, I say, "Nice goin'" and let it go at that." (Call Me Lucky, 1953, p203)


FRANK SINATRA:
"Frank's hotheaded, he does things that get him into the papers, but if he likes you, you've got a friend whose friendship is fanatically loyal. If he likes you, he'll do anything for you or give you anything he's got; but if he doesn't like you, he can be the most ornery cuss you've ever known. And it doesn't lake him long to find out in which classification he places you. He hates pomposity and he hates anyone in authority who he doesn't think is qualified to have authority. And he'll go to great lengths to make such phonies uncomfortable." Saturday Evening Post, May 11, 1957, p120)

ROCK 'N' ROLL:
"Let's talk about what rock and roll is. It's really a new name for an old musical medium. Years ago they called this kind of music 'race records.' By that they didn't mean Negro music; they just meant blues. Then gradually, the name changed to rhythm and blues; now it's called rock and roll.... The beat's old too. It's a rolling bass repeated over and over under a blues melody. Maybe the beat is accentuated a little more; maybe those who play it put in more variations on their rolling bass. They always have their right hand high up on the piano, playing triplicates as fast as they can. It's got a flavoring of boogie, but it always has that basic rolling-bass pattern. If you try to say the beat in words, it comes out 'shoo-beedoo-bee-doo." (Saturday Evening Post, May 11, 1957, p119)


THE DEATH OF ELVIS:
"Oh, I'm shocked. It's a sad thing to hear. A young man like Presley, just a young fella, so vibrant, so influential all through the years of American popular music and now you tell me he's gone. It's hard to believe. It'll be a great loss." (NBC news interview 16 Aug. 1977)


ANNOYANCES WITH FAME:
"The sycophants that hang about, the press, the photographers, the song publishers and pluggers and the pests of all descriptions that grab me everytime I step outside my front door weary me indescribably. Succinctly, John, I seem to have had it. Maybe a year or so away will make me feel differently, and my interest will revive." (1954 letter to John Scott Trotter)

BING CROSBY AND OTHER SINGERS

Bing Crosby was definitely a singer's singer. Many of his peers and people that came after Bing idolized and looked up to him. Here are some quotes from other singers and what they thought about Bing...

EDDY ARNOLD:
"Bing was fantastic. I have many, many of his records today. He recorded so many of the country songs like "You Are My Sunshine," "It Makes No Difference Now," "Walkin' the Floor Over You." He recorded the first hit I ever had [Just a Little Lovin']. On and on and on. And he did them straight. He never made fun of them. He always did 'em in a melodic way. And, of course, the songs became well known because of his popularity. The songs took on the popularity of the whole country. Do you know who was Winston Churchill's favorite singer and song during World War II? It was Bing Crosby's record of "You Are My Sunshine." (Eddy Arnold: An Inside Look, interviewed by Ralph Emery, TNN, 1991.)

TONY BENNETT:
"Just imagine something five times stronger than the popularity of Elvis Presley and the Beatles put together. Bing Crosby dominated all of the airwaves. He was the only guy who had hour shows on radio stations, where other artists would just have one record played." (PBS interview, 1999)

ROSEMARY CLOONEY:
"Over the years Bing and I have done movies together, recordings, radio, television -- the whole entertainment circle.... The best way to get along with Bing was to forget first of all that he was Bing Crosby. It was not always easy. I know that every now and then something would strike me when we were working together -- the tilt of his pipe or the set of his hat -- the Crosby image -- and I'd say to myself, "What the hell am I doing singing here with Bing Crosby?" (Clooney, This for Remembrance, p232)

SAMMY DAVIS JR:
"I'm working with three of the biggest guys in the business -- so I can't wait for the first day when we all get around the piano to rehearse a song called 'Mr Booze.' In this there are so many Crosbyisms, all the things that we and millions of people have loved him for. And I'm standing there, and I missed my cue five times because I'm watching him. Frank [Sinatra] said, "What the hell is wrong with you?" I said "To hell with you, Frank, I'm listening to Bing Crosby!" Everybody just broke up."

PEGGY LEE:
"He took me out to dinner once and I got up nerve enough to tell him about how I felt at one movie when he didn't get the girl. I was so in sympathy with him that when he sang this song 'Down by the River' I cried and cried. So he pretended that we were sort of sightseeing in San Francisco and we went around to different little bistros until finally he found a pianist who knew the song and Bing sang it especially for me."

MEL TORME:
"In 1975 he invited me and my family to lunch at his home just outside of San Francisco. Mary Frances and Harry, Bing's kids, were on hand as well as Kathryn, and it was a funny, jolly, loving luncheon, full of stories and remembrances. After lunch, Bing, sans hairpiece, asked Harry to go get his guitar. We adjourned to the music room, and, just like that, Bing sat down and began to sing. He did about eight tunes, invited me to join him, which I did, and that's the way the afternoon went .... That night he brought the whole family to the Fairmont, sat at a front table (still sans toupee), and stayed through my whole performance. I never quite got over that." (Torme, My Singing Teachers, p19)

QUOTING BING

To hear Bing Crosby talk was almost as great as to hear him sing. He had such a command of the English language. Here are some quotes and sayings attributed to Bing. Whether or not he said them all may never be known, but his he had a way with words...

(his reported last words) "That was a great game of golf, fellas."

"Frank (Frank Sinatra) is a singer who comes along once in a lifetime, but why did he have to come in mine?"

"I think popular music in this country is one of the few things in the 20th century that have made great strides in reverse."

"Everyone knows I`m just a big, good-natured slob."

"Honestly, I think I`ve stretched a talent which is so thin it`s almost transparent over a quite unbelievable term of years."

(his own epitaph) "He was an average guy who could carry a tune."

"Once or twice I`ve been described as a light comedian. I consider this the most accurate description of my abilities I`ve ever seen."

(in 1954) "I don`t sing anywhere as good as I used to, and I feel sincerely that it`s getting worse. I don`t see any purpose in trying to stretch something out that was once acceptable and that now is merely adequate, if that."

(on Bob Hope) "Hope? He`s got more money on him than most people have in banks"

(on Judy Garland) "The most talented woman I ever knew was Judy Garland. She was a great, great comedienne and she could do more things than any girl I ever knew. Act, sing, dance, make you laugh. She was everything. I had a great affection for her. Such a tragedy. Too much work, too much pressure, the wrong kind of people as husbands."

(on W.C. Fields) "His comedy routines appeared spontaneous and improvised, but he spent much time perfecting them. He knew exactly what he was doing every moment, and what each prop was supposed to do. That "my little chickadee" way of talking of his was natural."

(on Fred Astaire) "When you`re in a picture with Astaire, you`ve got rocks in your head if you do much dancing. He`s so quick-footed and so light that it`s impossible not to look like a hay-digger compared with him."

(on Grace Kelly) "She`s a great lady, with great talent and kind, considerate, friendly with everybody. She was great with the crew and they all loved her."

(on his phenomenally successful single "White Christmas") "A jackdaw with a cleft palate could have sung it successfully."

"My golf is woeful but I will never surrender."

"Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won`t make it white."

"There is nothing in the world I wouldn`t do for Hope, and there is nothing he wouldn`t do for me... We spend our lives doing nothing for each other."

"Aloha on the steel guitar"