Lorenz Hart
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lorenz "Larry" Hart (May 2, 1895 - November 22, 1943) was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. His most memorable lyrics include, "Blue Moon", "Isn't It Romantic?", "The Lady is a Tramp", "Manhattan", "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", and "My Funny Valentine".
Hart was born in Harlem to Jewish immigrant parents. He attended Columbia University, where a friend introduced him to Rodgers, and the two joined forces to write songs for a series of amateur and student productions. In 1919, the team's song "Any Old Place With You" was included in the Broadway musical comedy A Lonely Romeo. The smashing success of their score for the 1925 Theatre Guild production, The Garrick Gaieties, brought them great acclaim. They continued working together until Hart's death in 1943, along the way producing scores for a series of hit shows and making a substantial contribution to the Great American Songbook.
Hart struggled with both homosexuality, in an era when such a lifestyle was socially unacceptable, and alcoholism, which contributed to his death. His concerns with sexuality and repressed emotions were often reflected in his songs and the ways they are referenced in popular culture. "My Funny Valentine" was featured in the film The Talented Mr Ripley, and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" was heard in The History Boys, both songs used in dramatically similar scenes in which one male character expresses his unrequited love for the other (straight) man by singing to him.
Hart also suffered great emotional turmoil toward the end of his life. His personal problems were often the cause of friction between him and Rodgers, and in fact led to a brief breakup in 1943, at which time Rodgers started working with Oscar Hammerstein II, who was actually a school friend of Hart.
Rodgers and Hart teamed up one final time in the fall of 1943 for a revival of A Connecticut Yankee. Five days after this show opened, Hart died of pneumonia from exposure. He is believed to have died alone. He is buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens County, New York.
Bing Crosby
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Harry Lillis Crosby
Born May 2, 1903
Tacoma, Washington, USA
Died October 14, 1977
Madrid, Spain
Genre(s) Jazz, Pop standards, Dixieland
Occupation(s) Singer, Actor
Years active 1926 - 1977
Label(s) Brunswick, Decca, Reprise, RCA Victor, Verve, United Artists
Website BingCrosby.com
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 2, 1903 - October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death in 1977.
One of the first multi-media stars, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses.[1] He is usually considered to be among the most popular musical acts in history and is currently the most electronically recorded human voice in history [2] Crosby is also credited as being the major inspiration for most of the male singers that followed him, including the likes of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Dean Martin. Yank magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American GI morale during World War II and, during his peak years, around 1948, polls declared him the "most admired man alive" ahead of Jackie Robinson and the Pope[1][3] Also during 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.[3]
Crosby also exerted a massive influence on the development of the postwar recording industry. In 1947 he invested US$50,000 in the Ampex company, which developed the world's first commercial reel-to-reel tape recorder, and Crosby became the first performer in the world to prerecord his radio shows and master his commercial recordings on magnetic tape. He gave one of the first Ampex Model 200 recorders to his friend, musician Les Paul, which led directly to Paul's invention of multitrack recording. Along with Frank Sinatra, he was one of the principal backers behind the famous United Western Recorders studio complex in Los Angeles.
In 1962, Crosby was the first person to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Early life
Harry Lillis Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington on May 2, 1903 in a house that his father built (1112 North J Street, Tacoma, Washington). His family later moved to Spokane, Washington in 1906 to find work. He was the fourth of seven children: five boys, Larry (1895-1975), Everett (born 1896), Ted (born 1900), Harry (born 1903) and Bob (1913-1993); and two girls, Catherine (born 1905) and Mary Rose (born 1907). His parents were English-American Harry Lowe Crosby (1871-1950), a bookkeeper and Irish-American Catherine Harrigan (1873-1964), (affectionately known as Kate), the daughter of a builder from County Mayo in Ireland. His paternal ancestors Thomas Prence and Patience Brewster were born in England and immigrated to the U.S. in the 17th century; Brewster's family came over on the Mayflower.
It should be noted that Bing Crosby had no birth certificate and that his birth date was shrouded in mystery until his childhood Roman Catholic church in Tacoma, Washington, released the baptismal records that revealed his date of birth.
In 1910, Crosby was forever renamed. The six-year-old Harry Lillis discovered a full page feature in the Sunday edition of Spokesman-Review, "The Bingville Bugle". The "Bugle", written by humorist Newton Newkirk, was a parody of a hillbilly newsletter complete with gossipy tidbits, minstrel quips, creative spelling and mock ads. A neighbor, 15-year-old Valentine Hobart, shared Crosby's enthusiasm for "The Bugle", and noting Crosby's laugh, took a liking to him and called him Bingo from Bingville. The last vowel was dropped and the name shortened to Bing, which stuck.
In 1917, Crosby took a summer job as property boy at Spokane's "Auditorium" where he witnessed some of the finest acts of the day, including a blackface performer named Al Jolson who spellbound Crosby with his ad-libbing and spoofs of Hawaiian songs that brought down the house. Crosby would later say that, "To me, he was the greatest entertainer who ever lived."
In the fall of 1920, Bing enrolled in the Jesuit-run Gonzaga College in Spokane, Washington with the intent to become a lawyer. He maintained a B+ average. While in Gonzaga, he sent away for a set of mail order drums. After much practice he soon became good enough and was invited to join a local band which was made up of mostly local high school kids called the "Musicaladers," managed by one Al Rinker. He made so much money doing this he decided to drop out of school during his final year to pursue a career in show business.
Popular success
In 1926, while singing at Los Angeles Metropolitan Theatre, Crosby and his vocal duo partner Al Rinker caught the eye of Paul Whiteman, arguably the most famous bandleader at the time. Hired for $150 a week, they made their debut on December 6, 1926 at the Tivoli Theatre in Chicago. Their first recording, "I've Got The Girl," with Don Clark's Orchestra, was issued by Columbia, did them no vocal favors as it sounded like they were singing in a key much too high for them. It was later revealed that the 78rpm was recorded at a speed slower than it should have been, which increased the pitch when played at 78rpm. As popular as the Crosby and Rinker duo was, Whiteman added another member to the group, pianist and aspiring songwriter Harry Barris. Whiteman dubbed them The Rhythm Boys and they joined the Whiteman vocal team, working and recording with Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, and Eddie Lang and singers Mildred Bailey and Hoagy Carmichael.
Crosby soon became the star attraction of The Rhythm Boys not to mention Whiteman's Band, and in 1928 had his first number one hit, a jazz influenced rendition of "Ol' Man River". However, his repeated youthful peccadilloes and growing dissatisfaction with Whiteman forced him to leave the band along with The Rhythm Boys and join the Gus Arnheim Orchestra. After signing with Brunswick and recording under Jack Kapp, The Rhythm Boys were increasingly pushed to the background with the vocal emphasis on Bing. Fellow member of The Rhythm Boys Harry Barris did write most of Crosby's subsequent hits including "At Your Command", "I Surrender Dear", and "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams". However, shortly after this the members of the band had a falling out and split, setting the stage for Crosby's solo career.
As the 1930s unfolded it became clear that Bing was the number one man, vocally speaking. Ten of the top 50 songs for 1931 either featured Bing solo or with others. Apart from the short-lived "Battle of the Baritones" with Russ Columbo "Bing Was King", signing long term deals with Jack Kapp's new record company Decca and starring in his first full-length features, 1932's The Big Broadcast, the first of 55 such films of which he was top billed. He appeared in a total of 79 pictures.
Around this time Bing made his solo debut on radio, co-starring with The Carl Fenton Orchestra on a popular CBS radio show and by 1936, replacing his former boss, Paul Whiteman, as the host of NBC's Kraft Music Hall, a weekly radio program where he would remain for the next ten years.
He was thus able to take popular singing beyond the kind of "belting" associated with a performer like Al Jolson, who had to reach the back seats in New York theatres without the aid of the microphone. With Crosby, as Henry Pleasants noted in The Great American Popular Singers, something new had entered American music, something that might be called "singing in American," with conversational ease. The oddity of this new sound led to the epithet "crooner."
Crosby gave great emphasis to live appearances before American troops fighting in the European Theater. He also learned how to pronounce German from written scripts, and would read them in propaganda broadcasts intended for the German forces. The nickname "der Bingle" for him was understood to have become current among German listeners, and came to be used by his English-speaking fans. In a poll of U.S. troops at the close of WWII, Crosby topped the list as the person who did the most for G.I. morale (beating out President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, General Dwight Eisenhower and one Leslie Townes Hope)
Crosby's biggest musical hit was his recording of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" which he introduced through a 1941 Christmas-season radio broadcast and the movie Holiday Inn. Bing's recording hit the charts on 3 October 1942, and rose to #1 on 31 October, where it stayed for 11 weeks. In the following years Bing's recording hit the top-30 pop charts another 16 times, even topping the charts again in 1945 and January of '47. The song remains Bing's best-selling recording, and the best-selling single and best selling song of all time. In 1998 after a long absence, his 1947 version hit the charts in Britain, and as of 2006 remains the North American holiday-season standard. According to Guinness World Records, Bing Crosby's White Christmas has "sold over 100 million copies around the world, with at least 50 million sales as singles."[4]
Motion pictures
According to ticket sales Bing Crosby is, at 1,077,900,000 tickets sold, the third most popular actor of all-time behind Clark Gable and John Wayne. [5] Crosby is also, according to Quigley Publishing Company's International Motion Picture Almanac, tied for second on the "All Time Number One Stars List" with three other actors - Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks and Burt Reynolds.[6] Crosby's most popular film, White Christmas, grossed $30 million in 1954, which when adjusted for inflation equals $233 million in 2004 dollars. [7] Crosby also won an Academy Award as Best Actor for Going My Way in 1944 and was critically acclaimed for his performance as an alcoholic entertainer in The Country Girl.
By the late 1950s, Crosby's popularity had peaked, and the adolescence of the baby boom generation began to affect record sales to younger customers. In 1960, Crosby starred in High Time, a collegiate comedy with Fabian and Tuesday Weld that foretold the emerging gap between older Crosby fans and a new generation of films and music.
Style
Bing Crosby perfected an idea that Al Jolson had hinted at, namely that the popular performer didn't have to limit himself to a mere series of shticks but could be a genuine artist - in this case, a musician. Before Crosby, art was art and pop was pop; Opera singers worried about staying in tune and reaching the upper balcony, Vaudevillians concerned themselves with their costumes and facial expressions. Crosby rendered the difference between the two irrelevant. Where earlier recording artists had displayed strictly one-dimensional attitudes, Crosby not only perfected the fully rounded persona, but brought with it the technical wherewithal of a true concert artist. Crosby projected with a majestic sense of intonation that afforded Tin Pan Alley the musical stature of European classics and a jazz influenced time that made him both the dominant voice of both the Jazz age and the Swing era. Crosby also elaborated on a further idea of Al Jolson's, one that Frank Sinatra would ultimately extend further: phrasing, or more specifically, the art of making a song's lyric ring true. "I used to tell (Sinatra) over and over," said Tommy Dorsey, "there's only one singer you ought to listen to and his name is Crosby. All that matters to him is the words, and that's the only thing that ought to for you too."
The greatest trick of Crosby's virtuosity was covering it up. It is often said that Crosby made his singing and acting "look easy," or as if it was no work at all: he simply was the character he portrayed, and his singing, being a direct extension of conversation, came just as naturally to him as talking, or even breathing. Journalist Donald Freeman said of Crosby, "There is only one Bing Crosby and - the time has come now to face the issue squarely - he happens to be that unique, awesome creature, an artist."
Vocal characteristics
Bing Crosby is usually considered to be among the most talented singers of his time. Crosby could, as musicologist J.T.H. Mize's asserts, "melt a tone away, scoop it flat and sliding up to the eventual pitch as a glissando, sometimes sting a note right on the button, and take diphthongs for long musical rides." J.T.H. Mize also inventoried the Crosby arsenal of vocal effects, including "interpolating pianissimo whistling variations, sometimes arpeggic, at other times trilling". While vocal critic Henry Pleasants states that "The octave B flat to B flat in Bing's voice at that time [1930s] is, to my ears, one of the loveliest I have heard in forty-five years of listening to baritones, both classical and popular. it dropped conspicuously in later years. Since the mid-1950s, Bing has been more comfortable in a bass range while maintaining a baritone quality, with the best octave being G to G, or even F to F. In a recording he made of 'Dardanella' with Louis Armstrong in 1960, he attacks lightly and easily on a low E flat. This is lower than most opera basses care to venture, and they tend to sound as if they were in the cellar when they get there." Mel Tormé concurred with Henry Pleasants stating that "(Crosby's) low notes could make your bass woofers beg for mercy."
Career statistics
Bing Crosby's sales and chart statistics place him among the most popular and successful musical acts of the 20th century. Although the Billboard charts operated under a different methodology for the bulk of Crosby's career, his numbers remain astonishing: 1,700 recordings, 383 of those in the top 30, and of those, 41 hit #1. Crosby had separate charting singles in every calendar year between 1931 and 1954; the annual re-release of White Christmas extended that streak to 1957. He had 24 separate popular singles in 1939 alone. Billboard's statistician Joel Whitburn determined Crosby to be America's most successful act of the 1930s, and again in the 1940s.
For 15 years (1934, 1937, 1940, 1943-1954), Crosby was among the top 10 in box office draw, and for five of those years (1944-49) he was the largest in the world. He sang four Academy Award-winning songs - "Sweet Leilani" (1937), "White Christmas" (1942), "Swinging on a Star" (1944), "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (1951) - and won an acting Oscar for Going My Way (1944).
He also collected 23 gold and platinum records in his career, according to Joseph Murrells, author of the book, "Million Selling Records." It should be noted that the Recording Industry Association of America did not institute its gold record certification program until 1958 (by which point Crosby's record sales were barely a blip), so gold records prior to that year were awarded by an artist's record company. Universal Music, current owner of Crosby's Decca catalog, has never requested RIAA certification for any of his hit singles.
In 1962, Crosby became the first recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been inducted into the respective halls of fame for both radio and popular music. His overall music sales are estimated at between 500,000,000 (five hundred million) to 900,000,000 (nine hundred million). Bing is a member of that exclusive club of the biggest record sellers that include Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and The Beatles.
Entrepreneurship
Bing Crosby's desire to pre-record his radio shows, combined with a dissatisfaction with the available aluminum recording disks, was a significant factor in the development of magnetic tape recording and the radio industry's adoption of it. He used his power to innovate new methods of reproducing himself. In 1946, he wanted to shift from live performance to recorded transcriptions for his weekly radio show on NBC sponsored by Kraft. But NBC and competitor CBS refused to allow recorded radio programs (except for advertisements).
The live production of radio shows was a deeply-established tradition reinforced by the musicians' union and ASCAP. The Mutual network, on the other hand, had pre-recorded some of its programs as early as the Summer 1938 run of The Shadow with Orson Welles. The new ABC network, formed out of the sale of the old NBC Blue network in 1943 to Edward Noble, the "Lifesaver King," was willing to join Mutual in breaking the tradition. It would pay Crosby $30,000 per week to produce a recorded show every Wednesday sponsored by Philco. He would also get $40,000 from 400 independent stations for the rights to broadcast the 60-minute show that was sent to them every Monday on three 16-inch aluminum discs that played 10 minutes per side at 33⅓ rpm. Crosby wanted to change to recorded production for several reasons. The legend that has been most often told is that it would give him more time for his golf game. And he did record his first Philco program in August 1947 so he could enter the Jasper National Park Invitational Golf Tournament in September when the new radio season was to start. But golf was not the most important reason.
Crosby was always an early riser and hard worker. He sought better quality through recording, not more spare time. He could eliminate mistakes and control the timing of performances. Because his own Bing Crosby Enterprises produced the show, he could purchase the latest and best sound equipment and arrange the microphones his way (mic placement had long been a hotly-debated issue in every recording studio since the beginning of the electrical era). No longer would he have to wear the hated toupee on his head previously required by CBS and NBC for his live audience shows (Bing preferred a hat). He could also record short promotions for his latest investment, the world's first frozen orange juice to be sold under the brand name Minute Maid.
The transcription method however had problems. The 16-inch aluminum program discs were made from master discs running at 78 rpm and holding only 4 minutes per side. This presented editing and timing problems that often caused gaps or glitches in the flow of the 60-minute program. Also, the acetate surface coating of the aluminum discs was little better than the wax that Edison had used at the turn of the century, with the same limited dynamic range and frequency response. In June of 1947, Murdo MacKenzie of Crosby Enterprises saw a demonstration of the German Magnetophon that Jack Mullin had brought back from Radio Frankfurt with 50 reels of tape at the end of the war. This machine was one of the magnetic tape recorders that BASF and AEG had built in Germany starting in 1935. The ½ inch ferric-coated tape could record 20 minutes per reel of high-quality sound. Alexander M. Poniatoff ordered his Ampex company (founded in 1944 from his initials A.M.P. plus the starting letters of "excellence") to manufacture an improved version of the Magnetophone.
Bing Crosby hired Mullin and his German machine to start recording his Philco show in August 1947 with the same 50 reels of Farben magnetic tape that Mullin had found at a radio station at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt while working for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The crucial advantage was editing. As Bing wrote in his autobiography, "By using tape, I could do a thirty-five or forty-minute show, then edit it down to the twenty-six or twenty-seven minutes the program ran. In that way, we could take out jokes, gags, or situations that didn't play well and finish with only the prime meat of the show; the solid stuff that played big. We could also take out the songs that didn't sound good. It gave us a chance to first try a recording of the songs in the afternoon without an audience, then another one in front of a studio audience. We'd dub the one that came off best into the final transcription. It gave us a chance to ad lib as much as we wanted, knowing that excess ad libbing could be sliced from the final product. If I made a mistake in singing a song or in the script, I could have some fun with it, then retain any of the fun that sounded amusing." Mullin's 1976 memoir of these early days of experimental recording agrees with Bing's account: "In the evening, Crosby did the whole show before an audience. If he muffed a song then, the audience loved it - thought it was very funny - but we would have to take out the show version and put in one of the rehearsal takes. Sometimes, if Crosby was having fun with a song and not really working at it, we had to make it up out of two or three parts. This ad-lib way of working is commonplace in the recording studios today, but it was all new to us."
Crosby also invested US$50,000 in Ampex to produce more machines. In 1948, the second season of Philco shows was taped with the new Ampex Model 200 tape recorder (introduced in April) using the new Scotch 111 tape from the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) company. Mullin explained that new techniques were invented on the Crosby show with these machines: "One time Bob Burns, the hillbilly comic, was on the show, and he threw in a few of his folksy farm stories, which of course were not in Bill Morrow's script. Today they wouldn't seem very off-color, but things were different on radio then. They got enormous laughs, which just went on and on. We couldn't use the jokes, but Bill asked us to save the laughs. A couple of weeks later he had a show that wasn't very funny, and he insisted that we put in the salvaged laughs. Thus the laugh-track was born." Crosby had launched the tape recorder revolution in America. In his 1950 film Mr. Music, Bing Crosby can be seen singing into one of the new Ampex tape recorders that reproduced his voice better than anything else. Also quick to adopt tape recording was his friend Bob Hope, who would make the famous "Road to..." films with Bing and Dorothy Lamour.
Mullin continued to work for Crosby to develop a videotape recorder. Television production was mostly live in its early years but Crosby wanted the same ability to record that he had achieved in radio. The Fireside Theater sponsored by Procter and Gamble was his first television production for the 1950 season. Mullin had not yet succeeded with videotape, so Crosby filmed the series of 26-minute shows at the Hal Roach Studios. The "telefilms" were sent to television stations and projected into a camera using a film chain. This would be the same method used by Desi Arnaz in 1951 for the production of I Love Lucy, making Desilu the industry model for the independent syndication of filmed episodic series. Crosby did not remain a television producer but continued to finance the development of videotape. Mullin would demonstrate a blurry picture on December 30, 1952, but he was not able to solve the problem of high tape speed. It was the Ampex team led by Charles Ginsburg that made the first videotape recorder. Rather than speeding tape across fixed heads at 100 ips, Ginsburg used rotating heads to record at a slant on tape moving at only 15 ips. The quadruplex scan model VR-1000 was demonstrated at the NAB show in Chicago on April 14, 1956, and was an immediate success. Ampex made $4 million in sales during the NAB convention. Ampex developed a color videotape system in 1958 and recorded the spirited debate (dubbed the "Kitchen Debate") between Khrushchev and Nixon on a demonstration model at the Moscow trade Fair September 25, 1959. By this time, Crosby had sold his videotape interests to the 3M company and no longer played the role of tape recorder pioneer. Yet his contribution had been crucial. He had opened the door to Mullin's machine in 1948 and financed the early years of the Ampex company. The rapid spread of the tape recorder revolution was in no small measure caused by Crosby's efforts.
The decade following the end of World War II witnessed what has been called the "revolution in sound." The Decca Company introduced FFRR 78 rpm records (Full Frequency Range Recording) that had the finest frequency response (80-15,000 cps) of any recording process before magnetic tape recording. Decca's method of reducing the size of the groove and designing a delicate elliptical stylus to track on the sides of the groove would be the same innovation of the new microgroove process introduced by Columbia in 1948 on the new 33⅓ rpm LP vinyl record. Crosby's sponsor Philco would join Columbia in selling a new $29.95 record player with jeweled stylus (not steel) tracking at only 10 grams (not 200) for these LPs. No longer would records wear out after 75 plays. Crosby's Ampex Company would be joined by Magnecord, Webcor, Revere, and Fairchild in selling one million tape recorders to a rapidly growing consumer audio component market by 1953. The 1949 Magnecord tape recorder had stereo capability eight years before any vinyl record had it. These components soon began to feature the transistor invented by Bell Labs in 1948. Crosby's 1942 film Holiday Inn (where he first sang his most famous song) would be remade in 1954 as White Christmas, the first film to use Paramount's new VistaVision wide-screen film process with multi-channel magnetic sound.
Thoroughbred horse racing
Bing Crosby was a fan of Thoroughbred horse racing and bought his first racehorse in 1935. In 1937, he became a founding partner and member of the Board of Directors of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club that built and operated the Del Mar Racetrack at Del Mar, California. One of Crosby's closest friends was Lindsay Howard, for whom he named his son Lindsay and from whom he would purchase his 40-room Hillsborough estate in 1965. Lindsay Howard was the son of millionaire businessman Charles S. Howard who owned a successful racing stable that included Seabiscuit. Charles S. Howard would join Crosby as a founding partner and director of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.
Crosby and Lindsay Howard formed Binglin Stable to race and breed thoroughbred horses at a ranch in Moorpark in Ventura County, California. They also established the Binglin stock farm in Argentina where they raced horses at Hipódromo de Palermo in Palermo, Buenos Aires. Binglin stable purchased a number of Argentine-bred horses and shipped them back to race in the United States. On August 12, 1938, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club hosted a $25,000 winner-take-all match race won by Charles S. Howard's Seabiscuit over Binglin Stable's Ligaroti. Binglin's horse Don Bingo won the 1943 Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.
The Binglin Stable partnership came to an end in 1953 as a result of a liquidation of assets by Crosby in order to raise the funds necessary to pay the federal and state inheritance taxes on his deceased wife's estate. [8]
A friend of jockey Johnny Longden, Crosby was a co-owner with Longden's friend Max Bell of the British colt Meadow Court who won the 1965 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes and the Irish Derby. In the Irish Derby's winner's circle at the Curragh, Crosby sang "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling".
The Bing Crosby Breeders' Cup Handicap at Del Mar Racetrack is named in his honor.
Personal life
Crosby was married twice, first to actress/nightclub singer Dixie Lee from 1930 until her death from ovarian cancer, brought on by alcoholism, in 1952. They had four sons (Gary, Dennis, Phillip, and Lindsay). Dixie was an alcoholic, and the 1947 film Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman is indirectly based on her life. After Dixie's death, Crosby had relationships with actresses Grace Kelly and Inger Stevens before marrying the much-younger actress Kathryn Grant in 1957 (It would have been Pat Sheehan had she not turned him down) and they had three children together, Harry, Mary (best known for portraying Kristin Shepard, the woman who shot J.R. Ewing on TV's Dallas), and Nathaniel.
Bing Crosby had an interest in sports. From 1946 until the mid-1960s, Crosby was part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1978, he and Bob Hope were voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf.
Shortly after 6:00 p.m. on October 14, 1977, Bing Crosby died instantly when he suffered a massive heart attack after a round of eighteen holes of golf in Madrid, Spain. He was 74 years old. His last words were reported as, "That was a great game of golf, fellas." However, according to his companions and recorded by biographer Gary Giddens, Crosby then said, "Let's go get a Coke." Because of incorrect instructions from his family, the year of birth engraved on Bing Crosby's tombstone is 1904, rather than the correct date of 1903. He was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
After Bing's death, his image as an ideal father (fostered in part by his family's participation on his famous holiday television specials) was nearly destroyed when his eldest son, Gary, wrote a highly critical memoir (Going My Own Way) depicting Bing as cold, remote, and both physically and psychologically abusive. His son Phillip frequently disputed his brother Gary's claims about their father. In an interview conducted in 1999 by the Globe, Phillip is quoted as saying, "My dad was not the monster my lying brother said he was, he was strict, but my father never beat us black and blue and my brother Gary was a vicious, no-good liar for saying so. I have nothing but fond memories of dad, going to studios with him, family vacations at our cabin in Idaho, boating and fishing with him. To my dying day, I'll hate Gary for dragging dad's name through the mud. He wrote Going My Own Way out of greed. He wanted to make money and knew that humiliating our father and blackening his name was the only way he could do it. He knew it would generate a lot of publicity. That was the only way he could get his ugly, no-talent face on television and in the newspapers. My dad was my hero. I loved him very much. He loved all of us too, including Gary. He was a great father." Phillip died in 2004; the media reported the causes as "natural" or "unspecified." The coroner's decision not to publicly cite the specific cause of Phillip's death caused some to speculate if three, not two, of Bing's four sons from his first marriage committed suicide.
Crosby reportedly overindulged in alcohol in his youth, and may have been dismissed from Paul Whiteman's orchestra because of it. He later got a handle on his drinking, but his first wife Dixie Lee was an alcoholic. A 2001 biography of Crosby by Village Voice jazz critic Gary Giddins says that Louis Armstrong's influence on Bing "extended to his love of marijuana." Bing smoked it during his early career when it was legal and "surprised interviewers" in the 1960s and 70s by advocating its decriminalization, as did Armstrong. According to Giddins, Bing told his son Gary to stay away from alcohol ("It killed your mother") and suggested he smoke pot instead. Gary said, "There were other times when marijuana was mentioned and he'd get a smile on his face." Gary thought his father's pot smoking had influenced his easy-going style in his films. Crosby also smoked two packs of cigarettes a day until his second wife made him stop. He finally quit smoking his pipe and cigars following lung surgery in 1974.
Two of Bing's children, Lindsay and Dennis, committed suicide. It was widely published at the time of Lindsay's December 11, 1989 death that he ended his life the day after watching his father sing "White Christmas" on television. Dennis ended his life two years later, grieving over his brother's death, and battered, just as his brother had been, by alcoholism, failed relationships, and a lackluster career. Both brothers were subsisting on small allowances from their father's trust fund; both died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head.
Denise Crosby, Dennis' daughter, is also an actress and best known for her role as Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Nathaniel Crosby, Bing's youngest son from his second marriage, was a high-level golfer who won the U.S. Amateur at age 19 in 1981, becoming the youngest-ever winner of that event (a record later broken by Tiger Woods).
At his death, Bing was worth over $150 million because of his shrewd investments in oil, real estate, and other commodities, making him one of Hollywood's then wealthiest residents along with Fred MacMurray and best friend Bob Hope. He left a clause in his will stating that his sons from his first marriage could not collect their inheritance money until they were in their 80s. Bing felt that they had already been amply taken care of by a trust fund set up by their mother, Dixie Lee. All four sons continued to collect monies from that fund until their deaths. However, none lived long enough to collect any of their inheritance from their father.
Trivia
In 1992, Artie Shaw offered his opinion of Crosby's place in American culture in these terms: "The thing you have to understand about Bing Crosby is that he was the first hip white person born in the United States"1
He turned down an offer to play "Columbo" because he didn't want it to interfere with his golf schedule
His childhood home in Spokane, Washington now serves as the Alumni Association office for Gonzaga University. His dorm blanket hangs in the stairwell, and other memorabilia can be found on the first floor as well as in the "Crosbyana Room" at the Crosby Student Center. A statue of Crosby is located at the front steps of the student center, although his pipe has frequently been stolen as a prank. There is a campus legend that Crosby was asked to leave Gonzaga after trying (and failing) to use a pulley to bring a piano to his fourth floor dorm room in DeSmet Hall; the piano reportedly shattered on the ground below.
He was a major supporter of the U.S. Republican Party and actively campaigned for Wendell Willkie in the 1940 presidential election, after which he decided not to campaign again.[9]
Crosby's height was 5' 7" (1.70 m).
He lived for a short while in Tumwater, Washington near Olympia, Washington, the state capitol.
Theodore Bikel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Theodor Meir Bikel (b. May 2, 1924, Vienna, Austria) is a Jewish character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen (1951) and was nominated for an Academy award for his role as the Southern Sheriff in The Defiant Ones (1958).
He was the U-boat first officer to Curt Jurgens in The Enemy Below (1957) and played the captain of the Russian submarine in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966).
On Broadway he originated the role of Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music in 1959. Since his first appearance as Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof in 1967, Bikel has performed the role more often than any other actor (2094 times to date). Bikel was screentested for the role of Auric Goldfinger in the James Bond film Goldfinger(1964). The screentest can be seen on the "Ultimate Edition" DVD released in 2006.
Bikel was a co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival (together with Pete Seeger and George Wein) in 1961. In 1962 he heard Bob Dylan give his premiere performance of "Blowin' in the Wind." Bikel then went to his scheduled performance and became the first singer besides Dylan to perform the song in public. He also appeared in Frank Zappa's 200 Motels.
In the early 1990s, he appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in the episode "Family", playing Sergey Rozhenko, the Russian-born adopted father of Worf, who, as a petty officer on the Starfleet vessel Intrepid, had found Worf at the site of the Khitomer Massacre, and taken him home and to raise as his son. Bikel performed two roles in the Babylon 5 universe. The first was as Rabbi Koslov in the first season episode TKO. He later appeared in the TV movie, Babylon 5: In the Beginning as Anla'Shok leader Entil'Zha Lenonn.
Theodore made a most memorable guest appearance in the 1992 PBS special, Chanukkah at Grover's Corner. Bikel made latkes with a talking puppet named "Mozart" and wore a pink sweater, much to the delight of "Terry A La Berry".
Other work
Bikel is President of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America, and was president of Actors' Equity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. President Jimmy Carter appointed him to serve on the National Council for the Arts in 1977 for a six year term. On January 28, 2007, he was elected to serve as Chair of the Board of Directors of Meretz USA. Bikel is also a lecturer. Bikel's autobiography Theo was published in 1995 by Harper Collins, and re-issued in an updated version by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2002.
Engelbert Humperdinck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Arnold George Dorsey
Also known as Engelbert Humperdinck
Born Madras, India
Genre(s) Easy listening, pop
Instrument(s) Vocalist
Years active 1958-present
Engelbert Humperdinck (b. Arnold George Dorsey, May 2, 1936, Madras, India) is a well-known Anglo-Indian pop singer who rose to international fame during the 1960s, after adopting the name of the famous German opera composer as his own stage name.
Early Years
One of ten children of a British Army officer and his Indian-born wife, Arnold George Dorsey's family migrated to Leicester, England when he was ten, and a year later he showed an interest in music and began learning the saxophone. By the early 1950s, he was playing in nightclubs, but he's believed not to have tried singing until he was seventeen and friends coaxed him into entering a pub contest. His impression of Jerry Lewis prompted friends to begin calling him Gerry Dorsey, a name he worked under for almost a decade.
His budding music career was interrupted when he served in the British military in the mid-1950s, but he got his first chance to record in 1958, when Decca Records gave him a chance. His first single, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," was anything but a hit, but Dorsey and the label would reunite almost a decade later with far different results. Dorsey continued working the clubs until 1961, when he was stricken with tuberculosis. He regained his health but returned to club work with little success, until, in 1966, he teamed with an old roommate named Gordon Mills who had become a music impresario and the manager of Tom Jones.
Changes and Chart Topping
Aware that Dorsey had been struggling several years to make it in music, Mills suggested a name change to the more arresting Engelbert Humperdinck, borrowed from the composer of such operas as Hansel and Gretel. Mills also arranged a new deal with Decca Records. And in early 1967, the changes paid off when Humperdinck's version of "Release Me," done in a smooth ballad style with a full chorus joining him on the third chorus, reached the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic and went to number one in England, keeping the Beatles's adventurous "Strawberry Fields Forever" from claiming the top slot.
Even in a year dominated by psychedelic rock music, "Release Me"'s success may not have been that surprising, considering Frank Sinatra's chart comeback that began a year earlier, and stablemate Tom Jones's success with a ballad or two in the interim, both of which probably opened some new room for more traditionally-styled singers. "Release Me" was believed to sell 85,000 copies a day at the height of its popularity, and the song became the singer's signature song for many years.
Humperdinck's deceptively easygoing style and casually elegant good looks, a contrast to stablemate Tom Jones's energetic attack and overtly sexual style, earned Humperdinck a large following, particularly among women. "Release Me" was followed up by two more hit ballads, "There Goes My Everything" and "The Last Waltz," earning him a reputation as a crooner that he didn't always agree with. "If you are not a crooner," he told Hollywood Reporter writer Rick Sherwood, "it's something you don't want to be called. No crooner has the range I have. I can hit notes a bank could not cash. What I am is a contemporary singer, a stylized performer."
The hits kept coming---he charted with "Am I That Easy To Forget," "A Man Without Love," "Les Bicyclettes del Belsize," "The Way It Used To Be," "I'm A Better Man," and "Winter World of Love" before the 1960s ended and the 1970s were truly underway; he scored with such albums as The Last Waltz, The Way It Used To Be, A Man Without Love, and Engelbert Humperdinck. So did his own television program, though it didn't last as long as Jones's program did, being cancelled after six months.
Beyond the 1960s
As top 40 radio became less hospitable to his kind of balladry and a few Broadway influences found their way into his music, Humperdinck concentrated on selling albums and on live performances, developing lavish stage presentations that made him a natural for Las Vegas and similar venues. He wasn't entirely a stranger to hit singles, however---"After the Lovin'," a rhythmic ballad recorded for Mills's MAM Records (and released through Epic, a CBS subsidiary, in the United States), became one of the biggest hits of his career in 1976 and earned the singer a Grammy Award nomination for the album of the same name..
It was a conscious effort to update his music and his image. "I don't like to give people what they have already seen," Humperdinck was quoted as saying in a 1992 tourbook. "I take the job description of 'entertainer' very seriously! I try to bring a sparkle that people don't expect and I get the biggest kick from hearing someone say 'I had no idea you could do that!'" He also defended his fan mania, which helped him continue to sell records when radio play dried up for him. "They are very loyal to me and very militant as far as my reputation is concerned," Humperdinck had told Sherwood. "I call them the spark plugs of my success."
But he later revealed that he had little if any say in the selection of songs for his albums, a fact that had sometimes brought into question whether he was his own or his manager's or record label's pawn. As his career moved on, however, Humperdinck began gaining more creative freedom, and his albums accordingly brought several kinds of songs into his reach beyond syrupy ballads. But he kept romance at the core of his music regardless, and he's long since been tagged by fans as "the King of Romance."
1980s to present
By the 1980s, approaching his fiftieth birthday, Humperdinck continued recording albums regularly and performing as many as two hundred concerts a year---yet managed somehow to maintain a strong semblance of family life. He and his wife, Patricia, raised four children, all of whom are said to have become involved, eventually, in their father's career, even as the family alternated between homes in England and in southern California.
He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1989 and won a Golden Globe Award as entertainer of the year, while also beginning major involvement in charitable causes such as the Leukemia Research Fund, the American Red Cross, the American Lung Association, and several AIDS relief organisations. He even wrote a song for one such group, the theme anthem for the group Reach Out. "[H]e's a gentleman," longtime friend Clifford Elson has been quoted as saying of him, "in a business that's not full of many gentlemen."
The 21st Century
Humperdinck---who changed his name legally to his stage name at the height of his career (though he's known in Germany and Austria merely as Engelbert; the composer's heirs had sued him over his stage name adoption)---hit the top five British album charts in 2000 with Engelbert At His Very best, and returned to the album top five four years later, after he appeared in a John Smiths advertisement.
In August 2005, Humperdinck auctioned his Harley-Davidson motorcycle on eBay to raise money for the County Air Ambulance in Leicestershire, where he spent so much of his British youth. [1]
Trivia
Engelbert Humperdinck bought the famed Pink Palace, the former home of actress Jayne Mansfield (and formerly the home of singer-actor Rudy Vallee), during the 1970s. He sold the forty-room, Mediterranean-style mansion---built in 1929 but famous for Mansfield's installation of a heart shaped swimming pool and pink lighting, and sitting on over an acre of land---for a reported $4,000,000, $3,025,000 more than Mansfield had paid, to developers who tore it down to make way for other houses in 2002.
His only daughter, Louise Dorsey, made a brief foray into television during the 1980's. Most notably she appeared in an episode of Murder, She Wrote and voiced the new Misfits band member Jetta on the third and final season of Jem. She currently works for her father as a PR consultant and occasionally sings with him on stage.
Eddie Izzard has an entire section about Engelbert Humperdinck as part of his Dress to Kill routine where Izzard speculates on other possible stage names for Humperdinck including Zangelbert Bingledack, Wingelbert Humptyback, and Slut Bunwalla.
Humperdinck appeared in a Christmas commercial for the office supplies store Staples in late 2006.
Humperdinck performed the introduction music "Little Boxes" on Season 2, Episode 3 of Showtime's comedy series Weeds in 2006.
Chris LeDoux mentions Humperdinck in his song "Honky Tonk World", released in 1994. It includes the line, "Don't even think that your Engelbert Humperdinck record's gonna turn her on." Ironically, the song was covered by Humperdinck on his 2006 album "Totally Amazing".
Lesley Gore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Lesley Sue Goldstein
Also known as Lesley Gore
Born May 2, 1946
Origin New York City, New York, United States
Genre(s) Pop
Occupation(s) Singer, Songwriter
Instrument(s) Vocals
Years active 1963- Present
Associated
acts Sue Thompson, Brenda Lee
Website Lesley Gore Official Site
Lesley Gore (born May 2, 1946 in New York City as Lesley Sue Goldstein) is an American singer and songwriter of the so-called "girl group era". She is perhaps best-known for her 1963 Pop hit, "It's My Party," which she recorded at the age of 16. Following this hit, she became one of the most recognized Teen Pop singers of the 1960s.
Career
Gore was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey in a Jewish family. She was a junior at the Dwight School for Girls in Englewood when "It's My Party" became a #1 hit.
Her first hit was followed by many others, including "Judy's Turn to Cry" (the sequel to "It's My Party"), "She's a Fool", the proto-feminist "You Don't Own Me," and "Maybe I Know." Her record producer was Quincy Jones, who would later become one of the most famous producers in American music.
Instead of accepting the television and movie contracts that came her way, Gore chose to attend Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. This limited her public career to weekends and summer vacations, and undoubtedly hurt her career. Nevertheless, throughout the mid-1960s, Gore continued to be the one of the most popular female singers in the United States and Canada.
Gore was given first shot at recording "A Groovy Kind of Love", but her then-producer Shelby Singleton refused to let her record a song with the word "groovy" in it.[citation needed] The Mindbenders went on to record the song, and it rocketed to #2 on the Billboard charts. Gore also released "Wedding Bell Blues" as a single in 1969,[citation needed] but her version flopped, while the Fifth Dimension's spent three weeks at #1.
By the late 1960s, her popularity had decreased with the advent of harder-edged psychedelic music. Her last major hit was the Bob Crewe-produced "California Nights," which she performed on the January 19, 1967, episode of the Batman TV series, in which she guest-starred as one of Catwoman's minions.[citation needed] Afterwards, she maintained a lower profile in the music industry, performing at concerts and in cabarets. She also kept busy writing songs, including composing songs for the soundtrack of the 1980 film, Fame.[citation needed] She received an Academy Award nomination for "Out Here on My Own," written with her brother Michael. The song was a Top 20 hit for Irene Cara.[citation needed]
Lesley Gore's French EP album.Gore still maintains a busy schedule, playing concerts, appearing on television, and recently (2005) recording the Blake Morgan-produced and critically-acclaimed CD, "Ever Since." She is also known for tackling a variety of musical genres, including a credible take on AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap."
Sexual orientation, 2005 "coming out"
Gore announced in 2005 that she was a lesbian. [1] She stated further that she did not know her own orientation until she was in her twenties, and after she discovered that she was a lesbian, she never gave much thought to exposing it publicly, but at the same time she took no great lengths to hide it.
Some commentators consider the lyric content of some albums, notably Someplace Else Now, to contain implicit references to Gore's sexuality.
Gore provided musical aid for the 1996 film Grace of My Heart, which featured a character (played by Bridget Fonda), whose struggles over her sexual orientation were similar to Gore's. Beginning in 2004, Gore could be seen hosting the PBS television series, In the Life, which focused on GLBT issues. Gore currently lives with her partner of over twenty-three years.
Well, hawkman, I think you just gave us all a lesson in vocabulary. We always enjoy your funnies, honies. Shall we play a dirge for each one of those stereotyped fellows?
I was surprised that Bing died in Madrid, Spain, and you always enlighten us with those interesting facts from your celeb background.
As usual, we await with anticipation, our Raggedy to ...well, you know, right?
I never see Engelbert Humperdinck's picture that I don't think of Somerset Maugham's "The Luncheon" Just as the lady in that short story, Engelbert has far too many teeth for all practical purposes.
Well, just for the thrill of it, let's hear that song that you mentioned, BioBob, although I am not certain that this is the one.
What do you get when you fall in love?
A girl with a pin to burst your bubble
That's what you get for all your trouble
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again
What do you get when you kiss a girl
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, she'll never phone ya
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again
Don't tell me what it's all about
'cause I've been there and I'm glad I'm not
Out of those chains those chains that bind you
That is why I'm here to remind you
What do you get when you fall in love?
You only get lies and pain and sorrow
So far at least until tomorrow
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again
Don't Boogie Woogie
Jerry Lee Lewis
I was feelin' kind of poorly, hadn't been lookin' too fine
I just had to find out what was ailin' this old body of mine
So I went to my family doctor
To get my temperature and set me straight
And the first thing he did was to tell me
To quit eatin' every good thing I ate
And he told old Jerry Lee to stop smokin'
Lay off of that beer and whiskey
He said, son you gonna have to have a little help
And confidentially he looked at Jerry Lee
He shook his head, and then he said
Like a friend he took my hand and he said:
Don't boogie woogie when you say your prayers tonight
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
Son, you can't boogie woogie when you send your prayers tonight
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
Jerry Lee, you been over-rockin', you know that it ain't right
You better turn on Jesus when you switch out the light
Don't boogie woogie when you say your prayers tonight
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
He wired me up like spaceman and he turned on the cardiograph
The needle went out of sight, the doc turned white
He called in his entire staff
And he cried out in disbelief
Told the Killer with startling conviction
He said, if you don't live right son
You're gonna die of cholesterol constriction
He looked at me, he shook his head
Here's a perspective that I think you're gonna dread
You can't boogie woogie when you say your prayers tonight
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
You can't do it, you can't do it son, it ain't right
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
You better quit rockin' boy, you know it ain't right
You better turn on Jesus when you turn out your light
Don't boogie woogie when you say your prayers tonight
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
Wow, give it to me now!
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
Oh, don't boogie woogie when you say your prayers tonight
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
You can't boogie woogie when you say your prayers tonight
(Don't boogie woogie, don't boogie woogie)
Son, you been over-rockin' and you know that it ain't right
You better turn on Jesus when you switch out the light
Don't boogie woogie when you say your prayers tonight
