This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Name | Ruth Etting |
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Birth date | November 23, 1897 |
Birth place | David City, Nebraska |
Death date | |
Death place | Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S. |
Occupation | Singer; actress}} |
Ruth Etting (November 23, 1897 — September 24, 1978) was an American singing star and actress of the 1920s and 1930s, who had over 60 hit recordings and worked in stage, radio, and film. Her signature tunes were "Shine On Harvest Moon", "Ten Cents a Dance", and "Love Me or Leave Me". Her other popular recordings included "Button Up Your Overcoat", "Mean to Me", "Exactly Like You", and "Shaking the Blues Away".
Ruth Etting left David City at the age of seventeen to attend art school in Chicago. Her job designing costumes at the Marigold Gardens nightclub led to employment singing and dancing in the chorus there. She became a featured vocalist at the nightclub, and married gangster Martin "Moe the Gimp" Snyder on July 12, 1922. He managed her career, booking radio appearances, and eventually had her signed to an exclusive recording contract with Columbia Records. She made her Broadway debut in the ''Ziegfeld Follies of 1927''. She went on to appear in a number of other hit shows in rapid succession, including ''Simple Simon'' and ''Whoopee!''. In Hollywood, she made a long series of movie shorts between 1929 and 1936, and three feature movies in 1933 and 1934. In 1936, she appeared in London in Ray Henderson's ''Transatlantic Rhythm''.
Category:1897 births Category:1978 deaths Category:Actors from Nebraska Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American musical theatre actors Category:Disease-related deaths in Colorado Category:Musicians from Nebraska Category:People from Colorado Springs, Colorado Category:Torch singers Category:Vaudeville performers
de:Ruth Etting it:Ruth Etting pt:Ruth Etting fi:Ruth EttingThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
name | Busby Berkeley |
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birth name | Busby Berkeley William Enos |
birth date | November 29, 1895 |
birth place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
death date | March 14, 1976 |
death place | Palm Desert, California, U.S. |
occupation | film director, choreographer |
years active | 1901–1971 }} |
Busby Berkeley (November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeley's works used large numbers of showgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances.
In addition to her stage work, Gertrude played mother roles in silent films while Berkley was still a child. Berkeley made his stage debut at five, acting in the company of his performing family. During World War I, Berkeley served as a field artillery lieutenant. Watching soldiers drill may have inspired his later complex choreography. During the 1920s, Berkeley was a dance director for nearly two dozen Broadway musicals, including such hits as ''A Connecticut Yankee''. As a choreographer, Berkeley was less concerned with the terpsichorean skill of his chorus girls as he was with their ability to form themselves into attractive geometric patterns. His musical numbers were among the largest and best-regimented on Broadway.
His earliest movie jobs were on Samuel Goldwyn's Eddie Cantor musicals, where he began developing such techniques as a “parade of faces” (individualizing each chorus girl with a loving close-up), and moving his dancers all over the stage (and often beyond) in as many kaleidoscopic patterns as possible. Berkeley's top shot technique (the kaleidoscope again, this time shot from overhead) appeared seminally in the Cantor films, and also the 1932 Universal programmer ''Night World'' (where he choreographed the number "Who's Your Little Who-Zis?"). His numbers were known for starting out in the realm of the stage, but quickly exceeding this space by moving into a time and place that could only be cinematic, only to return to shots of an applauding audience and the fall of a curtain. As choreographer, Berkeley was allowed a certain degree of independence in his direction of musical numbers, and they were often markedly distinct from (and sometimes in contrast to) the narrative sections of the films. The numbers he choreographed were mostly upbeat and focused on decoration as opposed to substance; one exception to this is the number “Remember My Forgotten Man” from ''Gold Diggers of 1933'', which dealt with the treatment of soldiers in a post-World War I Depression.
Berkeley's popularity with an entertainment-hungry Great Depression audience was secured when he choreographed four musicals back-to-back for Warner Bros.: ''42nd Street'', ''Footlight Parade'', the aforementioned ''Gold Diggers of 1933'' and ''Fashions of 1934'', as well as ''In Caliente'' and ''Wonder Bar'' with Dolores del Río. Berkeley's innovative and often sexually-charged dance numbers have been analyzed at length by cinema scholars. In particular, the numbers have been critiqued for their display (and some say exploitation) of the female form as seen through the “male gaze”, and for their depiction of collectivism (as opposed to traditionally American rugged individualism) in the spirit of Roosevelt's New Deal. Berkeley always denied any deep significance to his work, arguing that his main professional goals were to constantly top himself and to never repeat his past accomplishments.
As the outsized musicals in which Berkeley specialized became passé, he turned to straight directing. The result was 1939's ''They Made Me a Criminal'', one of John Garfield's best films. Berkeley had several well-publicized run-ins with MGM stars such as Judy Garland. In 1943, he was removed as director of ''Girl Crazy'' because of disagreements with Garland, although the lavish musical number "I Got Rhythm", which he directed, remained in the picture.
His next stop was at 20th Century-Fox for 1943's ''The Gang's All Here'', in which Berkeley choreographed Carmen Miranda's “Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat” number. The film made money, but Berkeley and the Fox brass disagreed over budget matters. Berkeley returned to MGM in the late 1940s, where among many other accomplishments he conceived the Technicolor finales for the studio's Esther Williams films. Berkeley's final film as choreographer was MGM's ''Billy Rose's Jumbo'' (1962).
Berkeley was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 1988.
Berkeley died on March 14, 1976 in Palm Springs, California at the age of 80 from natural causes. He is buried in the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.
Category:1895 births Category:1976 deaths Category:Burials at Desert Memorial Park Category:American choreographers Category:American film directors Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Film choreographers
ca:Busby Berkeley de:Busby Berkeley es:Busby Berkeley fr:Busby Berkeley it:Busby Berkeley he:באזבי ברקלי ja:バスビー・バークレー pl:Busby Berkeley pt:Busby Berkeley ru:Беркли, Басби sv:Busby BerkeleyThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
name | Harry Roy |
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background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
birth name | Harry Lipman |
born | 12 January 1900 |
died | 1 February 1971 |
origin | London, England |
instrument | Clarinet |
genre | Jazz |
associated acts | Syd Roy, Eddie Carroll, Joe Daniels, Nat Temple, Ray Ellington, Stanley Black |
notable instruments | }} |
Harry Roy, born Harry Lipman (12 January 1900 – 1 February 1971) was a British dance band leader and clarinet player from the 1920s until the 1960s.
During the war years, Harry toured around with his band, Harry Roy's Tiger Ragamuffins. He was at the Embassy Club in 1942, and a little later, toured the Middle East, entertaining troops. In 1948 Harry went to the U.S., but was refused a work permit. Returning to England, he reformed his band and scored a big hit with his recording of "Leicester Square Rag".
By the early 1950s the big band era had come to an end. The band split up, but Harry still drifted in and out of the music scene. In the 1950s, he ran his own restaurant, the Diners' Club, but it was destroyed by fire. In 1969, Harry returned to music, leading a quartet in the London Lyric Theatre's show ''Oh Clarence'', but he was by then in failing health and died in London on 1 February 1971.
Category:British bandleaders Category:British clarinetists Category:Clarinetists Category:Dirty blues musicians Category:Dixieland jazz musicians Category:Parlophone artists Category:1900 births Category:1971 deaths
fr:Harry Roy sv:Harry RoyThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
name | Bing Crosby |
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background | solo_singer |
birth name | Harry Lillis Crosby |
born | May 03, 1903Tacoma, Washington, U.S. |
origin | Spokane, Washington, U.S. |
died | October 14, 1977Madrid, Spain |
instrument | Vocals |
voice type | Baritone/Bass-baritone |
genre | Traditional pop, jazz, vocal |
occupation | Singer, actor |
years active | 1926–1977 |
label | Brunswick, Decca, Reprise, RCA Victor, Verve, United Artists |
associated acts | Bob Hope, Dixie Lee, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, The Rhythm Boys, Rosemary Clooney, David Bowie, Louis Armstrong |
website | http://www.bingcrosby.com }} |
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation.
A multimedia star, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby was a leader in record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses. His early career coincided with technical recording innovations; this allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that influenced many of the popular male singers who followed him, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. ''Yank'' magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American G.I. 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 Pope Pius XII. Also in 1948, the ''Music Digest'' estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.
Crosby exerted an important influence on the development of the postwar recording industry. He worked for NBC at the time and wanted to record his shows; however, most broadcast networks did not allow recording. This was mainly because of the quality of recording at the time. While in Europe performing during the war, Crosby had witnessed tape recording, on which The Crosby Research Foundation would come to have many patents. The company also developed equipment and recording techniques such as the Laugh Track which are still in use today. In 1947, he invested $50,000 in the Ampex company, which built North America's first commercial reel-to-reel tape recorder. He left NBC to work for ABC, because NBC was not interested in recording at the time. This proved beneficial because ABC accepted him and his new ideas. Crosby then became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto 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, Crosby was one of the principal backers behind the famous United Western Recorders recording studio complex in Los Angeles.
During the "Golden Age of Radio," performers often had to recreate their live shows a second time for the west coast time zone. Through the aegis of recording, Crosby constructed his radio programs with the same directorial tools and craftsmanship (editing, retaking, rehearsal, time shifting) being used in motion picture production. This became the industry standard.
Crosby won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Father Chuck O'Malley in the 1944 motion picture ''Going My Way'', and was nominated for his reprise of the role in ''The Bells of St. Mary's'' the next year, becoming the first of four actors to be nominated twice for playing the same character. In 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. Crosby is one of the 22 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He was the fourth of seven children: brothers Larry (1895–1975), Everett (1896–1966), Ted (1900–1973), Harry 'Bing' (1903–1977), and Bob (1913–1993); and two girls, Catherine (1904–1974) and Mary Rose (1906–1990). His parents, Harry Lincoln Crosby (1870–1950), an English-American bookkeeper, and Catherine Helen (known as Kate) Harrigan (1873–1964), who was a second generation Irish-American. Bing's paternal ancestors had emigrated to what would become the U.S. in the 17th century, and included Patience Brewster, the daughter of the Pilgrim leader and ''Mayflower'' passenger William Brewster, (c. 1567 – April 10, 1644).
In 1910, six-year-old Harry Crosby was forever renamed. The Sunday edition of the ''Spokesman-Review'' published a feature called "The Bingville Bugle". Written by humorist Newton Newkirk, ''The Bingville Bugle'' was a parody of a hillbilly newsletter filled 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". Eventually the last vowel was dropped and the nickname 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 Al Jolson, who held Crosby spellbound with his ad libbing and spoofs of Hawaiian songs. Crosby later described Jolson's delivery as "electric".
Even as the Crosby and Rinker duo was increasing in popularity, Whiteman added a third member to the group. The threesome, now including pianist and aspiring songwriter Harry Barris, were dubbed "The Rhythm Boys". They joined the Whiteman touring act, performing and recording with musicians Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, and Eddie Lang and Hoagy Carmichael, and appeared together in a Whiteman movie.
Crosby soon became the star attraction of the Rhythm Boys, and in 1928 had his first number one hit with the Whiteman orchestra, a jazz-influenced rendition of "Ol' Man River". However, Crosby's reported taste for alcohol and his growing dissatisfaction with Whiteman led to the Rhythm Boys quitting to join the Gus Arnheim Orchestra. During his time with Arnheim, the other two Rhythm Boys were increasingly pushed to the background as the emphasis was on Crosby. Harry Barris wrote several of Crosby's subsequent hits including "At Your Command," "I Surrender Dear", and "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams". But the members of the band had a falling out and split, setting the stage for Crosby's solo career.
On September 2, 1931, Crosby made his solo radio debut. Before the end of the year, he signed with both Brunswick Records and CBS Radio. Doing a weekly 15-minute radio broadcast, Crosby quickly became a huge hit. His songs "Out of Nowhere", "Just One More Chance", "At Your Command" and "I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)" were all among the best selling songs of 1931.
As the 1930s unfolded, Crosby became the leading singer in America. Ten of the top 50 songs for 1931 featured Crosby, either solo or with others. A so-called "Battle of the Baritones" with singing star Russ Columbo proved short-lived, replaced with the slogan "Bing Was King." Crosby played the lead in a series of sound era musical comedy short films for Mack Sennett, signed a long-term deal with Jack Kapp's new record company Decca, and starred in his first full-length feature, 1932's ''The Big Broadcast'', the first of 55 films in which he received top billing. He would appear in 79 pictures.
Around this time Crosby co-starred on radio with The Carl Fenton Orchestra on a popular CBS radio show. By 1936, he'd replaced his former boss, Paul Whiteman, as the host of NBC's ''Kraft Music Hall'', the weekly radio program where he remained for the next ten years. "Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)", which also showcased one of his then-trademark whistling interludes, became his theme song and signature tune.
Crosby's much-imitated style helped take popular singing beyond the kind of "belting" associated with boisterous performers like Al Jolson, who had been obliged to reach the back seats in New York theatres without the aid of the microphone. As Henry Pleasants noted in ''The Great American Popular Singers'', something new had entered American music, a style that might be called "singing in American," with conversational ease. This new sound led to the popular epithet "crooner". Crosby made numerous live appearances before American troops fighting in the European Theater. He also learned how to pronounce German from written scripts, and would read propaganda broadcasts intended for the German forces. The nickname "Der Bingle" for him was understood to have become current among Crosby's German listeners, and came to be used by his English-speaking fans. In a poll of U.S. troops at the close of World War II, Crosby topped the list as the person who had done the most for G.I. morale, ahead of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, General Dwight Eisenhower, and Bob Hope.
Crosby starred with Bob Hope in seven ''Road to'' musical comedies between 1940 and 1962, cementing the two entertainers as an on-and-off duo, despite never officially declaring themselves a "team" in the sense that Laurel and Hardy or Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were teams. The series consists of ''Road to Singapore'' (1940), ''Road to Zanzibar'' (1941), ''Road to Morocco'' (1942), ''Road to Utopia'' (1946), ''Road to Rio'' (1947), ''Road to Bali'' (1952), and ''The Road to Hong Kong'' (1962), and Crosby and Hope were planning another entry called ''The Road to the Fountain of Youth'' in 1977, which was dropped upon Crosby's death. Appearing solo, Crosby and Hope frequently made note of the other during their various appearances, typically in a comically insulting fashion, and they appeared together countless times on stage, radio, and television over the decades as well as cameos in several additional films.
By the late 1950s, Crosby's singing career had evolved into that of an avuncular elder statesman, and his albums ''Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings'' and ''Bing With A Beat'' sold reasonably well, even in the rock 'n roll era. 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.
Crosby was a frequent guest on the musical variety shows of the 1950s and 1960s. He was especially closely associated with ABC's variety show ''The Hollywood Palace''. He was the show's first and most frequent guest host, and appeared annually on its Christmas edition with his wife Kathryn and his younger children. In the early 1970s he made two famous late appearances on the ''Flip Wilson Show'', singing duets with the comedian. Crosby's last TV appearance was a Christmas special filmed in London in September 1977 and aired just weeks after his death. It was on this special that Crosby recorded a duet of "Little Drummer Boy" with the flamboyant rock star David Bowie. It was first released as a single five years later, and has since become a staple of holiday radio, and the final popular hit of Crosby's career. At the end of the century, ''TV Guide'' listed the Crosby-Bowie duet as one of the 25 most memorable musical moments of 20th century television.
Bing Crosby Productions, affiliated with Desilu Studios and later CBS Television Studios, produced a number of television series, including Crosby's own unsuccessful ABC sitcom ''The Bing Crosby Show'' in the 1964–1965 season (with co-stars Beverly Garland and Frank McHugh). The company produced two ABC medical dramas, ''Ben Casey'' (1961–1966) and ''Breaking Point'' (1963–1964), the popular ''Hogan's Heroes'' (1965–1971) military comedy on CBS, as well as the lesser-known show ''Slattery's People'' (1964–1965).
During the early portion of his solo career (about 1931-1934), Crosby's emotional, often pleading style of crooning was extremely popular. But Jack Kapp (manager of Brunswick and later Decca) talked Crosby into dropping many of his jazzier mannerisms, in favor of a straight-ahead clear vocal style.
Crosby also elaborated on a further idea of Al Jolson's: phrasing, or the art of making a song's lyric ring true. His success in doing so was influential. "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."
Vocal critic Henry Pleasants wrote: :"[While] 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. From the mid-1950s, Bing was 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."
thumb|left|250px|Crosby with Danny Kaye in ''[[White Christmas (film)|White Christmas'' (1954)]]For 15 years (1934, 1937, 1940, 1943–1954), Crosby was among the top 10 in box office drawing power, and for five of those years (1944–1948) he was tops 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 the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in ''Going My Way'' (1944).
He collected 23 gold and platinum records, according to the book ''Million Selling Records.'' 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; prior to that point, gold records are awarded by an artist's own 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 was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been inducted into the halls of fame for both radio and popular music. In 2007 Crosby was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame, and in 2008 into the Western Music Hall of Fame.
Crosby's radio career took a significant turn in 1945, when he clashed with NBC over his insistence that he be allowed to pre-record his radio shows. (The live production of radio shows was also reinforced by the musicians' union and ASCAP, which wanted to ensure continued work for their members.) In ''On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio'', historian John Dunning wrote about German engineers having developed a tape recorder with a near-professional broadcast quality standard: :"[Crosby saw] an enormous advantage in prerecording his radio shows. The scheduling could now be done at the star's convenience. He could do four shows a week, if he chose, and then take a month off. But the networks and sponsors were adamantly opposed. The public wouldn't stand for 'canned' radio, the networks argued. There was something magic for listeners in the fact that what they were hearing was being performed, and heard everywhere, at that precise instant. Some of the best moments in comedy came when a line was blown and the star had to rely on wit to rescue a bad situation. Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Phil Harris, and, yes, Crosby were masters at this, and the networks weren't about to give it up easily."
Crosby's insistence eventually factored into the further development of magnetic tape sound recording and the radio industry's widespread adoption of it. He used his clout, both professional and financial, to innovate new methods of reproducing audio of his performances. But NBC (and competitor CBS) were also insistent, refusing to air prerecorded radio programs. Crosby walked away from the network and stayed off the air for seven months, creating a legal battle with Kraft, his sponsor, that was settled out of court. Crosby returned to the air for the last 13 weeks of the 1945–1946 season.
The Mutual network, on the other hand, had pre-recorded some of its programs as early as the 1938 run of ''The Shadow'' with Orson Welles. And the new ABC network, which had been formed out of the sale of the old NBC Blue network in 1943 following a federal anti-trust action, was willing to join Mutual in breaking the tradition. ABC offered Crosby $30,000 per week to produce a recorded show every Wednesday that would be sponsored by Philco. He would also get an additional $40,000 from 400 independent stations for the rights to broadcast the 30-minute show, which was sent to them every Monday on three 16-inch lacquer/aluminum discs that played ten 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, just when the new radio season was to start. But golf was not the most important reason.
Though Crosby did want more time to tend his other business and leisure activities, he also sought better quality through recording, including being able to eliminate mistakes and control the timing of his show 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; the logistics of 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 (he preferred a hat). He could also record short promotions for his latest investment, the world's first frozen orange juice, sold under the brand name Minute Maid. This investment allowed Crosby to make more money by finding a loophole whereby the IRS couldn't tax him at a 77% rate.
The transcription method posed problems, however. 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.
But Murdo MacKenzie of Bing Crosby Enterprises had seen a demonstration of the German Magnetophon in June 1947—the same device that Jack Mullin had brought back from Radio Frankfurt, along with 50 reels of tape, at the end of the war. It was one of the magnetic tape recorders that BASF and AEG had built in Germany starting in 1935. The 6.5mm ferric-oxide-coated tape could record 20 minutes per reel of high-quality sound. Alexander M. Poniatoff ordered his Ampex company, which he'd founded in 1944, to manufacture an improved version of the Magnetophone.
Crosby hired Mullin to start recording his ''Philco Radio Time'' show on his German-made machine in August 1947, using the same 50 reels of I.G. 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 Crosby 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 Crosby'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 invested US$50,000 in Ampex with an eye towards producing more machines. In 1948, the second season of Philco shows was taped with the new Ampex Model 200 tape recorder using the new Scotch 111 tape from the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) company. Mullin explained how one new broadcasting technique was 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 is 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.
Mullin continued to work for Crosby to develop a videotape recorder (VTR). Television production was mostly live television in its early years, but Crosby wanted the same ability to record that he had achieved in radio. 1950's ''The Fireside Theater'', sponsored by Procter and Gamble, was his first television production. Mullin had not yet succeeded with video tape, so Crosby filmed the series of 26-minute shows at the Hal Roach Studios, and the "telefilms" were syndicated to individual television stations.
Crosby did not remain a television producer, but continued to finance the development of videotape. Bing Crosby Enterprises (BCE), gave the world's first demonstration of videotape recording in Los Angeles on November 11, 1951. Developed by John T. Mullin and Wayne R. Johnson since 1950, the device aired what were described as "blurred and indistinct" images, using a modified Ampex 200 tape recorder and standard quarter-inch (6.3 mm) audio tape moving at 360 inches (9.1 m) per second.
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. A number of Argentine-bred horses were purchased and shipped 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's horse Ligaroti. In 1943, Binglin's horse Don Bingo won the 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, who needed to raise enough funds to pay the hefty federal and state inheritance taxes on his deceased wife's estate. The Bing Crosby Breeders' Cup Handicap at Del Mar Racetrack is named in his honor.
Crosby was also a co-owner of the British colt Meadow Court, with jockey Johnny Longden's friend Max Bell . Meadow Court won the 1965 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and the Irish Derby. In the Irish Derby's winner's circle at the Curragh, Crosby sang "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."
Though Crosby's stables had some success, he often joked about his horseracing failures as part of his radio appearances. "Crosby's horse finally came in" became a running gag.
Crosby was also an avid golfer, and 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. He is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. Since 1937, the 'Crosby Clambake' as it was popularly known—now the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am—has been a leading event in the world of professional golf.
Crosby first took up golf at 12 as a caddy, dropped it, and started again in 1930 with some fellow cast members in Hollywood during the filming of ''The King of Jazz''. Crosby was accomplished at the sport, with a two handicap. He competed in both the British and U.S. Amateur championships, was a five-time club champion at Lakeside Golf Club in Hollywood, and once made a hole-in-one on the 16th at Cypress Point.
Kathryn converted to Catholicism in order to marry the singer. Crosby was also a registered Republican, and actively campaigned for Wendell Willkie in 1940 against President Roosevelt, arguing that no man should serve more than two terms in the White House. After Willkie lost, Crosby decreed that he would never again make any open political contributions.
Crosby reportedly had an alcohol problem in his youth, and may have been dismissed from Paul Whiteman's orchestra because of it, but he later got a handle on his drinking. ''Village Voice'' jazz critic and Crosby biographer Gary Giddins says that Louis Armstrong's influence on Crosby "extended to his love of marijuana." Crosby smoked it during his early career when it was still legal, and "surprised interviewers" in the 1960s and 70s by advocating its decriminalization. According to Giddins, Crosby 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 easygoing style in his films. Crosby finally quit smoking his pipe following lung surgery in 1974.
After Crosby's death, his eldest son, Gary, wrote a highly critical memoir, ''Going My Own Way'', depicting his father as cold, remote, and both physically and psychologically abusive. Two of Crosby's other sons, Lindsay and Dennis, sided with Gary's claim and stated Crosby abused them as well. Dennis also stated that Crosby would abuse Gary the most often.
Gary Crosby wrote: :"We had to keep a close watch on our actions... When one of us left a sneaker or pair of underpants lying around, he had to tie the offending object on a string and wear it around his neck until he went off to bed that night. Dad called it "the Crosby lavalier." At the time the humor of the name escaped me...
:"Satchel Ass" or "Bucket Butt" or "My Fat-assed Kid." That's how he introduced me to his cronies when he dragged me along to the studio or racetrack... By the time I was ten or eleven he had stepped up his campaign by adding lickings to the regimen. Each Tuesday afternoon he weighed me in, and if the scale read more than it should have, he ordered me into his office and had me drop my trousers... I dropped my pants, pulled down my undershorts and bent over. Then he went at it with the belt dotted with metal studs he kept reserved for the occasion. Quite dispassionately, without the least display of emotion or loss of self-control, he whacked away until he drew the first drop of blood, and then he stopped. It normally took between twelve and fifteen strokes. As they came down I counted them off one by one and hoped I would bleed early...
:When I saw ''Going My Way'' I was as moved as they were by the character he played. Father O'Malley handled that gang of young hooligans in his parish with such kindness and wisdom that I thought he was wonderful too. Instead of coming down hard on the kids and withdrawing his affection, he forgave them their misdeeds, took them to the ball game and picture show, taught them how to sing. By the last reel, the sheer persistence of his goodness had transformed even the worst of them into solid citizens. Then the lights came on and the movie was over. All the way back to the house I thought about the difference between the person up there on the screen and the one I knew at home."
It was revealed that Crosby's will had established a blind trust, with none of the sons receiving an inheritance until they reached the age of 65.
However, younger son Phillip vociferously disputed his brother Gary's claims about their father. Around the time Gary made his claim, Phillip stated to the press that "Gary is a whining...crybaby, walking around with a 2-by-4 and just daring people to nudge it off." However, Phillip did not deny that Crosby believed in corporal punishment. In an interview with People Magazine, Phillip stated that "we never got an extra whack or a cuff we didn't deserve." In an interview conducted in 1999 by the Globe, Phillip said: :"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." Gary Crosby died in 1995 at the age of 62, and 69-year-old Phillip Crosby died in 2004.
Lindsay and Dennis Crosby each committed suicide, shooting themselves with shotguns in 1989 and 1991, respectively. Nathaniel Crosby, Crosby's youngest son from his second marriage, was a high-level golfer who won the U.S. Amateur at age 19 in 1981, at the time the youngest-ever winner of that event (a record later broken by Tiger Woods). Harry Crosby is an investment banker who occasionally makes singing appearances.
Widow Kathryn Crosby dabbled in local theater productions intermittently, and appeared in television tributes to her late husband. Denise Crosby, Dennis Crosby's daughter, is also an actress and is known for her role as Tasha Yar on ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', and for the recurring role of the Romulan Sela (daughter of Tasha Yar) after her withdrawal from the series as a regular cast member. She also appeared in the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel ''Pet Sematary''. In 2006, Crosby's niece, Carolyn Schneider, published the laudatory book "Me and Uncle Bing."
Following his recovery from a life-threatening fungal infection of his right lung in 1974, Crosby emerged from semi-retirement to start a new spate of albums and concerts. In March 1977, after videotaping a concert for CBS to commemorate his 50th anniversary in show business and with a horrified Bob Hope looking on, Crosby backed off the stage and fell into an orchestra pit, rupturing a disc in his back and requiring a month in the hospital. His first performance after the accident was his last American concert, on August 16, 1977; when the power went out, he continued singing without amplification. In September, Crosby, his family, and singer Rosemary Clooney began a concert tour of England that included two weeks at the London Palladium. While in England, Crosby recorded his final album, ''Seasons'', and his final TV Christmas special with guest David Bowie. His last concert was in The Brighton Centre four days before his death, with British entertainer Dame Gracie Fields in attendance. Crosby's last photograph was taken with Fields.
At the conclusion of his work in England, Crosby flew alone to Spain to hunt and play golf. Shortly after 6 p.m. on October 14, Crosby collapsed and died of a massive heart attack after a round of 18 holes of golf near Madrid where he and his Spanish golfing partner had just defeated their opponents. It is widely written that his last words were "That was a great game of golf, fellas." In ''Bob Hope's Confessions of a Hooker: My Lifelong Love Affair With Golf'', the comedian recounts hearing that Crosby had been advised by a physician in England to play only nine holes of golf because of his heart condition.
The family launched an official website on October 14, 2007, the 30th anniversary of Crosby's death.
In his 1990 autobiography ''Don't Shoot, It's Only Me!'' Bob Hope wrote, "Dear old Bing. As we called him, the ''Economy-sized Sinatra''. And what a voice. God I miss that voice. I can't even turn on the radio around Christmas time without crying anymore."
Calypso musician Roaring Lion wrote a tribute song in 1939 entitled "Bing Crosby", in which he wrote: "Bing has a way of singing with his very heart and soul / Which captivates the world / His millions of listeners never fail to rejoice / At his golden voice..."
#"That's Grandma" (1927), with Harry Barris and James Cavanaugh #"From Monday On" (1928), with Harry Barris and recorded with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke on cornet, no. 14 on US pop singles charts #"What Price Lyrics?" (1928), with Harry Barris and Matty Malneck #"At Your Command" (1931), with Harry Barris and Harry Tobias, US, no. 1 (3 weeks) #"Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)" (1931), with Roy Turk and Fred Ahlert, US, no. 4; US, 1940 re-recording, no. 27 #"I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You" (1932), with Victor Young and Ned Washington, US, no. 5 #"My Woman" (1932), with Irving Wallman and Max Wartell #"Love Me Tonight" (1932), with Victor Young and Ned Washington, US, no. 4 #"Waltzing in a Dream" (1932), with Victor Young and Ned Washington, US, no.6 #"I Would If I Could But I Can't" (1933), with Mitchell Parish and Alan Grey #"Where the Turf Meets the Surf" (1941) #"Tenderfoot" (1953) #"Domenica" (1961) #"That's What Life is All About" (1975), with Ken Barnes, Peter Dacre, and Les Reed, US, AC chart, no. 35; UK, no. 41 #"Sail Away to Norway" (1977)
Category:1903 births Category:1977 deaths Category:American baritones Category:20th-century actors Category:American crooners Category:American film actors Category:American jazz singers Category:American racehorse owners and breeders Category:American radio personalities Category:American Roman Catholics Category:Whistlers Category:Best Actor Academy Award winners Category:Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City Category:California Republicans Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Decca Records artists Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in Spain Category:American people of English descent Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:Major League Baseball executives Category:Major League Baseball owners Category:World Golf Hall of Fame inductees Category:National Radio Hall of Fame inductees Category:MGM Records artists Category:Musicians from Washington (state) Category:Peabody Award winners Category:People from Spokane, Washington Category:People from Tacoma, Washington Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Pittsburgh Pirates owners Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:Vaudeville performers Category:Victor Records artists Category:Gonzaga Bulldogs football coaches
an:Bing Crosby bcl:Bing Crosby bs:Bing Crosby bg:Бинг Кросби ca:Bing Crosby cs:Bing Crosby cy:Bing Crosby da:Bing Crosby de:Bing Crosby et:Bing Crosby es:Bing Crosby eo:Bing Crosby eu:Bing Crosby fr:Bing Crosby ga:Bing Crosby gl:Bing Crosby hr:Bing Crosby io:Bing Crosby id:Bing Crosby it:Bing Crosby he:בינג קרוסבי ka:ბინგ კროსბი la:Bing Crosby hu:Bing Crosby nl:Bing Crosby ja:ビング・クロスビー no:Bing Crosby pl:Bing Crosby pt:Bing Crosby ru:Кросби, Бинг sq:Bing Crosby simple:Bing Crosby sk:Bing Crosby sl:Bing Crosby sh:Bing Crosby fi:Bing Crosby sv:Bing Crosby tl:Bing Crosby ta:பிங்கு கிராசுபி th:บิง ครอสบี tr:Bing Crosby uk:Бінг Кросбі yo:Bing Crosby zh:冰·哥羅士比This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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