Oscar Profile #614: Bing Crosby

The most popular entertainer of his time, Bing Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1903.

He was a rising star when he married his first wife, Dixie Lee in 1930. She was a well-known singer and actress while he was still struggling to make his name. After the success of his single “I Surrender Dear” in 1932, that name was made. On the radio from 1931, he performed in that medium at least once a week until 1962.

In films in minor roles from 1930, he had his first starring role in 1932’s The Big Broadcast and continued to play easygoing characters more or less resembling his radio persona, introducing many popular songs, most notably “White Christmas” from Holiday Inn, his recording of which sold more than 1,000,000 copies and won the Oscar for Best Song of 1942.

He stretched his acting muscles to play a parish priest in conflict with Barry Fitzgerald as his curmudgeonly superior in 1944’s Going My Way. That portrayal won him an Oscar and made him the number one box office star for the next five years. He reprised the role in the sequel, The Bells of St. Mary’s, the following year and became the first actor to receive Oscar nominations for playing the same character in two different films.

In 1948, a poll named him the most popular man in the world over runners-up Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Jackie Robinson, and Pope Pius XII. According to the Motion Picture Almanac, his combined films have sold more tickets than any other actor in movie history except Clark Gable and John Wayne.

After Dixie Lee’s death at 41 in 1952, Crosby essayed several darker roles to great acclaim, most notably in Little Boy Lost, The Country Girl and Man on Fire. After his second marriage to actress Kathryn Grant in 1957, he stayed away from heavy drama until he played Thomas Mitchell’s Oscar-winning role in the 1966 remake of Stagecoach. He was the best thing about the film.

The 1971 TV movie, Dr. Cook’s Garden, gave him great late-career notices, after which he was offered the starring role in Columbo. He turned down the part because he felt it would interfere with his golf game. He nevertheless continued to make frequent TV appearances as himself, something he had been doing since the early 1950s. In later years his annual Christmas specials featured his entire second family with Grant as well as the usual array of fellow superstars. Always one to appreciate new talent, one of his last shows featured a much talked about duet with David Bowie.

After a sold-out run at London’s Palladium in 1977 he headed to Spain for relaxation. An avid golfer, he had just won an 18-hole game on a course outside of Madrid, when he suffered a massive heart attack and died at 74. His last words were reportedly “let’s go get a coke.” He wrote his own epitaph, which appears on his gravestone: “He was an average guy who could carry a tune.”

ESSENTIAL FILMS

GOING MY WAY (1944), directed by Leo McCarey

This episodic film about a down-to-earth young priest winning over his set-in-his-ways superior was the right film at the right time. It was wholesome, sentimental, and just what the doctor ordered for World War II audiences to take their minds off the raging war. Crosby was at his charming best and so was Barry Fitzgerald, both of whom won Oscars for their efforts. In fact, Fitzgerald’s performance was so beloved that he was nominated in both lead and support for the same role, the only time that has ever happened thanks to a rule that was put in place to prevent future occurrences.

The film also won for Best Picture, Director, Story, Screenplay, and Song, “Swinging on a Star”. Crosby reprised his role to another Oscar nomination the following year in The Bells of St. Mary’ and he and Fitzgerald were reunited in 1947 for another box office hit, Welcome Stranger, in which they played doctors.

THE BELLS OF ST. MARY’S (1945), directed by Leo McCarey

An even better film than Going My Way, Crosby’s Father O’Malley gets his own parish and takes on a group of nuns led by a young Mother Superior, played by Ingrid Bergman at her saintly best. One might expect the brilliant Bergman to act circles around the crooner, but Crosby more than holds his own as the singing priest who wins over the strong-willed nun and then has to break her heart by sending her away. The film’s final scene in which he breaks his code of ethics by telling her why he is sending her away, is one of the screen’s great endings. Bergman is luminous and Crosby plays off her perfectly.

The film was nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture, Actor, Actress and Director, but won only for Best Sound.

LITTLE BOY LOST (1953), directed by George Seaton

Crosby poured his heart into this film after the death of his wife at an early age the year before. In it, he plays a former war correspondent whose French wife (Nicole Maurey) is killed by the Nazis after he is forced to leave Paris. Years later he learns from a friend (Claude Dauphin) that the son he thought was killed in a bombing raid may still be alive and living in an orphanage. The Mother Superior of the orphanage (Gabrielle Dorziat) warns that the shy lad (Christian Fourcade) who doesn’t resemble either him or his late wife may not be his after all, and not to raise false hopes in either himself or the boy, but he pursues a relationship anyway. A four-handkerchief film if there ever was one, the film puts you through an emotional wringer, buoyed by the strong performances of all concerned, especially Crosby and young Fourcade.

Crosby and Maurey were reunited for a much happier romance in 1960’s High Time.

WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954), directed by Michael Curtiz

The first film in Vista Vision, Paramount’s answer to CinemaScope, and the highest grossing film of its year, this intended re-teaming of Crosby, Fred Astaire and the music of Irving Berlin had been planned six years earlier. Crosby and Astaire had had huge box offices successes with Holiday Inn in 1942 and Blue Skies in 1946, both of which were compendiums of new Berlin songs and tried and true hits. White Christmas was to follow the same formula. By the time the film was finally ready to roll, Astaire was unable to do it and the script was re-written to accommodate Donald O’Connor, just off the success of Singin’ in the Rain. Then O’Connor hurt his back and had to be replaced by Danny Kaye who brought yet a different sensibility to the role. Add in Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen and you have a perennial crowd-pleaser.

The film won an Oscar nomination for the song “Count Your Blessings”.

THE COUNTRY GIRL (1954), directed by George Seaton

Crosby’s most acclaimed dramatic role was as the alcoholic actor struggling to make a comeback in the film version of Clifford Odets’ acclaimed Broadway play. He, Grace Kelly and William Holden all won kudos for playing the parts originated on stage by Paul Kelly, Uta Hagen and Steven Hill. Holden played the director of Crosby’s new show who clashes with his frumpy wife (Kelly) who he believes is the source of Crosby’s insecurity.

The film was nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture, Actor (Crosby), and Director, and won two for Kelly’s performance and Seaton’s screenplay.