Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star: The War Years, 1940-1946

As always Gary Giddens supplies a perfect history of the music and talent of Bing.

This is a detailed study of a great singer showing all his good points as well as pointing out his flaws but I feel that overall my admiration for Crosby has increased by reading this masterwork by Gary Giddins.

Giddins’ first volume of the Bing biography, “A Pocketful of Dreams”, appeared in 2001, took just under 600 pages to span 40 years, and garnered numerous awards. In 2001 Kathryn Crosby granted him virtual access to Bing’s archives, so although this second volume covers only seven years, it’s as lengthy as the first, and took twice as long to write. Its size is mute testament to the volume and complexity of Bing’s activities.The Petrillo ban affected his recordings for Decca, which had to be tailored to circumvent it. He was lucky in that the company settled early, and Jack Kapp shrewdly broadened his repertoire to increase his appeal to the record-buying public. His role as the genial host of the live Kraft Music Hall radio show became increasingly burdensome, and he eventually freed himself of that yoke, in the process forcing the industry to accept pre-recording. The Road movies stereotyped him as Bob Hope’s comedy partner, but director Leo McCarey (who gets a chapter all to himself) recast him in the persona of Father O’Malley, which solidified his public image, and elevated him to the rank of a serious actor. The account of his various films is studded with examples of the censorship then prevalent, not least during “The Road to Morocco” where guidelines included the warning “keep away from eunuchs”.Once America entered the war Bing devoted himself whole-heartedly to that cause. He criss-crossed the country to raise enormous sums of money for War Bonds, by way of concerts, appeals and charity golf matches, often in tandem with his on-screen partner Bob Hope. En route he visited hospitals and entertained wounded servicemen. His commitment ran deep, and as soon as he was able he joined a troopship to England, sharing the discomforts involved. There he toured the camps with fellow performers, then crossed to the French combat zone, often entertaining near the front line. He was planning a Far East tour when the war ended abruptly with Japan’s surrender. It was reckoned subsequently that overall he had covered some fifty thousand miles in the process.What emerges from the extraordinary detail Giddins has amassed is as coherent a picture of Bing as we are likely to get. Various episodes (including the final chapter about his relationship with the Barsa sisters, who stalked him) highlight the contrast between his easygoing demeanour in his public roles, and the ways in which he sought to maintain his anonymity when “off duty”. Despite his casual air he was scrupulous about rehearsals and punctuality, but cautious about publicity, careful to mask the various conflicts he was seeking to resolve, not least of which was his marriage. Bing was pre-eminent as a popular entertainer, but biographies have been thin on the ground, and what there were failed to do him justice. Giddins gave early notice of his intention to remedy that situation, and this magnificent second volume sets the seal on his endeavour. I hope he can complete the trilogy.

On a hot August afternoon in New Orleans, 2016, I attended a talk at the Louis Armstrong Festival by music writer Gary Giddins about the jazz legend’s enduring friendship with Bing Crosby.I had already read the first volume of Giddins’ detailed and ambitious Bing Crosby biography ‘A Pocketful Of Dreams’ which traced his life from birth to stardom in the 1930s, and was eagerly anticipating the next book which is out now.Bing Crosby: Swinging On A Star, The War Years 1940 - 1946 takes up the story when the star was at the top of his game - on record, radio and at the movies. This was a time when the easy going Crosby image we came to recognise was fully formed.On film, his partnership with Bob Hope in the much loved ‘road’ films would go on to keep audiences entertained for years to come through television re-runs, where I first discovered them. And in ‘Holiday Inn’ Bing introduced Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ which, as Giddins points out, wasn’t expected to be the movie’s biggest hit song. Even Berlin at first failed to foresee its success.Gary Giddins paints a detailed picture of Bing Crosby, using extensive research, drawing in comments from those who knew and worked with him. His letters, eloquently phrased, revealed so much about his life.Bing was a private man who presented a jovial easy going facade to the world even though he had problems of his own. His first wife, Dixie, had a drink problem and his childrens’ lives fell apart as they grew into adulthood, sometimes tragically.Gary Giddins tells the story like a novel with sub plots. The various aspects of Crosby’s life are interweaved, such as his close circle of true friends; his love of golf and horse racing, as well as the artistry he worked hard to achieve. Plus the selfless and exacting work he put in to entertain troops and boost funds for the war effort.By the end of the book I felt that I had got to know Bing really quite well. I think the writer did to.I remember that during his talk in New Orleans Gary Giddins became tearful as he told the story about how Louis Armstrong, as a favour for his friend Bing, took his eldest son Gary on tour to sing in the show. But unfortunately like his mother, he too had developed a drink problem and became unreliable, so Louis had to fire him.A moment of sadness in the life of a successful figure who performed with such carefree ease and made us all want to aspire to the kind of life he sang about.I just hope that Gary Giddins might be considering a third volume of Bing Crosby’s life - one of the most important cultural icons of the last century. Because, like Bing, this valuable and entertaining book deserves an encore.

The book is a wondrous piece of work. It runs to 582 pages of text, just 10 pages less than volume one, except that volume one covered 37 years and this covers less than six. Add to that 62 pages of Notes and Sources, most of which are as fascinating as the book itself. This microscopic examination of six years of Bing’s life is made possible primarily by Kathryn Crosby’s decision, following the publication of volume one, to open her doors to Mr. Giddins. That in turn brought access to Bing’s own wartime diary of his time in England and France. Add to that a bizarre stalker’s diary kept by two young sisters from New York during 1945/46, countless letters to and from Bing, an exhaustive list of author interviews that must stretch back over 25 years, and an intense and at times, challenging literary style, and you have a magnum opus. The best thing about the book? Simply that Mr. Giddins knows when to offer his own opinion about a Crosby performance and when to just present the facts and leave the reader to make his own judgement. But any book that can make me, after almost 50 years of Crosby collecting, listen with fresh ears to “Swinging On A Star” or want to watch Going My Way from a different perspective, is some book.