Bing Crosby's Character -- Help, Eve (or anyone who knows)

[CalMeacham]

Some time ago I read Donald Slatzer and Robert F. Shepherd’s biography of Bing Crosby, The Hollow Man http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0523421648/qid=1061988586/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-0730319-2254503?v=glance&s=books . I had no preconceived notions about the man, and I know enough not to confuse the image with reality, but I was appalled by the picture this book (which I came across in a used book store) drew of Crosby. He treated his original partners (including Al Rinker, who was apparently interviewed at length for this book) badly, then left them high and dry. He cheated on his first wife, and wasn’t even around when she died. He was a strict disciplinarian, didn’t contribute to charities as Bob Hope did, denied the credit to many who helped him on the way up, and even influenced the life of his second wife and kids from beyond the grave by tying up their inheritance with conditions and bnlind trusts thart keeps the money out of their hands. Whew!

So I looked this stuff up on the internet , and I find that a lot of sites bash this book. Gary Giddins has a biography out that contradicts The Hollow Man: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/bing/storytemplate.asp?ID=bing1. He says that no one who knew Bing will corroborate The Hollow Man (or Gary Crosby’s bashing of his faither, Going my Own Way), and that Crosby was a compassionate human being. I also learn that Slatzer claims to have beenb married to Marilyn Monroe (!!!), a claim nobody else believes.

But then, on the other hand, Rinker knew Crosby well, and he seems to believe the bad stuff. Don Shephered, long a writer for Crosby, condemns the book, too. But he seems to take the line that Crosby was a nasty human being, but that Shepherd and Slatzer just didn’t do it right:

My only wish is that the authors of Bing Crosby, The Hollow Man had attacked him (if they had to) with the rapier deftness he deserved instead of hacking at him with a dull bread knife.

Bing was a one of a kind, an eccentric, colorful, complex, talented and flawed human being who might not have given the world the great legacy of entertainment he left it had he been otherwise.

Those who knew his dark side didn’t need any card catalog of his behavioral aberration. They are a comparatively small group compared to the millions who still bask in the warm glow of his charisma and talent. They did not have to have the memory of him and their pleasure in what he left them diminished by this book.

(from this site: http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/pennvalley/biology/lewis/crosby/hollowman.htm )
So what’s the Straight Dope? Was Crosby, if not as bad as Slatzer and Shepherd claim, still a nasty guy, or was he a misunderstood disciplinarian? Or was he a wonderful man?

[Kent_Clark]

FWIW (and that’s not much) the take I’ve heard on Crosby was that he was cold and distant to just about (but not quite) everyone. That translated into cruelty to his first family. By the time he had a second family, he had grown older and somewhat more mellow, so that instead of being cruel to them, he was “merely” distant.

I’ve read old time radio books where his writers suggest that he was loyal to them, but demanding and not hesitant to rip them whenever he wanted. In their minds, that put him a step ahead of the average radio star, who didn’t even exhibit loyalty.

[E-Sabbath]

Eve’s away till next weekendish.

[CalMeacham]

Bump!

[Eve]

I’m back!

I’m not really a Crosby expert (I prefer Columbo and Vallee!), but I think “complex, talented and flawed human being” is just about on-target. He was a terrible father and husband in his early years, though he seems to have mellowed later on (all that orange juice, no doubt).

Like many people who scrambled to the top on his own, he could be cold-hearted in business when it was to his benefit, but many of his (non-threatening) coworkers were extremely fond of him and found him pleasant and professional.