Bing Crosby, Sitcom Star

There was a joke making the rounds on the network comedy/variety shows in the early 1950s about Bing Crosby avoiding the jump into television. He and Ken Carpenter and Rosemary Clooney were still on CBS radio in a very stripped-down, transcribed show as late as 1962.

Bing decided in 1964 it was the right time to try a regular TV show. However, unlike Jack Benny, Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason, he decided to go with the family sitcom format.

Why did he do it? That was the question every entertainment reporter seems to have posed to him. Here’s the answer he gave to the Associated Press in a story on the wire September 13. We should point out at the time, movie screens were showing Robin and the Seven Hoods

Bing Decides To Try Television
By JAMES BACON
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 12.—(AP)—Bing Crosby, who said he never would do it, is embarked on a weekly television series.
People are asking why Bing, a millionaire, would want to tackle such a grind. Crosby’s answer is candid.
“I can’t work in movies any more so why shouldn’t I try weekly television?”
Can’t work in movies? “How many jobs are there for 60-year-old crooners?” Bing asks.
So come Monday evening, Sept. 14 the newest Crosby production, starring the crooner, comes to the little box in the living room.
In the new series, which precedes the successful Bing Crosby productions’ “Ben Casey,” Bing will play an electrical engineer with a wife and two daughters.
It’s situation comedy but a switch from most because it doesn’t make an idiot out of papa. Bing will sing.
Producer Steven Gethers explained how you can do a family situation comedy featuring a singing electrical engineer.
* * *
“I felt that a Bing Crosby without songs would be cheating the public,” says Gethers. “True, Bing plays an engineer but one who is a frustrated singer, dating back to his college days when he made a choice between show business and electronics.
“The songs are so integrated into the scripts that if Jimmy Stewart were to play the part, he would have to sing.
“He even kids himself even to the old time boo-boo-boo that was his early trademark.”
There’s a reason why Bing must keep busy.
“A man in my position has a tiger by the tail. He just can’t let go any old time. So many people become dependent on him for their 1ivelihood. If he quits, scores of jobs go down the drain. Each job represents a family,” says Bing.
In the series, Bing has a wife, Beverly Garland, and two daughters—Diane Sheery, 11, and Carol Faylen, 15. Carol is the daughter of veteran actor, Frank Faylen.
Young Miss Faylen, a sophomore at Los Angeles’ Immaculate Heart High School, was, turned down for all of her plays. Her first successful audition was for Bing’s show.
* * *
After the first five shows, Diane still doesn’t quite fathom the idea that she is working with a living legend of show business.
To a newsman, though, she did concede:
“I don’t know what we would do on this show without Mr. Crosby.”
The power of the Crosby name—one of the most durable in movie box office lists was so potent on Madison av. that the weekly show was bought by a sponsor for 26 shows without a script or a pilot.
Television shows usually are bought for only 13 weeks.
Meta Rosenberg, wife of Bing’s longtime agent, George Rosenberg, can be credited with Bing’s entry into weekly television. A few years ago Bing had been vehemently opposed to weekly TV exposure.
“I sensed that Bing had reached that point in life where he would welcome a new challenge. I had already sold the sponsor so I just had to sell Bing. My timing was right. He agreed provided we came up with a format he liked.” After nearly every comedy writer In Hollywood tried to develop a format, Meta and an associate, Mike Levee, finally hit upon the one audiences will see.
Says Bing: “I liked what they showed me and I thought I’d have a go at it.”
* * *
Bing has a schedule that, roughly, gives him three weeks off after three weeks work. This is done by shooting all scenes involving Crosby in lump form. Then the other actors pick up the other scenes while Bing is off golfing and fishing.
Even when Bing works, he’s relaxed. His long-time stand-in works the rehearsal shots while the lights and camera angles are being set.
When the actual scene is shot, Bing comes in with his natural spontaneity and glibness and makes it look as if he had been rehearsing for hours.
“I prepare hard for a role,” says Bing, “but I’ve never been one to go for all that standing around.”
In 1960, Bing received s platinum record as “first citizen of the record industry.” An industry spokesman says that Bing has sold more records than any star in history—more than 200 million.
His biggest seller—and usually rated the top record of all time—is “White Christmas.” It still sells every holiday season and has long passed the 12 million mark.
But Bing’s most lucrative — based on royalties received — is his “Silent Night,” which also sells every Christmas. All royalties on this go to charity.
Third is one he first recorded in the early thirties, written by his old buddy from Paul Whiteman’s rhythm boys—harry Barris: “I Surrender, Dear.”
Comments Bing: “Maybe this new TV series will help my record sales. Look what TV did for Walter Brennan? He makes albums and he hasn’t even got a one-octave range.”

Syndicated columnist Hal Humphrey came up with another explanation for Crosby’ decision. He wrote in his story published Sept. 12:

The horrible truth is that an entertainer or actor can’t work steadily today unless he’s on TV with a series.
Movie production continues to be a small puddle on the show business landscape.
The stage, except for summer theatre, is drying up.
Only about five night clubs outside of Las Vegas pay salaries big enough to cover the performer’s expenses.
“I guess,” says Bing, “I’ve given out half a dozen answers to the question of why I’m doing this. I think the truth is I’ve got to stay in the business some way, but I can’t play leading men in the movies at my age, and I don’t want to play granddaddies.”

Bill Irvin reported in his column syndicated by the Chicago American that Bing was asked if old movie cohort Bob Hope would show up on the show. “I’m afraid we’re a little above his intellectual level. We don’t want to get that hokey,” he joked.

Hope didn’t appear, but several episodes could have been from the Jack Benny Program. Jack guest starred in one show, Dennis Day in another and Phil Harris another, while former Benny writer Bill Morrow (who worked for Crosby afterward) penned one of the scripts (yet another sitcom spoof of the Beatles). Son Gary, despite a testy relationship with whom he called “Mr. Kathryn Grant” in his stage shows at the time, had an early guest shot. The actual Kathryn Grant showed up as well.

Crosby’s theme “Where the Blues of the Night” was replaced by new songs by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, though incidental music was supplied by his radio bandleader John Scott Trotter. Another announcer took over Ken Carpenter’s “brought to you by” chores.

The Old Groaner was given the honour of hosting ABC’s special previewing the fall season. Despite being sandwiched between George Burns’ Wendy and Me and Ben Casey, and being opposite John McGiver’s sitcom Many Happy Returns on CBS and the second half of Andy Williams’ show on NBC (on the East Coast), ratings were low. Matt Messina of the New York Daily News on Feb. 1, 1965 quoted ABC’s programming chief Edgar Sherlock as saying a final decision hadn’t been reached about cancellation but added “I don’t think Bing wants to come back. It’s just not fun for him.”

This comic strip from February 9, 1965 may provide a closer reason as to why the show wasn’t renewed:



Bing may have complained the cinema didn’t want him, but Harold Heffernan of the North American Newspaper Alliance reported on Feb. 19 that Crosby had signed with 20th Century-Fox to play Doc Boone in a remake of Stagecoach. There was no mention of the TV show. In March, ABC picked him to emcee its 90-minute The Grand Award of Sports special from the New York World’s Fair.

And Der Bingle’s production company got a few nibbles for the 1965-66 season to go along with its Ben Casey and Slattery’s People. ABC seriously looked at a half-hour fantasy comedy (remember, high concept shows were big) starring Bert Lahr, Phyllis Coates and Tim Matheson called Thompson’s Ghost, which the network blew off as a filler special in August 1966. BCP had better luck at CBS, which picked up a show with an improbable setting in a P.O.W. camp where the Allied prisoners outsmarted the Nazis every episode. Hogan’s Heroes ran about the same length as World War Two.

Other veterans felt the axe in 1965. George Burns’ and Jack Benny’s series left the air. For that matter, so did young Matheson’s Jonny Quest. Bing was in good company on the sidelines. And there was now more time again for fishing and golfing.