My Friend Bing

by  Bob Hope

As seen in Family Circle magazine, July 1955

    Magazine editors will tell you that if you were to give an article a title like "The Clark Gable Nobody Knows," "I Was Marilyn Monroe's Neighbor, " or "Garbo: The Lid Off a Legend," it's pretty certain that that article would be the first one readers turn to.

    Chances are that won't happen in this case-and for a good reason.  In show business almost everybody is a character or acts the part of one.  But Bing Crosby's assets (of which he has one of the world's biggest collections) are such that, in real life, he is neither character nor actor.

    In my book Bing is an institution.  (Let's face it: He's been around long enough to be one.)  As such, he is impregnable, imponderable - and inextinguishable.  As a friend - and I have known Bing a third of my life (of course, I'm much younger than he is) - I find him colorful, witty, pliable, generous, understanding, and really almost human. 

    So, if I am to write anything at all about Bing, I can write only about The Crosby Everybody Knows.  For Bing is just about the only person in the public eye who hasn't two sides.

    An elevator boy at a New York hotel once said to me, "Bing must be a wonderful guy to talk to.  He sounds like a regular fellow."  That about sums up what I think of Bing:  He "plays the part" of being just "a regular fellow" more naturally than anyone could ever play it.  He's easy to be with, and in his quiet fashion he's one of the funniest men I know.

    I'll never forget the time not so long ago when, driving down a side street on our way to a golf match, we had a flat tire.  Bing walked up to the nearest house and, with a quick glance at the name on the mailbox, said to the woman at the door, "May I use your telephone, please, Mrs. Barton?"

    The woman sort of gasped and said, "My, you look like Bing Crosby!"

    Bing said, "Yes, that's my problem."

    When I showed up at Bing's heels, Mrs. Barton looked at me and said, "That's strange.  You look like Bob Hope."

    When I said, "Honey, you're so right - this is Crosby and Hope," she was speechless.

    After we had left the house and were waiting for someone to come and fix the flat, Bing frowned.  "Do you think that Mrs. Barton really believed we were Crosby and Hope?" he asked me.

    "She believed it, all right," I told him.  "Didn't you hear her ask me for a dime for the phone call?"

    "I heard," said Bing, more cheerfully.  "She asked me first, you know.  I told her to get it from my secretary."

    The things I like most about Bing are (not necessarily in this order) his talent (which I've used quite a lot); his money (which I can't get - especially on a golf course); his voice; and, particularly, his companionship.  Is there anything I don't like about Bing?  That's a rough question people sometimes throw at me.  I guess that answer is the same as for the things I do like about him - his money, his talent....talent - he's got so much talent I hat him for it.  In fact I once told him:  "Bing, you've got it all.  Why, your have a little more of everything than I have - except hair."

    Bing and I have had a lot of wonderful times together.  One of the most hilarious, to me, was during a wartime bond drive in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1943.  There was a huge parade; Laurel and Hardy, Cary Grant, Groucho Marx, and other celebrities were riding in it.  They were all sitting on top of the back of convertibles and were being recognized and applauded.

    Nobody noticed Bing because he was riding down in the seat.  After a while I heard from the spectators what was surely a yell of recognition.  I turned round - and there was Bing, standing in the car, his coat open, quietly showing off his tie and bowing and smiling to the crowd.  It was typical of someone in out business:  Nobody recognized Bing, so he got up and started displaying his necktie.  Anything to get into the act!  Matter of fact, that was one of the reasons he was with us in the first place.  He couldn't stand being left out.

    It was typical of Bing, whose chief enjoyment is laughing.  Basically he's a happy man, and he can make a joke of almost anything.  Even when he was suffering a fair amount of pain just before his operation last winter, and I asked him how he was, he said merely, "I feel as if I were giving birth to a set of china."

    You see what I mean - about that Crosby Everybody Knows?  It's hard to get at the core of the man when the exterior itself reflects what's inside.

    One of the myths I'd like to explode is that Bing is withdrawn, is shy with strangers, and doesn't easily make friends.  Nothing is farther from the truth.

    I remember one day when the big brass convened at the Paramount studios, in Hollywood, to discuss a new contract for Bing.  There had been a reshuffle in the front office, and some of the moguls were meeting Bing for the first time.  But Bing might have known all of them his entire life, judging by the way he told them what he wanted - a 30 year contract at double his old salary, whether he worked or not; two-way helicopter services between his shack in Holmby Hills and the studio; and oil-drilling rights on the studio's back lot.

    When Bing had finished, there wasn't a stranger in the room - or a dry eye either.  The moguls met his demands, and when he left, each one was his friend, and each was biting his nails with emotion.

    Bing's a great guy anywhere.  After 15 years of knowing and liking him, the question I'm most often asked is: "Would you and Crosby have been as good friends if you had not worked together or been in the same field?  The answer is that if we hadn't worked together, we wouldn't have had time to become such close friends.  Bing has a rough schedule, and it's only while you're working with him that you get time to know what he's like.

    There are certain things that are sort of intimate with Bing.  Take one: He doesn't like much kidding about his hair - or lack of it.  That's a commercial dislike, of course; away from the spotlight, he doesn't really care.

    Yet I remember an incident when we were doing a broadcast in London.  The first thing Bing said to me was, "My goodness - here we have an audience!  If I'd known that, I'd have worn my hair."  Now, if I had said that about him, he'd have been mad at me.

    I'm pretty proud that I'm a friend of Bing, and yet I've never tried to find out why.  I'm not sure that anyone ever sits down and says to himself, "What do I want of a friend?"  Nevertheless there are qualities that we look for, perhaps unconsciously, when it comes to choosing one.  With a friend, you want to get something from the association, and you hope you give him something in return.

    I don't know what The Groaner gets from associating with me (maybe he's just seeing how the other half lives), but an important thing that I get from him is relaxation.  Bing's a mighty soothing person to be with.  I can get tied in knots over some tiny detail, and when I start sputtering, Bing just drawls, "Relax, boy.  Let's examine the logistics of this thing."

    Early in my career Bing gave me a bit of advice.  "You know," he said, "the greatest basis for comedy is a serious undertone in the story."  That, I found, turned out to be true.  Now in my TV and film routines I try to start with a serious background and work comedy out of it.  It's a successful formula.

    As for my giving Bing any advice, I never have and probably never will.  He doesn't need it; he's not struggling.

    The Bing I know was born in Tacoma, Washington, on May 2, 1904, and the only time I've seen him look his grand old age is on the 18th hole at the Lakeside Golf Club, near Los Angeles.

    Bing normally tips the scales in his bare feet at 175 pounds.  Standing next to people like G. Cooper, E. Rickenbacker, and R. Hope, Bing look shorter than he is - which is five feet, nine inches - but that's been useful in circulating freely in his safe-deposit vaults.

    And that reminds me of Bing's pet gripe - that perhaps a little much is being made of this money business, as typified in one of my own cracks: "Yes, I think Bing looks good in Technicolor.  Only that way can the public see the blue of the day meet the gold of his pot."

    Bing is not impressed by riches, but he goes on making them.  When you hear, though, that he has made a fortune in cattle, real estate, mining ventures, race tracks, TV projects, gadgets sold in drugstores and department stores, and frozen orange juice, you should hear the other side, too.

    Many of Bing's biggest interests are financially that least profitable and largely unknown to the general public.  With the Army and the Navy, for example, he has done business that has not always increased his bank roll.  Scientifically, the Crosby Research Foundation, using the testing laboratories of the California Institute of Technology, has been instrumental in developing many things to make this world a better place to live in.

    The late Dr. Robert A. Millikan, head of Cal Tech, made an interesting little speech one day.  "When the record is written, " he said, "Mr. Crosby will be seen as a great benefactor of humanity.  He has given his money, his time, his influence to not one but a hundred plans to better life tomorrow."

    Bing might shrug that off, but what he won't shrug off are his own words; "I have four boys to think about.  Whatever else they may have, they'll have security.  No Crosby is going to tackle this world as a bum."

    I don't think there's much danger of that.  Those boys are all pretty hep.  They used to be casual dressers, but it's no big crime to be casual about that.  I think that Gary and Lindsay are more like Bing than are the twins Philip and Dennis, but all four are great guys and a credit to their dad.

    If variety is the spice of life, Bing is really salty.  We were playing a golf match in England one afternoon, and I said to him, "People in London know you're here, boy.  I think you ought to appear with me at that benefit tonight."

    "Oh, I don't think so," Bing said.  "You know I'm not equipped for that sort of thing."  Which was a big fib.  You and I know that all Bing has to do is to sing two or three songs to have the world at his feet.  He doesn't have to prepare anything either; he can sing just any old song.

    Well, I didn't want to press him, because I knew he was going on to Paris later and had a tight schedule there. But I knew, too, that he's be expected to appear with me at the London show.

    First off that evening came a yell from the balcony: "Where's Crosby?" 

    "Unfortunately, he won't be here," I said.  "He's had to got on to Paris."  The audience kind of moaned its disappointment.

    But when I went off after the first act, there was Crosby, standing in the wings.  In the second act he just walked out on the stage and stood leaning against the proscenium arch with his pipe in hand.  They never stopped applauding.  Bing did 30 minutes, and I count that as one of the most moving experiences I've ever had with him.

    Bing is thoughtful about anniversaries and holidays - when he has time to be.  Once when I was in South Bend, Indiana, entertaining the troops, I'd forgotten it was my birthday.  Bing had made his farewells to me after a benefit show in Indianapolis the night before, saying he was going back to the West Coast.  But later he's remembered that the next day was my birthday, and he showed up on my South Bend stage with a birthday cake in hand.  And when he pushed it at me and said, "Happy birthday, Flab!," I couldn't have been more flabbergasted.

    Tallulah Bankhead once said, "If a friend is a friend, everything about him is nice."  I wouldn't say that Bing and I are exactly Tweedledum and Tweedledee.  There are plenty of things we disagree on - but, then, who looks for a mirror image in his friends?  I'm glad to say that I can argue with Bing (and the boy can be awful stubborn when he wants to be!), but I can't imagine any argument between us that could grow into a quarrel.  I don't even know if it's possible to quarrel with Bing.  He isn't the quarrelsome type.  What I do know is that if a serious disagreement were to arise between us, I'd think pretty heavily about the causes.  I'd have to be more convinced that I was in the right than I've ever been convinced about anything in my life.

    And so ends R. Hope's eulogy of B. Crosby.  If he ever reads it, chances are he'll put down this magazine, puff his pipe quietly for five thoughtful minutes, and then say something like "Any idea what Mrs. Barton did with that dime we gave her?"

    That, I think pretty well explains my friend Bing.