For soldiers in France listening to Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas” in December 1944, home must have seemed far away.
The legendary crooner, who first sang the song that reminisces about snowy childhood Christmases, once told his nephew, Howard Crosby, that singing “White Christmas” in front of teary-eyed troops ahead of the Battle of the Bulge was the hardest moment of his professional life.
“I asked Uncle Bing one time, ‘What was the single most difficult thing you ever had to do in your career?’ We were out playing golf one day, and I didn’t know what he was going to say,” Howard told Fox News Digital. “I didn’t know if he was going to say, ‘Well, it was, you know, learning lines for the movies or working with a difficult director.’”
He continued, “He didn’t have to think about it at all. He said, ‘Well, 1944, we were over with the USO troupe.’ And he said, ‘We gave an open-air concert for 15,000 GIs and British Tommies in an open-air field in France.'”
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Bing Crosby once told his nephew, Howard Crosby, that singing “White Christmas” in front of teary-eyed troops ahead of the Battle of the Bulge was the hardest moment of his professional life. (Getty Images)
His uncle told him Dinah Shore and the Andrews Sisters were at the show “‘and we had a lot of laughs and the boys were having a wonderful time, great fun.’ But he said at the end of the show, ‘I had to sing “White Christmas.” And I had to get through the song with 15,000 guys in tears and not break up myself.'”
“And a lot of those boys died the next week in the Battle of the Bulge,” Howard added.
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He said his uncle loved entertaining troops, considering it his patriotic duty.
The “High Society” star even tried to enlist but was told he was too old.
Howard said that Gen. George C. Marshall, the chief of staff of the Army at the time, told him, “‘Look, Bing, we don’t need you in the front lines. We need you raising money for the war effort.’ So, I think he looked at it as a patriotic duty, and I think he also felt like a special kinship with the boys that we’re serving.”
Howard said that when Bing performed for the troops, he refused to wear his toupee.
“‘[W]e had a lot of laughs and the boys were having a wonderful time, great fun.’ But he said at the end of the show, ‘I had to sing “White Christmas.” And I had to get through the song with 15,000 guys in tears and not break up myself.'”
“He hated that thing,” he said. “He called it a scalp doily. And he never wore it unless he absolutely had to. But he said, ‘If I’m entertaining troops, I’m not going to wear anything phony like a toupee. Forget it.’ So he went onstage without a toupee for the troops, but he also insisted that the front rows at those shows were reserved for the enlisted men. No officers or higher-ups sitting in the front rows. Those were all for the guys on the front lines.”
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Bing Crosby plays in New York after returning from visiting troops in England and France in 1944. (Getty Images)
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The star’s story about singing in front of the troops mirrors the opening scene of the 1954 movie “White Christmas,” when Crosby, playing a soldier on Christmas Eve 1944, sings the tune for his fellow weary men who listen over the sounds of explosions.
The movie, which stars Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen, is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and will briefly be re-released in some theaters this month.
The song the movie was named for was originally released in 1942 and Crosby sang it in “Holiday Inn.”
Howard said his uncle knew it would be a hit right away, even if songwriter Irving Berlin didn’t.
He told Fox News Digital that when Berlin was going through all the holiday songs written for 1942’s “Holiday Inn,” including “Easter Parade,” “I’ve Got Plenty to be Thankful For” and “Song of Freedom,” everyone thought his Valentine’s Day song, “Be Careful It’s My Heart,” would be the big hit.
“But when they got to ‘White Christmas’ and Irving Berlin played that, supposedly Bing said to him – because Irving was always very nervous about whether the songs would be successful or people would like them – apparently Bing said to him, ‘Don’t worry about that one, Irving, that song is going to do just fine.’”
Bing Crosby signs autographs for American infantry troops in France circa 1944. (CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Of course, even Bing Crosby couldn’t have imagined the song would go on to be the best-selling single of all time.
Howard said the song is “extremely well-written.”
“It’s a great song. It doesn’t have a tremendous amount of range. So, you know, everybody feels like they can sing it, right?” said Howard, who is a singer himself and sounds a lot like his uncle. “It’s not like the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ which nobody can sing, right? And in Bing’s version, you know, he had such a rich baritone. And in the lower notes, what he called the money notes, you know, he said if you can sing the low notes richly, you can make a lot of money.”
Crosby certainly made his fortune with his rich baritone, but Howard said it was never about that for him.
As a devout Catholic who went to Mass every day with his mother as a kid, Crosby refused to ever take money for singing a religious song like “Silent Night” or “O Holy Night,” Howard said.
The “Going My Way” star was also humble and preferred the company of average people rather than the rich and famous.
“He was much more comfortable in the presence of caddies and bellboys and waiters than he was with society people,” he said. “He was terribly, terribly uncomfortable with people who fawned over him and treated him like he was some kind of special celebrity or something. And he had no entourage either.”
Bing Crosby in a press shot for the movie “White Christmas” (George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)
The star also enjoyed receiving a “backhanded compliment,” Howard revealed, remembering a time when his uncle gave him a record of his to listen to.
“He said, ‘Hey, Howard, did you listen to that record?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I listened to it.’ He said, ‘Well, what did you think?’ Well, of course, what I thought was it was absolutely fantastic. And it was really great in every respect. But I knew better than to tell him that. So I said, ‘Well, you know, for an old guy way past his prime, it wasn’t half bad.’ And he laughed. See, he liked that. He liked a backhanded compliment. But if I’d have come out gushing, he wouldn’t like that. He just … couldn’t take that sort of thing. He didn’t like adulation. It made him very uncomfortable.”
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Crosby had ranches in Northern California, Elko, Nevada and Baja California, where he was able to get away from Hollywood and enjoy the outdoors.
He was also incredibly generous, Howard noted.
Entertainers Bob Hope and Bing Crosby perform on a USO Tour in front of U.S. troops circa 1942. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Howard said he first played golf with his uncle when he was about 15, and Crosby gave him a sand wedge that he still has in his golf bag.
He remembered a time when they went golfing together and Crosby asked if there were any caddies who played well when there were no other people on the course. So he and his uncle teamed up against two, with two others caddying for them.
“We’re playing for 10 cents a point. The other two caddies are carrying the bags,” he explained. “And we get all done on 18. I think we beat them out of about 40 cents each. So, we collect our dimes and then Bing tips everybody with a $100 bill. The two that played, the two that carried. But I thought to myself at the time, there are hundreds of wealthy, prominent people here in Pebble Beach that would have given their eye teeth to be the other two members of that foursome. And Bing picks up a couple of 20-year-old caddies to fill out our group. That was just typical.”
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Howard said Crosby was so humble that he told Barbara Walters in an interview months before he died that he didn’t think he’d leave a legacy.
“And she said, ‘Well, clearly you realize you’re one of the greatest popular singers, certainly male vocalists of all time.’ ‘No, Barbara, no, no. So many, so many singers better than I am,’” Howard said Crosby told her. “But, you know, he just couldn’t stand the idea of adulation coming his way. So he didn’t think he’d have any legacy at all. And he said, ‘You know, I think people will forget about me a few years after I’m gone. Nobody will remember anything I did.’”
Bing Crosby’s nephew said the singer was very humble and was “uncomfortable” when he was treated like a celebrity. (Gene Lester/Getty Images)
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Howard said he recently saw that his uncle was No. 1 on the iTunes worldwide singles charts ahead of stars like Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga, and he believes Crosby would be completely shocked to see his continued success so many years after his death.
“I think he would be gobsmacked to believe that his song was No. 1 in the second week of December in 2024, completely gobsmacked. He could not have imagined such a thing.”
