Call Me Lucky
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GENE LESTER Bing at a Pebble Beach, Calif., golf match. His studio once made him glue his ears back, but "for everyday use" he preferred to let them flap. By BING CROSBY as told to Pete Martin Call Me Lucky Hollywood looked at Bing Crosby's big ears and thinning hair and said, "There's no future for you in pictures." Here's the story of Crosby's big battle with the make-up men—and how he became a star in spite of his looks. When I went to work in The Big Broadcast, Para- PART FIVE I thought he said, " The years are winging," meaning that I was getting old. I wasn't very old mount shared Ryan's view of my ears as a photo- T was in the 1934 film, She Loves Me Not, that I and I flipped. graphic problem and they insisted on gluing them made my brave stand against having my ears "I don't mean your age," he said. "Your ears back against my head with spirit gum. I must admit that I was surprised at what the ghiing did to my I glued back to increase my beauty. This nuisance protrude. They stick out too far. A camera pointed stemmed from the time when I was courting Dixie straight at you would make you look like a taxi with appearance. I looked streamlined, like a whippet and was having my trouble with Abe Frank. I was both doors open. They'd have to photograph you dashing after a mechanical bunny. I put up with the playing a lot of golf then with a Broadway actor, Dick three-quarter-face or profile, and that would put spirit gum for a long time. Then they tried adhe- Keene, who was working at Fox, and it was his no- too much of a limit on the cameraman. I'm sorry." sive; then they went back to spirit gum. George tion that I'd be a good bet for picture work. He took Dick and I went out feeling pretty crestfallen. Raft's ears were batty, too, but he'd had a muscle me to see Jim Ryan, the casting director at Fox's Seven or eight years later I became a parishioner cut behind his ears which made them fall back Western Avenue studio. Ryan had me sing a couple of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. against his noggin without having to be pushed by of songs and read a few lines. He seemed to like the Jim Ryan is a member of the congregation and we sit a make-up man. I wouldn't go for such an opera- way I did them. But after looking me over, he said, near each other. I always get up and go out before tion. I liked my ears the way they were—at least "I'm afraid there's no future for you in pictures." he does, and I never fail to bat my ears significantly for everyday use. However, I was resigned to " Why not?" I asked. at him as I go by. We both grin, because in the time pinning them back for screen purposes, although " They could never photograph you," he said. which has elapsed between the meeting in his office both the glue and the adhesive were disagreeable. Then, too, no matter how firmly they were pinned "The ears are wingy." and the time I became a parishioner of Good Shep- herd, I'd made some highly lucrative connections. back, they kept popping out all the time, much Copyright 1953 by Bing Crosby. 40 UNITED PRESS GENE LEST Bob Hope and Bing at a Philadelphia war-bond drive in 1943. "It was Off-screen, Bing lays aside his "scalp doily." At this Crosby party, enter- Hope," Bing claims, "who thought up the vulgarization, 'groaner.' " tainment was furnished by guitarist Perry Botkin and other jazz musicians. to the annoyance of Paramount's make-up de- mucket" or "a divot." The technical name for it is seen her for a long time, so he has no time to think partment. a hair piece. about the social amenities when she arrives. He just One of the scenes from She Loves Me Not had to I hate to put it on, and I'm always trying to have grabs her, and after that he's too busy to take his be heavily lighted, and the heat kept loosening the interior scenes photographed out-of-doors, so I can hat off." stickum until my ears popped out eight or ten wear a hat. Before he died, Buddy De Sylva, former Speaking of muckets, Wally Westmore of the times. The tenth time I said, " This time they're head of production at Paramount, promised me that fabulous Westmore family, identified with the going to stay out." if I would do a favor for him — I forget just what it make-up end of the picture business almost since its " I've got orders not to shoot you that way," the was now — he'd buy a story for me in which I could inception, has kept me in pictures many years longer cameraman told me. play a rabbi and wear a hat all the time. than I would ordinarily have endured. It was he and "They're out and they're going to stay out," I Each morning when I get a script, I look through his brothers, the " Marryin' Westmores," who de- said. "I'll be at the Lakeside Golf Club. If the it to see if there's any way I can get through the day veloped the mucket—or "bowler," as it's sometimes studio changes its mind, tell them to call me there." without donning a mucket. Not that it's such a chore called—which saved many an actor whose thinning That first tee at Lakeside is my refuge when the to put on, but the glue in it makes my forehead itch thatch would otherwise have doomed him to an studio is obdurate about what seems to me a rea- and I can't scratch the itching places without pulling early theatrical demise. Who but Wally could have sonable request. If I'm convinced that they are being it off. I'm always plotting ways to do a love scene been taken on a trip to Paris for exterior-location bullheaded or are pulling rank on me, I retire there wearing a hat. In one scene I was to meet a girl at a shots on my last picture, Little Boy Lost, on the un- to await developments. Finally a man at the studio railway station and greet her with a big embrace and likely possibility that I might be induced to doff my called. " We'll shoot them sticking out if you feel so a kiss. " You'll have to take your hat off for this chapeau and need a hair piece? It was Wally's first strongly about it," he said. So She Loves Me Not one," the director said firmly. trip to Paris and some mornings, following expansive was shot partly with them out and partly with them If he thought I'd give up that easily, he'd mis- evenings, he got it on backwards, sideways or tipped in. In the first part I looked like a whippet in full judged me. " Not me," I said. " This fellow's so ex- rakishly. flight. In the second part I looked like Dumbo. cited at seeing his girl he doesn't remember to take Another prop for my manly beauty was forced They've been out ever since. his hat off. He's deeply in love with her and hasn't upon me in a 1935 movie (Continued on Page 113) But though I won a victory over stickum back of my ears, I capitulated to another nuisance—cake make-up. This nuisance was wished on me by Harry Ray, a make-up man. He was never around when we needed him, so we called him Mile-Away Ray or The Seldom-Seen Kid. He'd make me up in the morning, then disappear, and my face would grow shiny. We spent a lot of time figuring where he van- ished to. There was one theory that he hid in a res- taurant several blocks away called the Health Cen- ter. An alternate theory was that he flitted around the lot visiting other sets, playing Run, Sheep, Run . and Prisoner's Base with the scouts and posses we sent to look for him. When he was on deck, we engaged in a running de- bate because I refused to wear cake make-up. I'd used the professional kind in my vaudeville days, but my skin was dry, and it had made my face itch. After it had dried and I'd had it on a while it seemed to grow flaky and I'd go around all day screwing my face up like a man with a tic. I'd developed quite a hatred for it. In the end, The Seldom-Seen Kid played on my college loyalty. Gonzaga was coming to town to play Loyola, and Mile-Away Ray lured me into making a bet on the game. The bet was that if Loyola won I'd wear the make-up he wanted me to wear. Loyola won and I wore it. Robert Hope, of the nonclassic profile and the un- lissome midsection, is sometimes goaded by a knowl- edge of his own lack of physical charms into referring to me as "skinhead." I don't have to specify what he PARAMOUNT BUD FRAKER means.