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Coming back from his overseas Army entertainment tour a couple of years ago, Bob Hope landed in New York on his way to Hollywood and found himself with a night to relax. He looked up a pal of his and said how about an evening at the new late spots. "Fine," said the pal. "We'll go over to the Waldorf and catch this new sensation, Frank Sinatra. He's terrific!" "Sinatra?" Bob repeated blankly, "who's he - a juggler, or does he hoof?" The pal gasped and asked if Bob was kidding. Then he remembered that Hope had been lost in a GI world for the last few months. Without further explanations he hauled him right over to the Waldorf Astoria and a ringside table. After Frank Sinatra had crooned a few tunes and set the place on fire, Bob excused himself. "Pardon me while I make a phone call," he grinned. He got Hollywood. He got a sleepy star out of bed at four o'clock in the morning, "Listen, Hips," Bob told him. "This is your favorite tack-up boy, Hope. I'm just calling to warn you. Look out! I'm in New York listening to a boy who's coming out to Hollywood and make you go to work." "Bring him along," yawned Bing Crosby sleepily. "I'm getting fat and lazy anyway." 
Bing Crosby didn't have to ask Bob Hope who the new boy was; he knew all about Frank Sinatra. And he wasn't kidding when he said, "Bring him along." Because above all the Old Groaner wanted a personal peek at the Swoon and a firsthand earful of his bent notes. He was a Sinatra fan himself from the start, and there's a fairly ancient note on Bing's private stationery to testify to that in the possession of the Voice's leading fan-club secretary. It says, "Please enroll me as a member of your Frank Sinatra Club. I think Frankie's great. Bing Crosby."But that midnight telephone conversation marks the first time on record that Bob Hope ever harpooned his chum, Bing Crosby, about the up-and-coming Crown Prince of Swoon. And it set off with a cross-country bang what has since become 'the greatest three-ring circus of wildly running gags, knockout punch nifties and free-for-all fun that a trio of upstairs stars ever put on in the Big Tent of Hollywood. No holds are barred, and there hasn't been any time out called yet. It has rollicked and raged all over the radio and in the newspapers, in Army camps and hospitals, on golf course, studio sets, dressing rooms, club houses and cafes. It's been beamed out to Saipan, Siena and St. Lo. But, if some sad people who had their Sense of Humor stunted at an early age, can call it a Feud with a straight face, well-they just aren't hep, that's all. triple-threat wisecrack club... Because what the triple-threat wisecrack club of Crosby, Hope and Sinatra cover up is really the greatest Mutual Admiration Society in the world. Bob can call Bing "Hips" and "Flabby" and "Father Bobby-Socks" and brand him publicly, as he often has, "The Frank Sinatra of the Gay Nineties." And Bing can label Bob "Zoot-Snoot," "Jangle-Jaw" and "Hopeless" and shoot a dozen other off-the-cuff slurs at his looks, his acting ability, his golf failings, his ignominious canvasback past in the prize ring. He can expose Bob's best jokes as a Joe Miller jumble from a stable of gag writers, while Bob baldly points out the hairless state of Bing's noggin, the spavined gait of his race horses and the wild-Indian traits of his offspring. He can rag Bing's blinding crazy-quilt shirts and the chest that occasionally slips down to his middle, and Bing can come back with asparagus cast at the froggy tones of Bob's crooning attempts. That had been going on for years, rapid fire, before Frank Sinatra joined the Socko Society. The rubber bricks that Bing and Bob have heaved at each other would shoe half the cars on the highways by now-if they were real. Over the door of Bob Hope's dinky dressing room, which he started in at Paramount and which he's kept ever since because he's superstitious about moving to more glorified quarters, hangs a picture of Bing Crosby. It's about the dizziest looking portrait of the Old Booper you'll ever see, if you're ever lucky enough to see it. Bing's double-size eyes seem to float in a shiny mist of soulful surrender, and they're crossed sappily. His ears are three times as large as Gable's and stick out like handles on a chamber. The picture says "My Ideal," and Bob spent a long time cooking it up with a trick photographer he knows. He's got another of Bing with that beaver beard he had awhile back, faked on to a lovely young Lady screaming in terror and a dozen other poses of the Crosby, tricked to make him Look all the way from a Mongolian Idiot to Little Boy Blue. And in Bing's gorgeous interior decorated Paramount hangout, which Bob loves to razz Bingo about and call "the Palladiuum," Bing comes right back with a picture set of Hope looking like the dogcatcher should be after him, and cartoons of Bob with a snout like a ski-jump, a jaw like a bulldozer and hair like a dish of wilted spinach. That's just a sample. Those two nutty nimblewits have never stopped kidding, in good times and bad, ever since Bob cracked his way into Bing's backyard at Paramount. Even when Bing's house burned down, and he lost half his treasures, Bob accused him of being a firebug for the insurance. And when he took Bing and Dixie and the kids into his house to stay for a while, he set right out sharking Bing at pool in his billiard room and told all their friends, "It's the only way I can get any rent out of the guy. But in all the mess of Irish confetti they exchange, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope have never had a mad-on for a minute, a pang of professional jealousy or even a tickle of temperament. They can both take it-plenty-and love it, maybe because both are so far out in front in their respective spotlights that they haven't a thing to fear from each other, and maybe because they happen to be Bing Crosby and Bob Hope-which is to say, two terribly funny, friendly and fabulous guys. Anyway, when Frank Sinatra blew into Hollywood with all the squeals and shivers of female millions wafting after him, Bing and Bob were waiting for him. They needed new blood, and Frankie seemed a natural to make it three of a kind. But neither Bing nor Bob, and hardly anybody else in Hollywood, knew Frank. They liked the Voice, but what went on behind it was a mystery. So Bing and Bob decided to find out. Their first chance to apply the acid test was at a War Bond exhibition golf match at Lakeside Country Club where Bing and Bob slap the ball around. the acid test.. It was a big Hollywood event, and thousands of people were on hand to watch the fun. It was also the first public appearance together of the Groaner and his sensational new rival, and to be fair, Frank was at a big disadvantage. Bing and Bob had played lots of Southern California benefit matches before. Both of them are super golfers: Bing had even been Lakeside champ for two straight years, and Bob was a close runner-up. Frankie was a mere dub at pasture pool. Although in a prize ring or a swimming pool he could make both Bing and Bob look awkward. They went to work on Frank right away. First off, Bob turned to Bing. "Crosby," he said, "your caddy can carry the clubs. Mine can carry Sinatra." When Frank teed off, Bob got him talking while Bing traded a trick ball on the tee. Frank swung and "Bang!" it exploded all over the place. Then Bob had his caddy hand Frank a mammoth gag golf club, complete with rubber handlebars, a flashlight, a compass, a bicycle bell and other gags, gadgets tailored for a dub. And all around the course he and Bing kept up a running patter like this: "Hope, it sure is swell to have new blood in the game." "Yeah, Bing, did you say 'no blood'?" (Ever since Bob has called Frankie "No blood.") Or, "Bob, why do you suppose this Sinatra's so skinny?" "I don't know, Bing. Maybe when he was a baby his mother tied his bow tie too tight." "Yeah, Bob, but not tight enough!" Well-that gives you the general idea. Frankie's number was really up. But he took it with a wonderful Sinatra grin all the way around, and even poked back a few cracks himself, because Frankie is no slouch whatever on the uptake. He sang a duet with arms around Bing's shoulders and entered into all the silly business a mob of cash customers, even for War Bonds, seem to demand around Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Although afterwards, Frank sighed, "Whew! Next time I go out with those guys I'm gonna wave a flag or blow a horn or something to get a little attention. Boy, were they laying for me!" He was right as a rabbit there. That pair certainly were laying for the Swoon King. But after they'd laid for him and got him, they liked him-plenty. And when Frankie Sinatra moved out to Bob and Bing's home territory around Toluca Lake, going in hock for a house right off the eighteenth tee at Lakeside, who do you think proposed him for membership in the exclusive club? Why, Mr. Harry Lillis Crosby, of course. Frankie Sinatra is one of Bing's firm friends today. But even though he knows him well, Frankie's attitude toward the Great Groaner is still one of humble reverence. He's a Crosby man, as he was at the start, and even now after all the fame he's waded into, he still regards Bing with awe. It shows in all sorts of ways. Frankie, for instance, calls Bing "the King." The other day, he confessed to a close pal of his, Hugh Daniel, that the biggest thrill he's had since he came to Hollywood was to watch Bing record a song that he, Frankie, had discovered and made famous. "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Town of Berlin" is the number. Frankie has already asked Bing for an autographed platter to add to his collection of Crosbyana. And you should get a load of Frank singing the parody he wrote on "Sunday, Monday and Always." Chances are you won't, because Frank uses the little ditty just at Army camp shows and sometimes now and then to warm up a radio studio audience, but never over the air. So I'll have to slip you a look at the lyrics. You can see right off the bat with whom Frank Sinatra brackets himself in crooner ratings. The first verse starts like this: "I'll soon become a wreck. They're breathing down my neck-There's a stack of verses. But Frankie ends like this: "I'll never sing like Bing, I know I don't compare, crooner humor... And he always winds up with an extra lick, "There's just one Crosby!" Oddly enough, although it's a lyric built strictly for laughs, that's just about how Frank Sinatra really feels about Bing. He worships the guy like Lil Abner worships the "Ideel," Fearless Fosdick. Always has. Frankie was practically weaned on Crosby, like a million other boys and girls his age. And if Bing should start cracking his voice tomorrow and singing sour notes in Frank Sinatra's ears, he would still be Bing the Great. That's what happens when you get a kid crush on a personality. Look at all the people who've stuck by Rudy Vallee all these years. Well, Rudy was the Frank Sinatra of the Terrific Twenties. In fact, Frank has confessed a time or two that it was Bing who inspired him really to dig on this singing business and set out on a career. Frankie was still a New Jersey jerk then, trying to get somewhere on his newspaper job, and he'd got himself all tangled up in love trouble with Nancy, his present wife. Frank wanted to get married, and the sensible thing to do when you are figuring on becoming a husband is to have a steady job. But, sitting with Nancy in a Manhattan movie one Sunday afternoon, he ran into a Bing Crosby picture, and as the Old Master rolled his big blue eyes and gave out with some pear-shaped notes, Frank was carried away. "I'm going to quit my job and sing," he stated, "like I've always wanted to." And he did. And you know what happened. no. 1 crosby fan... The first time Frank met and had a chat with his idol was not long after he had come to Hollywood for "Higher and Higher." Naturally, with all the swoon build-up, the squeal stuff and the bobby-sock ballyhoo, Frank was a marked man, and naturally, too, the columnists and press agents had to build up some sort of a Crosby-Sinatra rivalry, because didn't both of them sing songs? The fact that Frank's style and Bing's are two separate articles entirely, the fact that Frank belongs to an entirely different generation than Bing (he's twenty-six, and Bing's in his forties), and the fact that you can like them both at the same time and probably do, had nothing to do with it After all, there has to be an angle for some hullabaloo. So-Frank's radio producers thought it would be a good idea to have Bing and Frank show up on each other's programs. Also RKO thought it might just be possible the Groaner would consent to a quick appearance in Frank's picture, and Frank could return the compliment in Ring's current epic. "Tell your agent to get in touch with Bing's agent," said Frank's radio boss. Frank was horrified. "My agent?" he gasped. "Why I wouldn't think of that. Gosh! I'll go see Bing myself. Say-he's too big a man to treat that way!" So he called up Bing, and Bing invited him over to lunch at Paramount They really got together then, and although the picture and radio swap was nixed by various managers and things, that started the personal friendship of the King and the Crown Prince. Frank came away and told his crew, "I've been talking to Bing. I actually had lunch with Bing Crosby, honest!" Just like a movie-struck fan who'd touched Garbo. They kidded him about it around the RKO dressing room for days, but Sinatra kids easy. He didn't mind. Since then, of course, getting to know Bingo better and better and thereby having to learn to crack back or get annihilated by the wig-parters Bob Hope and Bing toss around, Frank has managed to punch back. For instance, last time he was in New York, walking up Fifth Avenue, he looked in the window at Sulka's, exclusive Manhattan haberdashery, and spied a sport shirt to end all sport shirts. The thing had Oriental sunbursts on it, birds of paradise, Daliesque alligators and maybe the Great Chicago fire, too. Anyway, I have it on good authority that it was a shirt to make even an old scream-shirt fancier like Bing Crosby shudder and shake. "Hold on," Frankie told his manager, Al Levy. "This just has to go back to the Groaner." Frankie has learned to be quick on the uptake and handy with the touché retort, too. He's had to with those worldly wolves, Crosby and Hope, snapping happily at him. One place where the trio let themselves go is on "Command Performance," the GI radio show. The insults and lowerations flow fast and furious. Bing and Frank were warbling off a duet, for instance, the other day for the soldiers, Cole Porter's "You're the Top." Suddenly Bing heard Frank change the lyrics. "You're the top," Frank sang, "you're the head canary!" Bing thought that was pretty nice. But the next line showed Frank was just suckering him. "You're the top," he chanted, "though your top ain't hairy!" That's Bing's real weakness, his shiny head of vanishing fuzz. Another time Frankie played on the same theme. Bing had just thrown in a snide remark about Frank's emaciated frame. Frank got through bending his notes on "This Love of Mine." "My, my," whispered Bing, "to think that such beautiful music can come out of a rag, a bone and a hank of hair." "Anyway, I've got hair," chuckled back Frank. They go on like that for hours. "Just call me Bing," pleads Bing in mock friendliness. "I wouldn't dream of calling a man your age by his first name," Frank comes back. Whoever is hanging around those battles of wit and words has to join in or go under. Once Judy Garland came in to break it up with a little feminine song and charm. Bob Hope immediately pounced on her. "Where's Frank Sinatra, Judy? I thought you were coming together - or did you swoon?" "Oh, no," said Judy, "we were coming together. But I couldn't carry Frank another block!" Maybe the most telling wisecrack Frank ever got off at Bing's expense, was delivered in the warm-up before Bing's very own show at NBC studios in Hollywood. Even today one of the most rapt audience members of Bing Crosby's at the Kraft Music Hall is a certain F. Sinatra. He likes to watch Bing work. Well, this evening Frank went backstage before the show, and Bing dragged him out on the stage to help jolly up the audience. Naturally, those two together didn't need to say a word; the studio went wild. But Ukie was standing around, Ukie is one who always stimulates Bing's razz glands. He started ragging him, and in self-defense Ukie finally burst out with, "Oh, Crosby, why don't you give up?" Then's where Frank stepped in with his Sunday punch. "You heard what the man said, Bing. You heard what he said!" It's not at all hard to prove, though, that Frank and Bing have a genuine regard for each other which all the comic crustiness can't cover completely. Bing showed that way back the very first time the news camera caught him and Frank together. That happened at the NBC studios, where Frank, a CBS man, was visiting on Joan Davis' show. Right before it came Bing's half hour. The NBC and CBS press agents got their little heads together and decided here was the Big Chance. The programs overlapped-that is, Bing would be leaving just as Frank started on the air. But there were three whole pages in the first part of the Davis show where Sinatra wasn't needed. They set it up with Bing to shoot the picture then and with Frank to run off the stage, make 'em and get back for his lines. Both Frank and Bing, approached separately, said "Sure!" Frankie was so eager to make the shots that out on the broadcasting stage he kept craning his neck over to the wings, looking for Bing, and Joan Davis, who hadn't been told, wondered what the heck went on. When she saw Frankie trot off the stage when his empty spot came, she thought he'd gone crazy! So as he whizzed by, she grabbed him by the coat collar and hung on. That ruined the plans, but to everyone's surprise, Bing Crosby laughed and said, "I'll just wait around until after the show, and we'll make the pictures then." speech is silver... In the past ten years Bing had never been known to wait on anyone anywhere, he's that relaxed and indifferent. Nor has he ever given a hoot whether or not he ever had a picture snapped of him or an article written about him or anything else. But the next morning bright and early, Bing was on the phone in person calling the publicity boys at NBC and CBS. He said he'd sure like a quick set of those pictures of, as he said, 'the two vocalists.' As for Frank Sinatra-how he feels about Crosby, comes out all the time; He was a guest on Bob Burns' show not long ago, and as Robin and Bing are pals of long standing, the Groaner dropped around backstage before the show for a chat and ran into Sinatra. Then he left, Frank thought. But during the program, where Frank and Bob Burns were rattling off some repartee about Bing, Frank tossed in a line of his own on the spur of the moment. "No kidding," he said feelingly, "he's the best there is!" Whereupon, to his surprise Bing himself, who had been on the sidelines watching the show, walked out on the stage, smacked Frank with a big, loud kiss and slipped him a brand new, shiny silver dollar! Frankie and Bing and Bop Hope are three of a kind in a lot of other ways, of course, besides snappy comebacks, cutups and respect for one another. All three have a tremendous and unique talent that can't be boobed, and all three, on the personal side, are Joes who haven't an enemy in town. Hunt all over Hollywood and parts East and West, and you'll be mighty hard put to find a bad word from anyone-male or female-about Hope, Crosby or Sinatra. But of the three, perhaps the softest-hearted, most generous and sentimental is Frank Sinatra. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby have been up there on the top for so long that a certain blasé crust has had to form to protect them from being washed to pieces by waves of public worship. But it's still all new and wonderful to Sentimental Sinatra, and maybe the biggest kick he's getting out of being a star is throwing his talent and the money it brings him around. Of course, with all the contracts and day and night jobs he has, the Voice hasn't yet been able to dash off to foreign battlefronts to entertain lonesome GI's. But every Saturday, and often Sunday too, an Army technical crew moves in on Frank wherever he is, and he puts in a few thousand dollars worth of bent-notes on wax for this and that camp or fighting sector. When Bob Hope sailed on his current entertainment tour in the South Pacific, he was hard up for new gags and material to keep GI Joe laid up with laughs. Bob uses up funny material like a Kentucky Colonel uses up bourbon. His stable of gag men were dried up and panting. When Frank heard about it, he sent his whole staff of radio writers out to Bob's house for a week, getting together a satchel full of funny business for Bob to use on his atoll-hopping tour. singing saint... The other day Frank read in a Los Angeles newspaper. about an ex-sailor and his young bride (an expectant mother) who got in a jam with the law hooking some things off a store counter, to help them set up housekeeping. The sailor was just back from the wars, had seen rugged action, had a disability discharge. He wasn't a real thief but really a casualty of the war and a preview of a problem that a lot of kids might be tempted to have. Promptly Frankie scribbled a hundred dollar check and sent it to the pair as "my wedding present." "Keep your chin up," advised Frankie. The sailor did and won a dismissal of his case in court. (And he's going to name his baby after Sinatra.) That soft side of Frankie is probably incurable, thank goodness. On his radio program the other night he was singing "I'll Get By" when a little white-haired lady, about seventy years old, whispered to a girl seated beside her in the front row, "Isn't he wonderful? I know now why all you girls swoon over him." Frankie heard her, and a smile cracked his face from ear to ear. After the program switch to New York that followed, he leaned down and said, "Thanks, Honey-now because you're so nice I'm going to sing a song just for you.' He announced it to the audience, "Here's one for my favorite fan here," and he pointed to the thrilled and fussed little old lady. Then he got down and on his knees sang right to her, "I'll be Seeing You." The lady, by the way, had a taste of how it feels to be queen for a minute right after the show. Darned if the bobbysockers didn't gang up on her for the autograph of "the girl Sinatra sang to!" But Frank has one character spot that's right in line with his pals. He's nutty about kids. Bing has proved his passion for small fry with a dozen picture pals, from Don O'Connor on up and down. And in his own home he's done all right, although by now Gary, Denny and Linny have sprouted to a size where the old man has to be tough or get snowed under. If they get obstreperous, Pop Crosby wades in yelling, "Break it up, you hams, break it up!" and they break it up. Hope the householder is tyrannized a little more by his kids, Linda and Tony, especially Linda, a blonde little dream who leads Bob around by his notorious nose any time she wants to. By now, though only five, Linda is plenty wise in show business. Whenever Bob has time on his radio camp shows or even commercial programs he slips in, "Good night, Linda and Tony." But sometimes the program is long, and he doesn't make it. And that's tragedy in the Hope home, and there have been complaints. Not long ago Bob set out from his house, as usual, in a whirlwind rush. Linda wanted to know where daddy was off to. "Santa Ana Air Base," Bob flung back over his shoulder. "For a radio show. And if Daddy's lucky, he'll say 'Good night, Linda and Tony' right over the air." "All right," agreed Linda. "But you'd better write it in the script now!" Another time Bob's wife, Dolores, was scolding Linda for some cut-up or other. "Okay, okay," retorted Linda, "I'll let Daddy get all the laughs around here!" lullaby lane... Frank's babies are still too much on the small side to pester their pop, but it's a cinch that when they get big enough, he'll be putty in their hands. When Frank came out to Hollywood and had to leave his wife, Nancy, and the new baby back East, he shipped Sinatra-crooned lullaby records back by the case loads to set the baby, two weeks old, off on the right sound track. And when there isn't one of his own around to make happy, some other kid gets the Sinatra sunshine. Frank can't help himself that way. Little Dean Stockwell, who plays with Frank in "Anchors Aweigh," found himself with a swell imported music-box the other day that plays Brahms' lullaby when you lift the lid. And when the sound man on that same picture announced that his new daughter had just arrived, he went home that night with a $100 war bond for the baby. That's Frankie, all the time. The Hope, Crosby and Sinatra families don't see an awful lot of each other, so the fellows' friendship is mostly a work-a-day one. All of them are so busy these days that home is mostly a place to grab a quick bite and expire on a handy bed. And all the wives, too, are tied down with growing kids. But Frank Sinatra has bought Nancy a home on the shores of Toluca Lake, and already he has a couple of rowboats and some bikes to go visiting when he has the time. Bob Hope already lives there, and while the Crosbys are temporarily in absentia, being burned out and living near Beverly Hills, they don't like it, and it's a safe guess that come V-Day, Bing will be building himself a chateau and making the San Fernando Valley his home, somewhere comfortably near the first tee at Lakeside Country Club, his home away from home. Then the Three Jokers can carry on their slam-bang palship over the back fence, and maybe then somebody can dream up a triple Hatfield-McCoy family feud-although you can bet right now it will be a phoney. Matter of fact, the only real jealousy I can uncover so far in the friendship of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Bop Hope is the rankling envy of those two first guys for the last-and with a pretty good reason. Both Bing and Frank are pea-green because Bob has been out wowing GI's where the bullets fly and they'd give their gravel larynx and their best bow-tie, respectively, for the million unforgettable experiences Bob has collected up front with our fighting Yanks. Perhaps the one serious wisecrack Bing ever made about his pal, Bob Hope, was when Bob's book about his front-line Army tours hit the stands the other day. It's called, "I Never Left Home," and when Bingo got his copy, he cracked ruefully, "It's a great book, Bob. But by the title maybe I should have written it." Bing will be fixing that up, he hopes, as you read this. He's booked for a tour of Army hospitals when he winds up his summer movie and radio jobs about a month from now, and he's hoping to get overseas where the big show is playing. The same goes for Frank Sinatra, if he can ever wiggle off the hook of all his movie and radio contracts long enough to pack his bag and a kit of songs. The way they figure, when they're old and gray, why should "Thanks for the Memories" be an exclusive Bob Hope tune? |