As 1941 drew to a close, Bing Crosby was already a well-established Hollywood star.
Having started his career as a drummer in a band of high schoolers back in 1923, he’d moved to LA and gone on to break out as a solo act with more hits than any other recording artist of his era.
In 1936, he became the host of his own NBC radio show – The Kraft Music Hall – which would become the number-one rating show in the country during his 10-year tenure.
And despite being forced in his earliest pictures to glue back his jug ears, Bing proved so popular as a headliner on the silver screen – with his ears now freely flapping – that he’d been given carte blanche to cast his own co-star, his friend and inspiration Louis Armstrong, in the hit 1936 film Pennies from Heaven.
Not bad for someone who once said, “Honestly, I think I’ve stretched a talent which is so thin it’s almost transparent.”
But on December 25, 1941, that stardom would become stratospheric as Bing crooned an all-new tune on his radio show. The track was called White Christmas.
And it would not only lead to him being anointed as the official Voice of Christmas, it would break records which still stand today: the nostalgic ballad became the best-selling single of all time, with more than 50 million copies shifted.
(A note for music buffs: Elton John’s Candle in the Wind 1997 would attempt to claim that title, but given record sales weren’t recorded until the 1950s, according to experts White Christmas still pips it to the post. And that’s before you take into account the cover versions recorded, which easily double that figure).
“The best song that anybody’s ever written”
Written by Irving Berlin, the now-legendary track was said to have been conceived as the composer sat contemplating the palm trees in his backyard, pining for his hometown.
A New Yorker who was struggling with the transplant to LA, Irving still managed to find acclaim by penning hit screen ballads such as Puttin’ On The Ritz and There’s No Business Like Show Business.
Irving reportedly woke his secretary by calling her in the early hours of the morning before telling her urgently, “Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written – heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!”
So at 4am on that fateful day, his faithful secretary took down the first verse:
“The sun is shining, the grass is green / The orange and palm trees sway
There’s never been such a day / In Beverly Hills, LA
But it’s December the 24th / And I am longing to be up north…”
Doesn’t sound familiar? It’s because Irving quickly decided to drop the first verse in order to give the song more of a universal appeal to anyone missing the comforts of home – no matter where in the world they were.
Given many around the world were being impacted by World War II raging on, it took on a particularly poignant resonance, which immediately struck a chord when Bing crooned the song’s wistful opening chorus:
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas / Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten, and children listen / To hear sleigh bells in the snow…”
For the boys
For millions of servicemen stationed overseas, White Christmas was a welcome reminder of home.
It was also a timely track for their anxious families tuning in to Bing’s show, as just a few weeks prior the attack on Pearl Harbour had taken place on December 7, 1941. Requests to play it again, Bing, soon flooded in.
But despite that instant reaction, it took a little longer for a recording to become available, and even longer for it to become a smash hit.
The song was next heard the following year when the 1942 musical Holiday Inn saw Bing crooning White Christmas to his onscreen love interest, played by Marjorie Reynold.
It was recorded in just 18 minutes, but would go on to win an Academy Award and spend 11 weeks atop the charts in 1942 alone, with the original recording becoming so used that it was quite literally worn out and had to be re-recorded as closely as possible in 1947.
This is the version most commonly heard today.
Bing was dedicated to doing all he could for the men and women serving their country, both through frequent contributions to the Armed Forces Network radio shows and visits to the troops training at home and fighting overseas.
White Christmas would be the number one song requested each and every time, an achievement about which the singer had mixed feelings.
“I hesitated about doing it because invariably it caused such a nostalgic yearning among the men that it made them sad,” he once revealed. “Heaven knows, I didn’t come that far to make them sad. For this reason, several times I tried to cut it out of the show, but these guys just hollered for it.”
A Christmas classic
Bing tried to play down his role in the incredible success of the song – which saw him widely credited with launching what would become the highly lucrative secular Christmas music industry.
“A jackdaw with a cleft palate could have sung it successfully,” he once scoffed.
True or not, it didn’t stop him from replicating that Yuletide magic for years to come. Not only would White Christmas be re-released – and hit the charts again every year for over a decade – but he’d record dozens more seasonal tunes which continue to be played around the globe.
In 1943 his second track for homesick GIs, I’ll Be Home for Christmas (If Only in My Dreams) became another hit. Two years later, he released the album Merry Christmas, which mixed traditional carols such as Silent Night and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen with jauntier tunes including Let’s Start the New Year Right.
White Christmas would inspire the hit 1954 film of the same name, again starring Bing, while a slew of holiday songs added to his incredible record sales, which are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
And for many years until his death in 1977, the holiday season would only officially start once a Bing Crosby Christmas TV special had aired.
With appearances from his own family along with his famous friends including Bob Hope, Fred Astaire, Jackie Gleason and many more, the performances elicited tears and laughter from those watching, entranced by the legendary showman’s trademark baritone, quick wit and everyman warmth.
Today, close to eight decades after he first sang White Christmas, the song still stirs up emotions for many, especially his family.
“For the first five years after his death, it was really painful to hear the song,” admits his daughter Mary Crosby, who was just 18 when her father died of a heart attack while playing golf in Spain, aged 74.
“I missed him so much, and I was in no way ready to lose my dad. That time has passed. I’m so proud and happy to hear it now. It makes me feel good inside.”
Did you know?: Bing didn’t make a cent from Silent Night, his second highest-selling song. “I gave all the proceeds to the missions,” he said in 1976. “I didn’t want to make any money off anything that’s religious.”
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