I knew that Bing, despite the fact he had still been very active, was not in the best of health. He had lung problems in 1974, which kept him hospitalized during his tournament, and a few years later had that terrible fall off the stage at the Ambassador Theater in Pasadena.
What happened was that as Bing was leaving the stage, at the end of his number, he fell through a hole in the stage and dropped twelve feet. He managed to break the force of the fall by grabbing on to a piece of scenery. I was in my dressing room at the time and when I heard all the commotion I rushed downstairs and he was lying there. Pearl Bailey was holding his head and Kathy was leaning over him. Bing opened his eyes and looked up at me. Then he smiled weakly an said, "Jimmy Dundee couldn't have done it any better." Dundee was our stuntman at Paramount.
Sometime after his death I heard that a doctor in England told him to play only 9 holes because of his heart. Bing had finished 18 that day, and was walking up the hill to the clubhouse, when he collapsed and died.
A part of my life went with Bing. I still miss him and always will, just like the rest of the world. I remember the good times with him, and they'll be with me always. (Confessions of a Hooker, Doubleday, 1985, pg. 129)
We closed [at the London Palladium] and had one night off before we did one more concert in Brighton. That would be our last concert together. The hall in Brighton was called either the Brighton Civic Center or Brighton Convention Center .... There was no real stage, a temporary one was built from platforms that were brought in. There were bleachers and thousands of people for the show. There were no wings as such, but we could open a door to the audience and look out. Kathryn said to me, "Do you notice anything about the audience tonight? ... They're very demonstrative when we finish a number, but when they're sitting there, they look as though they're in church. Take a look."
Bing was on stage and I looked outside and it was true. There was really a reverence about it. It was totally different from any other audience that we ever had. I remember that more vividly in hindsight because of events, rapidly approaching, that would have a traumatic effect not only one our lives but also on the world of music lovers.
After the show I was dressing on a different floor from Bing and Kathryn. It was a big building, and the mob of people had sort of surged through the doors and were half backstage when Bing started his run for the waiting car. I came down some stairs, I remember, and caught him halfway in the hall and said, "I'm not going to see you anymore," meaning that I was not going to see him in England as I was returning to Los Angeles. Bing said, on the run, "I'll buy you dinner when I get home."
It was the last time I saw him. The following morning I went to record my part for the BBC -- a radio show we were supposed to do together -- and Bing was going to record his part the following day because I had to leave right away. I did my half of the dialog even "Over to you, Bing ...." Little lines like that so they could cut them together. I also did my part of the music and then Bing came in after I'd left. That was the last singing he had done with an orchestra.
Thursday I spent in Washington, D.C., with my daughter, who was celebrating her birthday. Friday morning I awakened in my bedroom and was kind of half unpacking from the trip. As usual, all the kids who were at home were on the bed with me and everybody was talking up a storm when the phone rang. It was my brother, Nicky, calling from Cincinnati. Miguel picked up the other phone, which started ringing simultaneously. I started to pick up the phone to talk to my brother when Miguel said,"I've got to talk to you."
"Well, just let me talk to Nicky and then I'll talk to you."
"No, Mother, I've got to talk to you first." He looked so somberly serious. "It's really bad. I mean really bad."
I thought something had happened to one of my children and I looked for answers.
"Bing's dead!"
My brother confirmed it. He was calling because he had just picked it up on the wire services at ABC, where he is the anchorman for the evening news in Cincinnati.
After talking to Kathryn I flew up to Hillsborough to spend the night with her. I was struck by the remarkable way she handled the situation. She started calling Bing's friends around the world. I don't think she got any sleep at all that night, because she waited until the time was right in each zone to she wouldn't be waking anybody. It was the kind of consideration wherein she had no consideration at all for her own feelings.
I wanted to cancel my work until after Bing's funeral, but Kathryn said, "No. Don't do that. Go to your work." I think she was right. It was better to keep in motion ....
Bing had strong feelings about some things, but he didn't approach you directly with them. He knew how close my sister, Betty, was to me, but when she died, he never spoke to me directly about it -- but he cared about it, about my feelings. He called Miguel twice and wanted to know from him about it. "Now tell me what happened," he said. "How did it happen? And how is your mother? How is she taking it?"
Bing cared, but he was the kind of man who would never intrude on what he felt was private. He was some kind of gentleman, and I was privileged to have had him as a friend and to have had so many wonderful times with him over the years. (This For Remembrance, 1979, Playboy Press, pg 244-248)
It never occurred to me that the old man was mortal. Are the mountains mortal? The sky? God? Then, on the last day of 1973, he had to go into the hospital to be treated for an inflammation in his lungs.... Two weeks later they diagnosed it as a rare fungus infection he'd picked up in Africa. It didn't respond to the usual antibiotics, so they had to operate. When they opened him up they took out an abscess the size of a tangerine and removed almost half his left lung....
After he recuperated he went back to work with a vengeance. Before the operation he had been gradually phasing himself into semi-retirement, but now he suddenly seemed renewed and began making all kinds of personal appearances, TV specials and records. It was as if he realized he was getting close to the end and wanted to kick up his heels and go out swinging....
Then, in March 1977, he took another bad shot. He was taping a TV special in Pasadena celebrating his 50th anniversary in show business, and just after finishing his bows to a standing ovation he fell off the stage and plunged twenty feet down into the orchestra pit. That one worried me. He was seventy-two years old now, and at that age a spill on the sidewalk can be enough to do you in. Luckily, he grabbed a piece of the curtain as he fell, and that probably saved his life. When I saw him at the hospital he made light of the accident and took all the blame. "It's my fault," he admitted. "I forgot they changed the routine and told me to exit through the audience...." As much as he downplayed it, he had still ruptured a disk in his lower back and was laid up in the hospital for over a month. But he was a strong man with a strong will. By October he was feeling well enough to go off on a concert tour of Great Britain.
The operation and the accident had prepared us for the end. It happened on his way home from England, when he stopped off in Madrid to play a round of golf. He won the game by one stroke, and just as he was leaving the 18th hole he died of a heart attack. It was over in an instant.... He had hit a good shot onto the 18th green and sunk the putt. Some people on the veranda gave him a hand. Then he turned around and, without any pain, went straight to God. I thought to myself, "Well, isn't that just like him? Everything's perfect. He went out doing what he loved most, doing it successfully, taking a bow, knowing he was in good shape with his Church and his God and his fellow man. How many guys get to die like that? What an ending."
The funeral was exactly the way he wanted. My mother's [Dixie Lee Crosby] had turned into such a three-ringed nightmare that he never forgot it. I remember him telling Kathryn, "When it gets to be my time, don't be going into that joint and buying the biggest, most expensive, ornate casket in the world. Just get me a plain wooden box and put me in the ground without any pomp and ceremony. I don't want a lot of people around or any big shows." That's how she did it....
I'm happy we made some kind of peace before he went. Neither one of us backed up and neither one of us apologized, yet we made it. We were able to give some love to each other before it was too late. And I'm happy that the last years of his life he was satisfied with me. That's nice. I like that feeling. (Going My Own Way, Fawcett Crest, 1983, pages 288-291)
My throat was so bad that ... I wasn't allowed to talk at all, so Bill [Howard] took charge of all my business and personal calls. The morning I was to go to the doctors for the latest reports on my throat, Bill and I were sitting in the kitchen having a cup of coffee and listening to the all-news radio station. "Bing Crosby drops dead on a golf course in Spain," the announcer said. "Details now coming in."
Bill and I looked at each other in disbelief. Only two days before, Lord Lew Grade had been on the phone from London, asking me to join Bing and Bob in The Road to the Fountain of Youth. Yet how appropriate for Bing to make his final exit on a golf course.
... of course, the phone started ringing off the hook. Even though the doctor had told me to keep my mouth shut, I had to answer some of the calls.... I gave a phone interview to ABC's Jerry Dunphy and talked to a few radio stations before realizing the damage I was doing to my throat.
I guess stunned is the best word to describe my reaction. Bing's secretary had known me for years. "Dottie, I'm sorry," she said, obviously ill at ease, "but Mrs. Crosby will not allow anyone but the immediate family into the services. I wouldn't want you to be embarrassed if you showed up, because they will not let you in."
Pauline couldn't believe her ears. I had always liked Bing, even though sometimes he was like a stranger. I guess we had been closest when he was married to Dixie Lee, a wonderful lady. Like so many of Bing's old friends, I had never had a chance to really get to know actress Kathryn Grant, the new Mrs. Crosby.
I knew the press was going to wonder why I wasn't at the funeral, but a photo from the wire services hit all over the world with the caption, "Dorothy Lamour attends Crosby services." She happened to be an employee of Bing's who bore a striking resemblance to me -- and no one could believe that I wouldn't be there to say good-bye. (My Side of the Road, Prentice-Hall, 1980, p221-222)
Bing came over to Britain in August [1977], went to Oslo and did his concert with the Joe Bushkin Quartet. He taped his annual Christmas TV show -- with guests David Bowie, Twiggy, Ron Moody and Stanley Baxter, plus, of course, his family.
On 12, 13 and 14 September he finally recorded his pet album project, Seasons.... From the very first session -- indeed from the opening bars of the first song on the agenda, the elegant September Song, all of us in the studio sensed that Bing was somehow more dedicated and more inspired than usual. That celebrated rolling baritone sound came on so strong and so beautifully resonant that all of us in the control booth found ourselves smiling with an uncontrollable warmth and affection for this wonderful man ....
From time to time during the recordings Bing was clearly in pain with his back ailment. I could see him wince quietly whenever he felt a spasm of pain, yet he never once complained. Indeed, he tended to cover his discomfort with an occasional joke ....
Following the completion of the album, Bing did a series of one-night stands around Britain which also included a grueling two weeks at the London Palladium. On 4 October, he also found time to go along to Olympic Recording Studios and do two songs for inclusion on an album by his piano-playing friend, Joe Bushkin.
As soon as I had reached an acceptable mixdown of the Seasons album, Bing came over to Polydor to listen to the results. To say he was delighted would have been an understatement.
On 10 October Bing did his last concert in Brighton and the following morning he made his final appearance in a recording studio, singing eight songs for a BBC radio program together with an interview with Alan Dell. And on the afternoon of that same day he had arranged with Chris Harding to 'possibly' pose for photographs for the Seasons album jacket.
He posed for several shots from which the album cover was eventually chosen.... He signed autographs for everyone and posed with members of the staff for private photographs.
We drove him back to his apartment and as we shook hands he said: "I'm going to Spain tomorrow to play a little golf -- and I'll see you fellas in California around the end of next week."
That was the last time I saw Bing Crosby.
When I arrived home that Tuesday night it was reported that Bing's flat had been burgled while he and his family had been doing a concert in Brighton the night before. The thieves had taken property and items to the value of several thousands of pounds.
Apparently, Bing's wife, Kathryn, had already returned to California and Bing had been dealing with the police all day and providing them with information regarding the stolen items. In spite of this he had still found time to do his recording session for the BBC during the morning -- and his photographic session for Polydor in the afternoon. He never mentioned the theft to anybody.
It was typical of Bing not to make a fuss or to burden other people with his problems. This was one of his most admirable qualities.
On the evening of Friday 14 October ... my wife and I were sitting in front of the TV and for some reason we turned down the sound. A few minutes later the phone rang. I answered it. It was my sister-in-law calling. "Have you heard the news?" she said. "Bing Crosby's dead."
The story surrounding Bing's death has been told and retold. It was, of course, a romantic way to die and in many ways it was a typical Crosby exit.
Of the flood of comments and tributes that poured into the media from all over the world, none was more eloquent or more apposite than the quote from his widow who, in her grief, summed up the feelings of the whole world when she said: "I can't think of any better way for a golfer who sings for a living to finish the round."
Bing did indeed finish the round -- and in grand style. His last album, Seasons, qualified for a gold disc and was voted the Best Album of 1977 by the British Music Trade Association in the MOR Vocal category. His final Christmas TV show was screened posthumously around the world to critical acclaim. At the time of his death, he was planning an album of duets with Bob Hope, a special appearance on the Jubilee Royal Variety Show, another "Road" film with Hope and Dorothy Lamour, and an extensive tour covering Germany, Japan and Australia. But it was not to be. The Crosby years had come to an end. (The Crosby Years, St. Martin's Press, 1980, p57-60, 30)