The
Crosby family had been making a Christmas Special in the United States for many years. However, in 1976, Bing came to ATV
with his wife Kathryn, sons Gary and Nathaniel and daughter Mary, famed for her appearances in the hit soap Dallas. Directed
by Canadian, Norman Campbell, the guest stars were a young and vibrant Bernadette Peters and a not so young and certainly
not so vibrant Jackie Gleason. Bernadette sang ‘One (Singular Sensation)' from the hit Broadway show Chorus Line.
Her rendition was terrific.
Fake Christmas trees swamped the studio. Artificial snow was still being found weeks after the set was pulled down.
An over-the-top park area was designed for Bing and the entire family to wander around singing a cacophony of Christmas songs.
Thankfully, because the medley was mimed, the listener avoided hearing whining snow machines swirling thousands of white chips
of polystyrene around the studio. This was all very jolly, but it was the middle of August and in the hottest year on record.
The studio air conditioning could not be used during takes, so the dock doors were almost continually open to let some sort
of fresh air in.
1976 was also the time when England played Australia in a series of gripping test matches. The vision department
had rigged several floor monitors for the crew to follow the proceedings. The cast gathered round these monitors during breaks
requesting explanations of the ‘strange proceedings' taking place at Lords cricket ground. The scene boys were happy
to oblige. Talks of ‘leg before' and ‘bowling a maiden over' caused sniggers from Mr. Gleason, who could
well have been noting it all for future stag night speeches.
The 1977 Bing Crosby Merrie Olde Christmas was a different kettle of fish.
The Gary Smith/Dwight Hemion well-oiled production machine took over. Starring David Bowie, Stanley Baxter, Ron Moody, Twiggy,
the Crosby Family and the Trinity Boys Choir, the show opens with chauffer-uniformed Royce Mills delivering an invitation
to Bing imploring him and the family to visit London to spend Christmas with his previously unknown British relative Sir Percy
Crosby (Ron Moody). The visit to Sir Percy's baronial mansion provided Messrs Baxter & Moody to adopt several parts
Twiggy joined Ron Moody in a Christmas-past Dickensian sequence where they both also perform three different characters each.
The ‘Upstairs Downstairs' scenario gave Stanley Baxter the opportunity to instruct Kathy Crosby in the downstairs
culinary arts. In another part of the show he did a Bob Hope impression that had Bing cracking up to such an extent he couldn't
say his lines.
Halfway through the show, David Bowie popped in to sing 'Little Drummer Boy' with Bing at the piano. Several
months later, a record company enquired whether the master tape could be used to release a record in time for Christmas. I
went to the sound store where the master tapes were kept to discover that the sound 16 tracks and quarter inch tapes had been
erased. As a result of this the record company decided to use my on-line mix (check it out here on YouTube) with Bing and David Bowie's voices picked up via the boom. The record had to be transcribed from
a quarter inch tape recording that I had saved. It got to number one that Christmas, number two the following Christmas and
still in the charts years later. Where is my Gold disc EMI?
This was a happy shoot with Bing and the boys often disrupting a voice recording
session because Nathaniel (a golfer heading for pro status) would come in to the vocal booth and say; ‘Looks great out,
let's go play golf' The final song in the show was, of course, ‘White Christmas'. To our surprise, Bing
wanted cue cards for the lyrics. He was a gentle, quiet man; patiently sitting with Kathryn in the beautiful lounge set designed
by Henry Graveney, while Dwight gave instructions to the crew, or Johnny Rook fiddled with his lights. More on this super
show in CUE TAPE PLEASE, TED
