Bing Crosby has a "heavenly" tie to Hawaii. His first gold record was the beloved hapa-haole song "Sweet Leilani," by Harry Owens, from the 1937 film "Waikiki Wedding." It was also the first Academy Award-winning tune that Crosby crooned.
Kathryn Crosby, who was married to the actor-singer from 1957 until his death in 1977, said that before shooting the movie, he came to Hawaii to meet Owens.
"He loved him. He knew that he had written this song, ‘Sweet Leilani,’ and Mr. Owens didn’t want to have it put out, he didn’t want it publicized, really," she recalled in a phone interview from her home in San Francisco.
Owens wrote the song in 1934 for his daughter, Leilani, referring to her as a "heavenly flower."
"Bing said, ‘Listen, we’ll fix it so that she’ll get a college scholarship out of this, at least.’"
Back in Hollywood, however, Paramount executives weren’t as enchanted by the song and didn’t want it in the movie. According to his widow, Crosby forced the issue by staging a walkout of sorts, heading to a Burbank golf club and telling the studio heads, "When you find a space for this song in the movie, let me know."
"Sweet Leilani" ended up in "Waikiki Wedding," with Crosby in a sailor cap warbling the tender tune as a lilting lullaby to a little lei-wearing island girl swaying in a hammock as beautiful wahine in grass skirts danced hula.
Owens won the 1938 Oscar for best original song.
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"American Masters: Bing Crosby Rediscovered"
8 p.m. Tuesday on PBS
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"Sweet Leilani" and another of Crosby’s island-themed hits, "Blue Hawaii," are briefly referenced as examples of his genre-defying career in "American Masters: Bing Crosby Rediscovered," premiering at 8 p.m. Tuesday on PBS.
Kathryn Crosby appears in the documentary, which was written, directed and produced by Robert Trachtenberg, who previously chronicled the lives of Mel Brooks, Gene Kelly and Cary Grant for the PBS series.
She said Crosby "fell in love with Hawaii" during that first visit.
"He learned to do a hula with about 20 gorgeous Hawaiian girls, and he loved it," she said.
Kathryn Crosby believes her husband stayed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel during his 1930s jaunt. A film crew accompanied him, and some background footage shot here appears in "Waikiki Wedding."
In the movie, Crosby plays pineapple company public relations man Tony Marvin, who sings several hapa-haole ditties, including Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger’s "Blue Hawaii." He also performed the Hawaiian-language "Nani Ona Pua," accompanied by festive islanders clad in lei, kapa and ersatz alii-type attire as Polynesians pounded the shark skins.
Hawaii’s influence on the star endured throughout his life. He threw a luau for son Lindsay’s birthday party and "wore Hawaiian shirts everywhere — quite often to formal dinner parties — and always wanted to get back to Hawaii," said Kathryn Crosby, who enjoyed a busy acting career in the 1950s.
She remembered when Crosby brought his family to Hawaii for a vacation sometime in the 1960s.
"I learned how to scuba-dive and he golfed, of course," she said. On Kauai they stayed at the Coco Palms, where Elvis Presley got married in the 1961 movie "Blue Hawaii," whose title was taken from the song Crosby immortalized in "Waikiki Wedding."
Still in regular radio rotation during the holidays is Crosby’s bouncy "Mele Kalikimaka," written by Robert Alex Anderson. Crosby recorded it with the Andrews Sisters in 1950 and also made the album "Return to Paradise Islands" in 1963 with hapa-haole hits such as "Lovely Hula Hands" and "My Little Grass Shack."
Kathryn Crosby recalled that his last trip to the islands was for a vacation around 1975.
Relishing her late husband’s return to the limelight, Crosby said she is excited about the "American Masters" documentary "because it reveals Bing again. People have forgotten how wonderful he was."
Former Makaha resident Ed Rampell co-authored "The Hawaii Movie and Television Book" (Mutual Publishing, $25.95), which includes information on Bing Crosby.
