Call Me Lucky [Paperback]

Bing Crosby (Author), Pete Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1993

"Call Me Lucky" is a portrait of one of the most gifted of all American entertainers. In it, Bing tells how he developed his unique singing style to produce a string of hit, jazz and pop records. He tells stories about music, horses, golf, movies and personalities - Bob Hope, Bix Beiderbecke, Dwight Eisenhower and Louis Armstrong. It all adds up to a story in which, at the apex of his fame, Crosby looks back on his career and says with modesty, "Call Me Lucky".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the most enchanting of all show-business memoirs." - Gary Giddins Reissued to coincide with the paperback publication of the definitive Bing biography by Gary Giddins, here is "a collection of anecdotes and reminiscences that is as warm and witty as any Crosby performance. [Bing] could have surely become a full-time writer had his schedule not been taken up with being one of the great entertainers of the century." - Will Friedwald --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Pete Martin was a writer for the Saturday Evening Post.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Pr; Rep edition (April 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306805049
• ISBN-13: 978-0306805042
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,067,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( C ) > Crosby, Bing

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Undeniably Craosby, January 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Call Me Lucky (Paperback)

Bing Crosby comes to life in "Call Me Lucy". Each word, each sentence, every portion evokes Crosby's wonderful exalted form of speaking. This is not a tell-all biography, but rather a wonderful recant of anecdotes and humorous observations. Crosby tells amusing stories of Bob Hope, Paul Whiteman, Oscar Levant, Groucho Marx, Al Jolson, Fred Astaire, his wife, and his kids. He also spends time telling stories of his adventures on the golf course, in movies, on radio, and traveling the country with Paul Whiteman's band. What's more, he tells the true stories of his rise to the top of show business. From being a team with his Washington pal Al Rinker, to getting the Academy Award for "Going My Way" in 1944. In addition to this, he speaks frankly about his wife (who died not to long before the book was originally published). An honest, and teary moment. All together, "Call Me Lucky" is a must to any Crosby fan. It's undeniably Crosby!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The great voice of the century, August 10, 2004

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Call Me Lucky (Paperback)

Pete Martin, the famous journalist and profile writer who spent a lot of his time working like a beaver for the classic Saturday Evening Post of the 1940s and 1950s--the Norman Rockwell years--and who departed for LOOK magazine when Rockwell did--wrote the bulk of this book, but he did it in close cooperation with the not always easy to work with Bing Crosby, who had attained a new plateau of popularity in the 1950s (when the book was first published). It seemed as if he had everything: wonderful talent, a devoted family, a gift not only for musical comedy but for drama too, as his turns in The Country Girl and Going My Way indicated. Though filmed considerably later than the period he describes in this book, "der Bingle" did a great job as a serial killer in Ira Levin's medical thriller, Dr. Cook's Garden. Bing had a warm, jazz-inspired delivery that wrapped itself around air like it was filled with honey, he was surely the warmest singer who ever lived. If his private life was more complicated than the Saturday Evening Post was then willing to print, what we have in CALL ME LUCKY is another side to the many-faceted Bing Crosby, a construction of grit, daring and tenderness that remains remarkably durable twenty years after his death.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bing by Bing, February 27, 2004

By 

Ramona (Syracuse, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Call Me Lucky (Paperback)

I read this book as a teen years ago and just purchased the new paperback version. Bing's voice, even as filtered by Pete Martin, is evident here. He's not a deep 'teller of tales' in order to let us see all his personal angst. What we do see is a guy who struggles with parenting spirited boys, who grieves the loss of a wife, who downplays his talent and, as the book's title suggests, considers himself merely lucky. There's a lot of humor in this book and the caring Crosby feels for his family and his fellow entertainers is quite evident if not overly 'blatant'. Another perfect companion to the Gary Giddins book "Pocketful of Dreams"!