The First Performance of “White Christmas”

A listener note, this episode contains references to sudden infant death.

It may not be suitable for all audiences.

It's December 24th, 1938, at the La Quinta Resort in Palm Springs, 120 miles east of Los Angeles, California.

Irving Berlin makes his way along the side of one of the luxury hotel's numerous pools.

A lone swimmer cuts through the water with long, powerful strokes.

And if the 50-year-old Irving takes a closer look, you'll see the woman is a prominent Hollywood star.

But Irving's not all that interested in celebrities.

He knows plenty already.

So Irving heads away from the pool, weaving through the immaculate gardens of sweet-smelling fruit trees toward his room.

He opens the door and flips on the light.

Irving's room is cool and spacious.

It's decor, both glamorous and understated at the same time.

But one thing stands out among the muted whites and delicately luxurious fabrics.

Gleaming darkly in the corner is a piano.

Irving heads right for it.

Irving is one of the most sought-after songwriters in America, and for the past few weeks he's been working on a new Hollywood movie.

But its tight production schedule means that he must spend Christmas working here in La Quinta.

His family is on the opposite side of the country in New York, and Irving misses them terribly.

Irving sits down and his fingers drift aimlessly across the piano keys.

He's struggling to focus, thinking about what his young family must be doing right now.

Playing in the New York snow or back home by the fire, in the shadow of their Christmas tree, Irving's wife always gets carried away and spends far too much every year.

There will be presents and decorations and food and drink everywhere.

Meanwhile, Irving is here on the other side of the country on his own working.

But as he strokes the piano keys, words and images start to form in his mind.

Irving grabs a sheet of paper from a pile he keeps beside the piano and scribbles down fragments of lyrics about sleigh bells and glistening snow and the longing for home that he feels aching inside.

Then at the top of the page, he writes a two-word title, White Christmas.

Over the rest of that night before Christmas, Irving Berlin pens the lyrics to a new festive song.

It'll be years before he's entirely happy with the composition, but White Christmas will eventually become the best-selling record of all time, a spectacular success that will begin when the song is first performed live on the radio on December 25th, 1941.

From Noiser and Airship, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day.

On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is December 25th, 1941, the first performance of White Christmas.

It's December 25th, 1929, at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York, nine years before Irving Berlin starts composing White Christmas.

As millions of New Yorkers settle in front of roaring fires to open presents, Irving Berlin and his wife, Ellen, cling to one another beside the grave of their son, Irving Berlin Jr.

It's the first anniversary of the worst day of their lives.

A year ago, Irving and Ellen woke on Christmas morning to find that their infant son had died during the night.

He was less than a month old, a victim of sudden infant death syndrome.

It's far from the only tragedy in Irving's life, however.

His earliest memory is of his childhood home in Russia burning to the ground.

That spurred his family to emigrate to America, but Irving's father died when Irving was just 13 years old.

Irving had to leave school and help support his family by selling newspapers, but that wasn't enough to save him from a life of poverty.

It was music that prevented Irving from sinking into depression.

Irving was a talented singer, a gift he had inherited from his father.

As a young man, he found employment in a Chinatown restaurant, where he entertained customers by singing as he fixed their drinks.

There was also a piano in the establishment, and Irving often stayed after hours to teach himself how to play.

He never learned how to read or write music, but that didn't stop him from coming up with songs of his own.

That talent got him noticed, and in 1909 he was offered a job at a music publisher in New York.

There, Irving produced a succession of hits, with his song Alexander's Ragtime Band even sparking a national dance craze.

But despite his growing success, the losses Irving had suffered in life still tinged his music, and that sense of melancholy in his work has only increased in the years since the death of his son.

At the boy's grave, Irving lets go of his wife as she bends down to lay a bouquet of white flowers by the headstone.

The petals are the same color as the snow falling around them, and Irving decides it's time to go before they freeze.

They have a daughter waiting for them at home, and although this is a tragic anniversary, Irving doesn't want to spoil this special day for her.

His daughter is only three years old, and she deserves a happy Christmas.

A few days later, when the holiday season is over, Irving returns to work, and he soon has a new commission.

In early 1930, he's hired to write the music and lyrics for a new Hollywood musical titled Reaching for the Moon.

Irving is excited.

It's his first big break in the movies, and Reaching for the Moon is set to star household name Douglas Fairbanks.

But Irving soon finds the reality of working in Hollywood doesn't match up to his expectations.

He had hoped to be treated like a celebrity and for his every need to be catered to.

Instead, the set of Reaching for the Moon is a chaotic one.

The director is fired after creative disagreements with the producer, and the replacement director then decides that Douglas Fairbanks isn't a strong enough singer to carry a musical and reworks the movie as a straight comedy.

By the time Reaching for the Moon is released, most of Irving's songs have been left on the cutting room floor.

One of his compositions does survive though.

When the folks high up do the mean low down, escapes the director's purge because it's not sung by Douglas Fairbanks.

Instead, it's sung by Bing Crosby, a young up-and-coming performer with only a small role in the movie.

And when it's released, Reaching for the Moon is a box office flop, but Irving's song is widely praised as one of the movie's few highlights.

Thanks to when the folks high up do the mean down low, Irving is soon asked to write the songs for another Hollywood movie.

Top Hat stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and this time all the music Irving writes makes it to the final cut.

Top Hat goes on to become one of 1935's biggest grossing movies, and the song Cheek to Cheek earns Irving his first Oscar nomination.

That distinction quickly makes him one of the most in-demand composers in Hollywood, but Irving never forgets where he came from.

His memory of poverty compels him to accept lucrative job offers whenever they come, even over Christmas.

That's why three years after the release of Top Hat, Irving will find himself alone in a hotel on Christmas Eve.

There, he will begin to compose a song that will become more famous than anything he's written so far.

But before White Christmas can conquer the hearts of millions, first Irving will need to find the right person to sing it.

It's December 25th, 1941 at NBC Studios in New York, three years after Irving Berlin began composing White Christmas.

37-year-old singer and movie star Bing Crosby sits in a radio studio with the producer of his weekly show, Craft Music Hall.

Bing looks over the set list for today's episode.

It's a Christmas special, but like many Americans, Bing isn't feeling the holiday spirit right now.

Less than three weeks ago, Japanese airplanes and submarines attacked the US.

Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

President Franklin D.

Roosevelt responded by declaring war on Imperial Japan and its ally, Nazi Germany.

After more than two years of sitting on the sidelines, the United States is now part of World War II.

The country mobilized immediately, and every American man aged 20 to 44 was told to register for the draft, and that included Bing Crosby.

Bing doesn't know yet whether he'll be called up to fight, but today is Christmas Day, so he'll try to put that out of his mind.

This morning, he opened presents with his wife and four children as usual, and now he's doing a final check before he goes live on air.

Looking over the set list, Bing's producer points at the segment they planned for the middle of the show, a live performance by Bing and his band.

He questions whether the song Bing's chosen is appropriate, given the current circumstances.

Producer then suggests something more rousing and patriotic instead, but Bing shakes his head.

He's happy with his decision.

Bing Crosby has come a long way since his small role in the film Reaching for the Moon.

He's now one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and last month he began filming his latest movie, Holiday Inn.

It's a Christmas comedy musical with songs written by Bing's old acquaintance, Irving Berlin.

And one of them is a ballad called White Christmas.

Most Christmas music is upbeat or religious, but White Christmas has a slower, more maudlin tone.

During a break and shooting on Holiday Inn, Irving told Bing about the song's origins, how he'd written it while away from his family one Christmas, ten years after the death of his son.

That stayed with Bing, and a few weeks later, as he was looking for a song for this Christmas Day episode of his radio show, he immediately thought of White Christmas.

Bing was sure that his longing, wistful, almost sad lyrics would strike the right tone for these troubled times.

So with the running order now set, Bing gets ready to go on air, and when the red light signals that they're live, Bing wishes his listeners a Merry Christmas and introduces a handful of hit songs.

Then, halfway through, a backing band joins Bing in the studio, and he sings White Christmas.

It's the first time the song is heard by the American public, but it won't be the last.

As the war continues, Bing avoids being drafted into the army.

Instead, the US government decides that he will be better employed raising the nation's morale.

He entertains troops at military bases, flying all over the country to perform at rallies and fundraisers.

And of course, those that can't see him in the flesh can still see him at the movies.

In August 1942, the film Holiday Inn is finally released in theaters, and it's an immediate hit with the critics and the public alike.

Bing's performance is praised as is that of his co-star Fred Astaire.

But the standout moment in the film is Bing's rendition of White Christmas in a duet with Marjorie Reynolds.

So only a few weeks after the movie's release, White Christmas hits the number one spot in the American charts and stays there for the next 12 weeks.

The sense of longing that Bing identified back in 1941 strikes a chord with listeners once again.

For both the thousands of Americans serving abroad, and those waiting anxiously for news of them at home, this song is a moving reminder of the happy lives that have been disrupted by the war.

Wherever he performs it, Bing sees tears in his audience's eyes as he sings of Christmases just like the ones I used to know.

In fact, people find the song so emotional that Bing soon contemplates leaving White Christmas out of his repertoire.

But as he steps onto stage, night after night, the popularity of the song is undeniable.

White Christmas easily becomes his most requested song, and Bing has no choice but to give the people what they want.

Thanks to Irving Berlin's lyrics and Bing Crosby's voice, White Christmas will be one of the best-selling songs of 1942.

Soon though, an iconic moment at the Oscars will help it make the best-selling song of this century.

It's March 4th, 1943 in the Coconut Grove of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, 14 months after Bing Crosby first performed White Christmas on his radio show.

To loud applause, the song's composer, Irving Berlin, steps onto stage at the 15th Academy Awards.

It's an evening devoted to celebrating the best and brightest of Hollywood's talent, but Irving is in an unusual position.

He's here to read out the winner of this year's best song, but one of his own compositions is in the running.

Irving opens the envelope, reads the name inside and smiles.

He jokes with the audience saying that he's known the songwriter for years and he's a good kid.

And Irving reveals that the winner of this year's best song is White Christmas by himself, Irving Berlin.

Few people are surprised that the smash hit song has taken the award in 1943, but White Christmas retains a hold of the American people that lasts far longer than a single year.

The song returns to the top of the charts at Christmas in 1945 and in 1946.

In fact, it's played so often that by 1947, the original recording will have deteriorated and Bing Crosby will be forced to record a new master copy.

In 1954, he'll then star in an entire movie based on the song, cementing its place as a Christmas classic.

Over the next few decades, other artists will put their own spin on Irving Berlin's tune.

White Christmas will be covered by Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Gwen Stefani and Lady Gaga, but none will prove more popular than Bing Crosby's original, the biggest selling single of all time, one that reimagined what Christmas music could sound like after it debuted on the radio on December 25, 1941.

Next, on History Daily, December 26th, 1985, world-renowned primatologist and conservationist, Dr.

Diane Fossey, is killed in her cabin in Rwanda.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily.

Hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Jake Sampson.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Owen Paul Nichols, edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive producers are William Simpson for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.