Bing Crosby: 'You don't have to worry about this one, Irving'
Songwriter Irving Berlin actually may have suspected how right Crosby was about "White Christmas," the 687th song he composed during his long life and career.
According to legend, Berlin told his secretary to write down the lyrics to a song he had just written because it was "the best song I ever wrote."
For Irving Berlin, there were many reasons to be nostalgic, happy, and sad on Christmas. His song "White Christmas" must have conjured up all those memories.
"White Christmas" began as work. Berlin believed in hard work. The song was written for the 1942 movie Holiday Inn. Crosby's rendition, featured in the film, quickly rose to the top of the charts. It went on to become one of the best-selling records of all time, topping the charts a dozen times and eventually selling 50 million physical copies.
Berlin knew a lot about work. One of eight children, Berlin (born Israel Beilin) and his family left Tsarist Russia and arrived in the United States when he was just five years old in 1893. The Beilin family, which had its roots in Siberia, was among thousands of Russian Jewish families to emigrate to the U.S. to escape bloody pogroms and Tsar Alexander III's virulently anti-Jewish policies. When his father died just eight years after their arrival, the family struggled. Berlin had to leave school at age eight with only two years of schooling in order to sell newspapers and deliver his meager wages to his mother each day. Six years later he left home to make a living singing in honky-tonks, and soon started to write his own songs. His first hit song was "Alexander's Ragtime Band."
Berlin loved America and at one point said he was consumed with patriotism. He composed "God Bless America," a classic song performed in his honor upon his death in 1989. Legendary broadcaster Walter Cronkite once said that Berlin helped "write the story of this country, capturing the best of who we are…"
Although he was Jewish, Berlin spent many traditional Christmases with his family. His wife, Ellin, was Catholic, a fact that fascinated America. When they eloped in 1926. Ellin's father promptly disowned her.
Then, on Christmas day in 1928, the only son of Irving and Ellin Berlin died. Less than a month old, he was named Irving, Jr.
Ellin's father reconciled with the Berlins. Irving and Ellin had three other children, enjoying success and a lifelong love affair.
