Ail-Night Stand

It took Bing Crosby a long time to get around to making his personal appearance on television but, once there, he settled down for a straight 14 1/2 hours. Last week the aging (48) groaner co-starred with TV Veteran Bob Hope on an all-night show to raise the $500,000 still needed to send the U.S. Olympic team to this summer's games at Helsinki, Finland. Conceived by Sport Writer Vincent Flaherty of the Los Angeles Examiner, and obviously patterned after the annual Milton Berle TV marathon for the Cancer Fund, the Hope & Crosby show was a mixture of guest stars (Ezio Pinza, Phil Harris, Martin & Lewis), appeals for money, and the reading of interminable lists of contributors.

Crosby, complete with his Hollywood toupee, was as pleasantly relaxed and as glibly polysyllabic on TV as he is on radio and in the movies. He traded familiar insults with Bob Hope; exchanged small talk with Guest Dorothy Lamour; moaned in true TV-Comic fashion whenever the studio audience seemed lukewarm, and crooned such songs as Home on the Range. When the Telethon ended its allnight, two-network (CBS and NBC), stand, Hope, Crosby and friends had collected pledges for more than $1,000,000. Crosby also seems assured of a lively and profitable TV career whenever he wants it. Said Bing: "Well, I guess I'm off on the road to vaudeville--again."

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