— Songwritin’ Like Flynn —
Hollywood Citizen News – December 5, 1940
by Zuma Palmer
Errol Flynn, Benny Rubin and Cliff Nazarro will make up the Music Hall guest list at 6 over KFI. Flynn has written a song called “Hiya’ Toots,” which he will sing. “Remember Me” and “We Three” will be sung by Connie Boswell. “Ferryboat Serenade,” “You are the One,” and “Trade Winds” by Bing Crosby.
— Tim
Errol sang his “Hiya Toots” on Bing Crosby’s mega-popular “Kraft Music Hall” radio show.
Here was the full program:
Bing Crosby Host.
Ken Carpenter, Announcer.
Featuring Errol Flynn, Connie Boswell, Benny Rubin, Cliff Nazarro, and the Music Maids.
Bing – “The Ferryboat Serenade” with The Music Maids
“Remember Me?” Connie Boswell
“Along The Santa Fe Trail”
Bing – “Precious” with The Music Maids
Bing – “You Are The One”
Bing – “Let’s Be Buddies” with Connie Boswell
“Hiya Toots” Errol Flynn (Vocal)
Bing – “Trade Winds”
“We Three (My Echo, My Shadow And Me)” Connie Boswell
Bing – “I’ll Never Smile Again” with The Music Maids
Earlier that year, Errol, Bing and other Hollywood luminaries, became co-investors in the Pirate’s Den. Jimmie Fidler gets his from some of Flynn’s friends and co-investors.
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Before anyone goes a looki’, I have checked a number of old reliable OTR sources and can fairly safely offer up… it probably no longer exists…
Further:
From: www.stevenlewis.info…:
According to Carroll Carroll, principal writer on Bing’s Kraft Music Hall:
“Back when the past was the present, and I was writing Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall Thursday nights on NBC, one of those rare few was our engineer Murdo MacKenzie. Each week he would save the big electrical transcriptions of the show, for what use no one really knew. When he was called to war, about 1943, I guess, he put his complete set of recordings in a closet at the old NBC studios at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. He put an extra padlock on the door and a sign, PERSONAL PROPERTY OF MURDO MACKENZIE. DO NOT DISTURB. After he and a few million others had secured the peace he came back to find his closet had a new door and was full of brooms and mops. NBC execs could only say, ‘We needed the space.’ So the ability of future generations to rehear the hundreds of hours of Bing and his guests … all the biggest names of the day … were in a sense just one more casualty of WWII.” (Carroll Carroll as quoted in Bingang, Dec. 1990, p13)”
And further still: In 1971 NBC donated its entire collection of radio recordings to the Library of Congress. Only six Kraft shows prior to 1944 were found in the collection. The earliest was 9 Jan. 1936; four were from 1942 (April 2, April 23, Oct. 8 and Oct. 29) and one survived from 1943 (March 18).
Too bad all that material was lost to future generations because they needed room for mops and buckets.
Boy, you said it Tony!
I’m hoping the Gentleman of Errolean Song sleuthing will offer up some more on how he has come upon a photo of a disc (as in, does it in fact exist?)… that is the correct date for Flynn’s appearance on Kraft (included in a list of lost recordings posted earlier on this site) but… also written on this same label is another coincidentally lost (?) radio appearance date (but NOT a Kraft Theater broadcast date) that appears to be 12-7-41:
Series: “Silver Theater”
CBS INTERNATIONAL SILVER COMPANY Sundays 6:00 – 6:30pm
HOST / DIRECTOR: Conrad Nagel
MUSIC: Felix Mills
ANNOUNCER: John Conte
“FOR RICHER, FOR RICHER” Program # 9 for 1941 12-07-41 :30:00 Errol Flynn, Cliff Arquette (Charlie Weaver of TV fame). Show of 11-30 Pre-Empted. Buster Wiles mentions being present during the broadcast of this particular program in his book.
Hiya Men. I did indeed find online last night what appeared tp be evidence of audio recordings for two appearances by Errol on Bing’s Kraft Music Hall radio shows, both in 1940. Whether these cd’s are legit or not, I cannot say. After reading Karl’s input, probably not.
I will explore further and get back!
Thanks for that great info, Karl, and for that very cool article on Flynn’s appearance!! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear Flynn sing his “Hiya Toots”!