Item Description
Original Item: One-Of-A-Kind. Now this is an incredibly beautiful photo album! Personally, the best feature would be the picture of Bing Crosby with a guitar, but there are also pictures of other celebrities including Babe Ruth and Jimmy Durante!
The album belonged to a AM1c Robert Mullinnix and contains over 140 documents and pictures. Robert Mullinnix Jr is seen serving on the USS Lexington before the US involvement in WWII up until when the Lexington CV-2 was badly damaged by a Japanese aircraft and was scuttled to prevent her capture.
The leather bound album is in lovely condition with vibrant artwork of the USS Lexington on the front. The best features of the album are the celebrity shots as well as the dozen or more shots of pilots and aircrews standing with their respected aircraft. Another interesting detail in the pictures are the aircraft with folding wings, they have the hinges and mechanisms censored!
Bing Crosby
The photograph of Bing Crosby shows him playing a steel guitar on his lap while singing with a band. We believe that this snapshot is from his 1937 Musical Film “Waikiki Wedding” directed by Frank Tuttle. Crosby plays the part of Tony Marvin, a PR man charged with extolling the virtues of the Territory of Hawaii. The female lead, played by Shirley Ross is a local beauty queen who makes unhelpful comments about the islands. Bob Burns, along with Martha Raye, are the "comic relief". Amongst the supporting cast was a young Anthony Quinn. It was made by Paramount Pictures as a rival to the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films then being made by RKO Pictures.
The film is best remembered for the song "Sweet Leilani" with words and music by Harry Owens, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1937. Other songs included "Blue Hawaii", "In a Little Hula Heaven", "Nani Ona Pua", "Okolehao", and "Sweet Is the Word for You".
Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth is seen in this album standing next to Duke Kahanamoku. Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku (August 24, 1890 – January 22, 1968) was a competition swimmer who popularized the sport of surfing. A Native Hawaiian, he was born to a minor noble family less than three years before the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He lived to see the territory's admission as a state, and became a United States citizen. He was a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming, winning medals in 1912, 1920 and 1924. This picture was taken in 1933 and we believe it to be an original commercial photograph of the two together in Waikiki.
Jimmy Durante
The picture of Jimmy Durante he is seen wearing a Navy uniform with a white dixie cup cap. He appears to be lounging on the deck of a ship but it is uncertain if he is on the USS Lexington. James Francis Durante was an American actor, comedian, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as the schnozzola (Italianization of the American Yiddish slang word schnoz, meaning "big nose"), and the word became his nickname.
There appears to be other actors featured in the album but we have not been able to identify them.
Comes ready for research and display!
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