Bing’s magnetism still has pull

Joan Northcott’s train ride from New York to Spokane took four days. By 3 a.m. Thursday she was dead tired. But she insisted on staying awake as the train crossed the Idaho-Washington border.

The 83-year-old woman from Cornwall, England, told her traveling companions she didn’t dare fall asleep. “I want to see the first light of Spokane as we get there,” she said.

That was the start of Northcott’s three-part Bing Crosby pilgrimage. An ardent fan of the legendary singer and movie star, the former school cook was riding the rails, stopping in Spokane, then planning to travel to Crosby’s birthplace in Tacoma and on to Culver City, Calif., where he was buried in 1977.

This is Northcott’s first visit to the United States; she’s being assisted by her niece, Rosemary Singleton, and close friend Julie Clarke.

Northcott’s main goal was to visit Crosby’s grave, which she thought was in Spokane. After contacting Karen Montague at the Spokane Convention and Visitors Bureau, Northcott chose to first come to Spokane, where Crosby’s family moved when he was 3.

Clarke said she’s amazed by the intensity of Northcott’s devotion to Crosby and his music. That fascination started when Northcott was 14. “I heard Bing on the radio one day. And that was it. There is no one else who comes close,” she said.

What attracted her, she added, was his easy style, demeanor and wonderful vocal control.

The fascination became adoration after she began collecting Bing memorabilia, articles and hundreds of his recordings. She hung photos of the singer on her walls, something her late husband never minded, she said.

“Even though I had all those pictures, my husband came first, for 57 years,” Northcott said.

Clarke said Northcott’s will leaves her entire Crosby collection to Gonzaga University, whose Foley Library’s special collections includes a large trove of the entertainer’s music and career memorabilia.

Friday morning, Northcott visited the Crosby Alumni House on the GU campus, followed by a stop at the Crosbyana Room inside the Crosby Student Center. In the afternoon, Northcott visited the Bing Crosby Theater in downtown Spokane, where Crosby sometimes played before leaving town to pursue his career in Southern California.

At the Alumni House, Northcott pointed to a photo on the wall of the singer in concert at the London Palladium in 1976. “That’s the show I got his autograph,” she said to Stephanie Plowman, curator of GU’s Crosby collection. “I was in the second row and never took my eyes off him.”

Earlier on that day more than 30 years ago, she had her first eye-to-eye meeting with her American idol. She waited all afternoon and evening near the entry to the music hall. As Crosby’s limo pulled up, Northcott rushed to the car and handed him her autograph book.

Crosby paused before signing the book, asking her, “And how about all the others that are waiting?”

“I told him, ‘I’ve waited all my life for you.’ “

She still has the autograph and the pen he used, wrapped in plastic in her home.

Someone offered her 40 pounds for the autograph on the train ride from London to Cornwall, said Northcott.

“I told them I wouldn’t sell it for 40,000 pounds.”