35 Surprising Facts About ‘White Christmas’ Movie With Bing Crosby

As Betty Haynes, Rosemary Clooney plays Vera-Ellen’s older sister in the movie, but she was actually seven years younger. When the film came out, Rosemary was 26, and Vera-Ellen, 33. Even more striking? Bing, who plays her love interest, was 51 when the movie debuted. That’s a 25-year age gap! (It’s also funny to note that Dean Jagger, who played the retired, elderly general, was actually born a few months after Crosby.)

Because Vera-Ellen was two inches shorter than Rosemary Clooney, wardrobe gave her higher heels to wear. That way, the two women would appear to be similar heights during their performances.

The film instantly gained notoriety and buzz the year it was released for being in VistaVision, Paramount’s then-brand-new process of projecting on a wide, flat screen. The result was a better pictorial quality and better on-screen colors.

Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye’s comedy act wasn’t originally in the story. The actors were goofing around and director Michael Curtiz found it so hilarious that he wrote the scene in. Apparently, the actors found it comical, too: The laughing during the number is real. The take in the film was the best one they could get of the two, who kept cracking each other up.

When the character Judy Haynes sings, you’re actually hearing singer Trudy Stevens. The only time Vera-Ellen’s real singing voice is heard is when they disembark the train in Vermont and the quartet sing the opening lines of “Snow.”

Vera-Ellen started dancing at age 10. And at 18, she became one of the youngest Radio City Rockettes, performing in several Broadway shows before heading to Hollywood. Fun tidbit: Growing up in Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, she carpooled to dancing classes with Doris Day!

Throughout the film, dancer George Chakiris accompanies the Haynes sisters in an uncredited role. But soon after, he received the credit he was due: He later won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as Bernardo in West Side Story.

After Fred and Bing’s success in Holiday Inn, this film was intended to reunite them. But Fred had “retired” by the time White Christmas was shot 12 years later and he declined. Next, the part was offered to Donald O’Connor (known for Singin’ in the Rain), but he pulled out after an illness. Finally, the part went to Danny Kaye.

Rumor has it, anyway. As stated on IMDb, the camera belonged to NBC’s Channel 4 station in New York (which changed its name to WRCA-TV in 1954).

The iconic scene when Bob tells Betty his theory of what foods cause which dreams was almost completely improvised. (Then, he launched into “Count Your Blessings” and we stopped caring that buttermilk with liverwurst sandwiches sounds absolutely vile.) In fact, much of Bob’s dialogue was based on Bing’s own conversation. So thank him for gems like, “weirdsmobile.”

In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, Bing’s character says that the menu is not the same as “Toots Shor’s.” As it turns out, that was a very real restaurant on 51st Street in Manhattan — a favorite celebrity hangout at the time.

The actor apparently caused plenty of retakes by making everyone break character with his humor. His on-screen jokes and antics had everyone cracking up while filming.

When Bob looks at a picture of Benny Haynes, “The Dog-Faced Boy,” it’s actually an image of a grown-up Carl Switzer. He’s best remembered for playing Alfalfa in the original Our Gang, also known as the The Little Rascals.

Designer Edith Head was already an Oscar winner by the time she worked on White Christmas. Throughout her life, she won eight Academy Awards for costume design — more than any other individual in that category — for classics like The Sting, Sabrina, and Roman Holiday.

At the time, MGM only had a train station set — not the interior of a train car. That’s why those specific shots were filmed at 20th Century Fox instead.

The song “Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army” has a lyric about seeing “Jolson, Hope, and Benny all for free” — a reference to wartime entertainers Al Jolson, Bob Hope, and Jack Benny. The original words were “Crosby, Hope, and Jolson all for free,” but when Bing Crosby was cast, leaving it as-is would break the fourth wall.

“What Can You Do with a General?” was actually first written for an unreleased project called Stars on My Shoulders.

The soundtrack rights for the film were controlled by Decca, but Rosemary Clooney was under exclusive contract to Columbia, a competing record label. So in 1954, Decca recorded and released an album with the movie cast minus Rosemary (her part was sung by Peggy Lee). And Columbia released an album with Rosemary singing eight songs from the film, which means the only way to hear her sing with Bing is on-screen!

Eagle-eyed viewers noticed that this red drum appears many times throughout the film. It can be seen in the opening number, then in Haynes’s dressing room, the Inn, and during one of the rehearsals.