Thanks, Carmela. I've no idea who it was.

It is intriguing though, isn't it? 

It could well be, Carmela.
Maybe you need to post it to 221B Baker Street, London for this. 

.... or perhaps a job for another long running famous fictional detective, this one from US television - the part of whom Bing was offered first but turned down. Despite this, it still became a huge hit. Any ideas, anyone?
I do have a clue prepared if there's no takers. 

That's right.
I know it's often so difficult to imagine someone else in another part so closely identified with a particular actor but any views as what sort of job Bing would have made of this?

I think you're right. He could have indeed been as laid back as Falk but possibly in a slightly more formal manner? Did Bing ever play a detective type in any of his films? Sinatra always did well in those parts right up until his final starring film, "The First Deadly Sin" (1980). Quite an interesting picture, even though I never saw anyone gradually die as glamorously in hospital as Fay Dunaway. This film began his expensive, lengthy but less than convincing "Scalp Doily" toupée phase. 

I'd be most interested to know which ideal detective character your brother would come up with for Bing. 
You're now really making me think over this one! I wish I was more versed on the subject of television detectives. Do you think Bing would have been up for Lieutenant Kojak? 
He certainly wouldn't have had to have spent as long in make up.

I promise to fully follically behave from hereonin.

I am going to be controversial but i think Dick Powell was the best Philip Marlowe better than Bogey in "The Big Sleep" , Edward Dmytrak was better at directing that kind of movie than Howard Hawks "The Big Sleep" director who was better suited to comedies and westerns , also i think Hawks made the mistake of building up the Bogart and Bacall romance at the expense of the plot in the film as he did with "To Have And Have Not", Marlowe was way too cynical to have a lasting romance with any girl anyway, it would have been interesting to see what Bing would have done with Columbo had he accepted the part, but i can only picture Telly Savalas as Kojak.

Last edited by STEPO (Yesterday 9:28 pm)

Bing as Marlowe - now that's interesting. Again, maybe Bing's laid back style could have made it work.
I must confess I've never seen Dick Powell play any straight, non-musical roles but I've heard he made a superb Philip Marlow. He had more of a less flexible, more formal tenor style of singing than Bing (nearer to Tony Martin) but tell your brother, Carmela, I have it on good authority that Dick Powell himself actually disliked singing and couldn't wait to retire from it and just act.
Here he is with Bing in a rare, later singing outing from 1950:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5kl84RaYps

I do agree that Bing was a far better singer than Dick Powell who's singing sounded like a dentist's drill, equally painful to listen to, Dick Powell thought that himself but Warner Brothers his studio he was contracted to would only put him in musicals it was only after he was freed from the shackles of his contract that he became a very good actor for RKO, after a shirt spell at Paramount who he left after he got passed over for the Walter Neff role which went to Fred McMurray in "Double Idemnity".that he got the chance to show what a fine actor he actually was with "Farewell My Lovely" and other fim noirs throughout the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s.

Last edited by STEPO (Today 10:31 am)