Crosby, Bing (1903-1977)

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Crosby, Bing (1903-1977)

Bing Crosby is widely recognized as one of the most influential entertainers of all time. He first came to popularity as America's most popular crooner during the 1930s, with his much-copied low-key manner, and during his long career he recorded more than sixteen hundred songs. He also starred in a long string of highly successful movies, including the classic Going My Way (1944), and, having amassed a huge fortune, eventually became a major presence behind the scenes in Hollywood.

Born Harry Lillis Crosby into a large family in Tacoma, Washington, Crosby grew up to study law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but soon became more interested in playing drums and singing with a local band. It was then that he adopted his professional name, reportedly borrowing the "Bing" from his favorite comic strip, The Bingville Bugle. In the early 1930s Crosby's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. Crosby's live performances from New York ended up being carried over the national radio network for twenty consecutive weeks in 1932. Crosby recorded more than sixteen hundred songs for commercial release beginning in 1926 and ending in 1977. With his relaxed, low-key manner and spontaneous delivery, Crosby set a crooning style that was widely imitated for decades. At the time of his death, he was considered the world's best-selling singer. Crosby's records have sold in the hundreds of millions worldwide, perhaps more than a billion, and some of his recordings have not been out of print in more than sixty years. He received twenty-two gold records, signifying sales of at least a million copies per record, and was awarded platinum discs for his two biggest selling singles, "White Christmas" (1960) and "Silent Night" (1970).

Crosby's radio success led Paramount Pictures to contract him as an actor. He starred in more than fifty full-length motion pictures, beginning with The Big Broadcast of 1932 (1932) and ending with the television movie Dr. Cook's Garden (1971). His large ears were pinned back during his early films, until partway through She Loves Me Not (1934). His career as a movie star reached its zenith during his association with Bob Hope. Crosby and Hope met for the first time in the summer of 1932 on the streets of New York and in December performed together at the Capitol Theater, doing an old vaudeville routine that included two farmers meeting on the street. They did not work together again until the late 1930s, when Crosby invited Hope to appear with him at the opening of the Del Mar race track north of San Diego. The boys reprised some old vaudeville routines that delighted the celebrity audience. One of the attendees was the production chief of Paramount Pictures, who then began searching for a movie vehicle for Crosby and Hope and ended up finding an old script intended originally for Burns and Allen, then later Jack Oakie and Fred MacMurray. The tentative title was The Road to Mandalay, but the destination was eventually changed to Singapore. To add a love interest to the movie, the exotically beautiful Dorothy Lamour was added to the main cast. Although The Road to Singapore was not considered as funny as the subsequent "Road" pictures, the chemistry among the three actors came through easily and the film was a hit nevertheless.

At least twenty-three of Crosby's movies were among the top ten box office hits during the year of their release. He was among the top ten box office stars in at least fifteen years (1934, 1937, 1940, 1943-54), and for five consecutive years (1944-48) he was the top box office draw in America. But real recognition of his talent as an actor came with Going My Way : his performance as an easygoing priest guaranteed him the best actor Oscar. His work in The Country Girl (1954)—in which Crosby played an alcoholic down on his luck opposite Grace Kelly—also received excellent critiques.

Crosby married singer Dixie Lee in 1930, and the couple had four sons—Garry, Dennis and Phillip (twins), and Lindsay—all of whom unsuccessfully attempted careers as actors. Widowed in 1952, Crosby married movie star Kathryn Grant (thirty years his junior) in 1957. She bore him two more sons—Harry and Nathaniel—and a girl, Mary, a TV and film actress famed for her role as the girl who shot J. R. Ewing in the television series Dallas.

During his four decades as an entertainer, Crosby gathered a fortune from radio, records, films, and TV and invested wisely in a broad array of business ventures. Second in wealth only to Bob Hope among showbiz people, Crosby's fortune was at one time estimated at anywhere between 200 and 400 million dollars, including holdings in real estate, banking, oil and gas wells, broadcasting, and holdings in the Coca-Cola Company. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Crosby owned 15 percent of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, but playing golf was what he liked the most. He died playing at a course outside Madrid—after completing a tour of England that had included a sold-out engagement at the London Palladium.

After his death, Crosby's Hollywood persona—established largely by his role as the warm-hearted, easygoing priest in Going My Way —underwent much reassessment. Donald Shepherd and W. H. Allen composed an unflattering portrait of Crosby as an egotistic and heartless manipulator in their biography, Bing Crosby—The Hollow Man (1981). In Going My Own Way (1983), Garry Crosby, his eldest son, told of his experiences as a physically and mentally abused child. When Bing's youngest son by Dixie Lee, Lindsay Crosby, committed suicide in 1989 after finding himself unable to provide for his family, it was revealed that Crosby had stipulated in his will that none of his sons could access a trust fund he had left them before reaching age sixty-five.

—Bianca Freire-Medeiros