page_title: Bing Crosby
section_title: Career statistics
hierarchical_section_title: Bing Crosby / Career statistics
caption_attribution_description: English: Bing Crosby at the Palladium theatre London
context_page_description: Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. was an American singer, comedian and actor. The first multimedia star, Crosby was a leader in record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1930 to 1954, he made over seventy feature films and recorded more than 1,600 different songs.
  His early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed him, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Dean Martin.
  Yank magazine said that he was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive, ” ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. Also in 1948, Music Digest estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.
  Crosby won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Father Chuck O'Malley in the 1944 motion picture Going My Way and was nominated for his reprise of the role in The Bells of St.
context_section_description: Crosby's was among the most popular and successful musical acts of the 20th century. Billboard magazine used different methodologies during his career. But his chart success remains impressive: 396 chart singles, including roughly 25 No. 1 hits. Crosby had separate charting singles every year between 1931 and 1954; the annual re-release of "White Christmas" extended that streak to 1957. He had 24 separate popular singles in 1939 alone. Statistician Joel Whitburn at Billboard determined that Crosby was America's most successful recording act of the 1930s and again in the 1940s. Some sources estimates his sales between 500 and 1 billion worldwide. The single “White Christmas” sold over 50 million copies according to Guinness World Records.
  For fifteen years (1934, 1937, 1940, 1943–1954), Crosby was among the top ten acts in box-office sales, and for five of those years (1944–1948) he topped the world. He sang four Academy Award-winning songs – "Sweet Leilani" (1937), "White Christmas" (1942), "Swinging on a Star" (1944), "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (1951) – and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Going My Way (1944).
  A survey in 2000 found that with 1,077,900,000 movie tickets sold, Crosby was the third most popular actor of all time, behind Clark Gable (1,168,300,000) and John Wayne (1,114,000,000). The International Motion Picture Almanac lists him in a tie for second-most years at number one on the All Time Number One Stars List with Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, and Burt Reynolds. His most popular film, White Christmas, grossed $30 million in 1954 ($286 million in current value).
  He received 23 gold and platinum records, according to the book Million Selling Records. The Recording Industry Association of America did not institute its gold record certification program until 1958 when Crosby's record sales were low. Before 1958, gold records were awarded by record companies.
  Crosby charted 23 Billboard hits from 47 recorded songs with the Andrews Sisters, whose Decca record sales were second only to Crosby's throughout the 1940s. They were his most frequent collaborators on disc from 1939 to 1952, a partnership that produced four million-selling singles: "Pistol Packin' Mama," "Jingle Bells,” "Don't Fence Me In,” and "South America, Take it Away.” They made one film appearance together in Road to Rio singing "You Don't Have to Know the Language,” and sang together on radio throughout the 1940s and 1950s. They appeared as guests on each other's shows and on Armed Forces Radio Service during and after World War II. The quartet's Top-10 Billboard hits from 1943 to 1945 include "The Vict'ry Polka,” "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Town of Berlin (When the Yanks Go Marching In),” and "Is You Is or Is You Ain't (Ma' Baby?)" and helped morale of the American public.
  In 1962, Crosby was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been inducted into the halls of fame for both radio and popular music. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame and in 2008 the Western Music Hall of Fame.
caption: Crosby at the London Palladium in 1976
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