page_title: Bing Crosby
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Bing Crosby / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: Bing Crosby en Pieter van Vollenhoven op het American Express Pro-Am golftoernooi 1975. Bing Crosby met zijn zoons Harry (m) en Nathan 6 augustus 1975
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 was married twice. His first wife was actress and nightclub singer Dixie Lee to whom he was married from 1930 until her death from ovarian cancer in 1952. They had four sons: Gary, twins Dennis and Phillip, and Lindsay. The Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) is based on Lee's life. The Crosby family lived at 10500 Camarillo Street in North Hollywood for over five years. After his wife died, Crosby had relationships with model Pat Sheehan (who married his son Dennis in 1958) and actresses Inger Stevens and Grace Kelly before marrying actress Kathryn Grant, who converted to Catholicism, in 1957. They had three children: Harry Lillis III (who played Bill in Friday the 13th), Mary (best known for portraying Kristin Shepard on TV's Dallas), and Nathaniel (the 1981 U.S. Amateur champion in golf).
  Crosby reportedly had an alcohol problem in his youth, and may have been dismissed from Paul Whiteman's orchestra because of it, but he later got a handle on his drinking. According to Giddins, Crosby told his son Gary to stay away from alcohol, adding, "It killed your mother" and suggesting he smoke marijuana instead. Crosby told Barbara Walters in a 1977 televised interview that he thought marijuana should be legalized.
  After Crosby's death, his eldest son, Gary, wrote a highly critical memoir, Going My Own Way, depicting his father as cruel, cold, remote, and physically and psychologically abusive.
  We had to keep a close watch on our actions ... When one of us left a sneaker or pair of underpants lying around, he had to tie the offending object on a string and wear it around his neck until he went off to bed that night. Dad called it "the Crosby lavalier". At the time the humor of the name escaped me ...
  "Satchel Ass" or "Bucket Butt" or "My Fat-assed Kid". That's how he introduced me to his cronies when he dragged me along to the studio or racetrack ... By the time I was ten or eleven he had stepped up his campaign by adding lickings to the regimen. Each Tuesday afternoon he weighed me in, and if the scale read more than it should have, he ordered me into his office and had me drop my trousers ... I dropped my pants, pulled down my undershorts and bent over. Then he went at it with the belt dotted with metal studs he kept reserved for the occasion. Quite dispassionately, without the least display of emotion or loss of self-control, he whacked away until he drew the first drop of blood, and then he stopped. It normally took between twelve and fifteen strokes. As they came down I counted them off one by one and hoped I would bleed early ...
  
  When I saw Going My Way I was as moved as they were by the character he played. Father O'Malley handled that gang of young hooligans in his parish with such kindness and wisdom that I thought he was wonderful too. Instead of coming down hard on the kids and withdrawing his affection, he forgave them their misdeeds, took them to the ball game and picture show, taught them how to sing. By the last reel, the sheer persistence of his goodness had transformed even the worst of them into solid citizens. Then the lights came on and the movie was over. All the way back to the house I thought about the difference between the person up there on the screen and the one I knew at home.
  Crosby's younger son Phillip vociferously disputed his brother Gary's claims about their father. Around the time Gary made his claims, Phillip stated to the press that "Gary is a whining, bitching crybaby, walking around with a two-by-four on his shoulder and just daring people to nudge it off." Nevertheless, Phillip did not deny that Crosby believed in corporal punishment. In an interview with People, Phillip stated that "we never got an extra whack or a cuff we didn't deserve." During an interview in 1999 by the Globe, Phillip said:
  My dad was not the monster my lying brother said he was; he was strict, but my father never beat us black and blue, and my brother Gary was a vicious, no-good liar for saying so. I have nothing but fond memories of Dad, going to studios with him, family vacations at our cabin in Idaho, 
caption: Bing, Harry and Nathan Crosby (1975)
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