Bing Crosby - Biography - IMDb Bing Crosby Biography Showing all 121 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trade Mark (5) | Trivia (88) | Personal Quotes (20) Overview (5) 5' 7" (1.7 m) Mini Bio (1) Bing Crosby was born Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. in Tacoma, Washington, the fourth of seven children of Catherine Helen "Kate" (Harrigan) and Harry Lowe Crosby, a brewery bookkeeper. He was of English and Irish descent. Crosby studied law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but was more interested in playing the drums and singing with a local band. Bing and the band's piano player, Al Rinker , left Spokane for Los Angeles in 1925. In the early 1930s Bing's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. His live performances from New York were carried over the national radio network for 20 consecutive weeks in 1932.

His radio success led Paramount Pictures to include him in The Big Broadcast (1932), a film featuring radio favorites. His songs about not needing a bundle of money to make life happy was the right message for the decade of the Great Depression. His relaxed, low-key style carried over into the series of "Road" comedies he made with pal Bob Hope . He won the best actor Oscar for playing an easygoing priest in Going My Way (1944). He showed that he was indeed an actor as well as a performer when he played an alcoholic actor down on his luck opposite Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954). Playing golf was what he liked to do best. He died at age 74 playing golf at a course outside Madrid, Spain, after completing a tour of England that had included a sold-out engagement at the London Palladium.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Dale O'Connor < daleoc@worldnet.att.net> Spouse (2) ( 29 September 1930 - 1 November 1952) (her death) (4 children) Trade Mark (5) Often played what he referred to as "happy go-lucky fellas" in his movies Signature Song: "White Christmas" Often worked with Bob Hope "Crooned" most of the songs he sang. Baritone voice Trivia (88) His eldest son Gary Crosby was vocal in criticizing Bing's violent ways as a father. He wrote a sensationalist tell-all biography titled "Going My Own Way" in 1983 which was touted as a "Daddy Dearest" about Bing. Though Lindsay Crosby and Dennis Crosby fluctuated between agreeing and disagreeing with Gary's criticisms of their father, Phillip Crosby defended Bing after the book was published. Two of the sons suffered bouts of depression, much as their mother Dixie Lee had, throughout their lives and committed suicide(Lindsay and Dennis, in 1989 and 1991, respectively). Gary died of lung cancer in 1995.

Phillip died of a heart attack in 2004, having defended his father to the end. Bing's children from his second marriage, including daughter and actress Mary Crosby , praised him as a kind and loving father in later life. Older brother of bandleader Bob Crosby . His large ears were pinned back during his early films, until partway through She Loves Me Not (1934). From the 1940s to the 1960s he owned 15% of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. His cameo in Angels in the Outfield (1951) was as part-owner of the team. Three things about Bing were frequent sources of jokes in Hollywood: his inability to sire a daughter, prior to the birth of Mary Crosby ; his investment in racehorses that rarely won; and his rather bad, almost colorblind, taste in casual clothes. These jokes often made their way into radio and TV shows, movies and, most often, into the comedy routines of Bob Hope . Interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, USA, in the Grotto section, L119, #1.

Left a clause in his will stating that his sons could not collect their inheritance money until they were 65. They had already been amply taken care of by a trust fund set up by their mother, Dixie Lee , which is truth was totally funded by Bing. All four sons continued to collect monies from that fund until their deaths. Was nicknamed "Bing" after a character named "Bingo" in a comic strip titled "Bingville Bugle." Was the first choice of "Columbo" creators Richard Levinson and William Link to portray the famed detective. Opened the Del Mar racetrack in Del Mar, California in 1937 and collected tickets at the turnstile on opening day. Before the start of every day of racing his song "Where the Turf Meets the Surf" is played. This song was written for Del Mar and never sold commercially. Inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1998. He was the 20th century's first multi-media entertainer: a star on radio, in movies and in chart-topping recordings. He had 38 No. 1 singles, which surpassed even Elvis Presley and The Beatles .

When he married his first wife actress/singer Dixie Lee in 1930, her fame at the time was greater than his. One headline actually read: "Well Known Fox Movie Star Marries Bing Croveny." Dixie eventually retired to raise four sons. One of his early inspirations was Louis Armstrong , who returned the admiration. Louis once described Bing's mellow voice as "like gold being poured out of a cup." Sang on radio at least once a week from 1931 to 1962. As a young adult he enjoyed carousing and drinking and actually received another nickname: "Binge" Crosby. He once spent two months in jail (weekends only) for DUI after a minor car accident, and surprised and shocked interviewers by advocating that pot be decriminalized. The balding actor hated having to wear a toupee during filming and specifically looked for scripts that had outdoor scenes where he could wear a hat or bed scenes in which he could wear a nightcap. "White Christmas" became the bestselling single for more than 50 years until overtaken in 1997 by "Candle in the Wind", Elton John 's tribute to the late Princess Diana .

Star of NBC Radio's "Kraft Music Hall" (1935-1946). Star of ABC Radio's "Philco Radio Time" (1946-1949). Star of CBS Radio's "The Bing Crosby Show" (1954-1956). In March of 1950, he had his appendix removed. Star of CBS Radio's "The Bing Crosby Chesterfield Show" (1949-1952). When Chesterfield left, General Electric took over as sponsor for 1953 and 1954. Refused the role of Columbo due to the fact that he felt that it would interfere with his golf game. He and his second wife and younger children did TV commercials for Minute Maid orange juice, because he owned considerable stock in the company. On October 13, 1977, the day before Crosby's death, independent producer Lew Grade announced that he was reuniting Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour onscreen for the film "Road to the Fountain of Youth," ending several years of speculation at to whether the trio would reunite professionally or not.

Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 122-124. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387 Phil Crosby, Jr., Bing's grandson, formed a jazz quartet in the Los Angeles area and is bringing a semi-resurgence of interest in Bing and his music. Through the electronics lab he funded, he was heavily involved in the initial development of both audio and video tape recording in the late '40s and early '50s, primarily for use on his own TV and radio projects. One of the very first commercial uses of audio tape in the USA, in fact, was the recording and editing of his radio program on the ABC network around 1946-1948. His early videotape format, however, was quickly obscured by Ampex's industry-standard Quadruplex format. Pictured on a 29 cent U.S. commemorative postage stamp in the "Legends of American Music" series, issued September 1st 1994. Became seriously ill around Christmas 1973, with chest pains and respiratory problems.

Both Bing and wife Kathryn Grant thought he had lung cancer. In January 1974 he felt so ill he consented to be hospitalized, and a large tumor was found in his left lung. The tumor and three-fifths of the lung were removed, and over the next months he slowly recovered. Since the tumor was benign, it was believed his illness was caused by a fungal infection from a recent safari in Africa. At the time of his death in 1977, he was the biggest selling recording artist of all time. He is only one of six performers to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films. He was nominated as Father O'Malley in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945).

The other five are Peter O'Toole as Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974), Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986), Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), and Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976) and Creed (2015). His father was of English descent, with many family lines tracing back to New England of the 1600s. His mother's family, which was from New Brunswick, Canada, was of Irish descent. Until the late 1970s he had been listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as having sold more recordings than any other entertainer. Is one of only five actors/actresses to have a #1 single and an Oscar for best actor/actress.

The others are Barbra Streisand , Frank Sinatra , Cher and Jamie Foxx . He received 23 gold records and was awarded platinum discs for his two biggest selling singles, "White Christmas" in 1960 and "Silent Night" in 1970. According to the Guinness Book of Records, his "White Christmas" has sold over 100 million copies around the world, with at least 50 million sales as singles. According to ticket sales Crosby is, at 1,077,900,000 tickets sold, the third most popular actor of all time after Clark Gable and John Wayne . He is also, according to Quigley Publishing Company's International Motion Picture Almanac, tied for second on the "All Time Number One Stars List" with three other actors - Clint Eastwood , Tom Hanks and Burt Reynolds . Crosby was the #1 box office attraction for five years, beaten only by Tom Cruise who was #1 for seven years. In 1960 he received a platinum record as First Citizen of the Record Industry for having sold 200 million discs, a number that doubled by 1980.

Between 1915 and 1980 he was the only motion-picture star to rank as the #1 box-office attraction five times (1944-1948). Between 1934 and 1954 he scored in the top ten 15 times. On the day of his death he played a full 18 holes of golf, where he scored a respectable 85 and won the match. Walking off the 18th green of the La Moraleja Golf Club, in a suburb of Madrid, Spain, he suffered a massive heart attack. His last words were reported as, "That was a great game of golf, fellas." However, according to the Summer 2001 issue of Club Crosby's BINGANG magazine, he then said, "Let's go have a Coca-Cola." According to his biographer Gary Giddens, Crosby's last words were, "Let's go get a Coke.".

He appeared on approximately 4,000 radio broadcasts, nearly 3,400 of them his own programs, and single-handedly changed radio from a live-performance to a canned or recorded medium by presenting, in 1946, the first transcribed network show on ABC, thereby making that also-ran network a major force. In a great many of his films, he played lighthearted comedy and musical roles as a singer or songwriter. His usual casual approach belied the fact that Crosby was a fine dramatic actor, as witnessed by his portrayals in Little Boy Lost (1953), The Country Girl (1954), Man on Fire (1957), and his last major film Stagecoach (1966). He also starred in the television movie Dr. Cook's Garden (1971) and won much critical acclaim for his performance. His last TV appearance was in Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas (1977) which was taped in London and broadcast, after his death, in the USA on 30 November 1977, and in the United Kingdom on 24 December 1977.

This show has also been made available on commercial video. It is memorable for Crosby and David Bowie singing a duet. He sang on 4,000 radio shows from 1931 to 1962 and was the top-rated radio star for eighteen of those years. A longtime supporter of the Republican Party, Crosby campaigned for Wendell Willkie in the 1940 Presidential election, because he strongly believed President Franklin D. Roosevelt should only serve two terms of office. When Roosevelt was easily re-elected, Crosby vowed never to become publicly involved in partisan politics again. Mary Carlisle , who worked with him in films, noticed he was self-conscious about his height, and he wore lifts. Crosby once told Alan Ladd how pleased he was that Ladd was shorter than him at 5'5". Bing maintained he was 5'9", but an office secretary named Nancy Briggs recalled a visit to his home when he wore slippers and she realized he was her height - 5'7". He is estimated to have sold between 600 million and 900 million records worldwide. Most of these sales were singles.

In 1962 Crosby was the first recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Was the first person to sing "White Christmas". Inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1978. Delayed his marriage to Kathryn Grant until 1957 due to his long affair with Grace Kelly . Four songs Crosby sang in movies - "Sweet Leilani" (1937), "White Christmas" (1942), "Swinging on a Star" (1944), and "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (1951) - won Oscars. The Met Theater in downtown Spokane, Washington, where he was raised and performed (with the Musicaladers) as a young man in 1925, was renamed the Bing Crosby Theater on December 8, 2006. The Met was built in 1915. Bing was also a giving donor to the city's Gonzaga University. He is the most electronically recorded voice in history. In 1948 a poll declared Crosby the most admired man in the world, ahead of President Harry S. Truman , General Dwight D.

Eisenhower , Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII . His estate was valued at $150 million, making him one of the wealthiest entertainers in Hollywood, along with his friends Bob Hope and Fred MacMurray . Is portrayed by Alex Fallis in Dash and Lilly (1999). In the autumn of 1974, having recovered from major lung surgery, Crosby performed a series of concerts at the London Palladium. This was the first time he had sung before a live audience since World War II. He repeated this engagement in 1975, 1976 and 1977. He also began recording new albums at a faster rate than he had since the early 1950s. At the time of his death he was considering buying an eighteen hole golf course in Kent, England. In 1969, it was reported that he was worth an estimated $75 million. Stagecoach (1966) was his last major film. Though it did not get good reviews, his performance as the drunken doctor was praised. Crosby felt the movies had changed a lot since his heyday, although he let it be known that he was still open to offers.

Nearly filed for divorce from his first wife in 1948 because he wanted to marry Joan Caulfield . Inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2007. In March 1977, after videotaping a concert for CBS to commemorate his 50th anniversary in show business, Crosby backed off the stage into an orchestra pit, rupturing a disc in his back that required a month of hospitalization. Has a street named after him in Iowa City, Iowa. After Judy Garland was fired from MGM about 1950, he was one of the first to offer her work on his radio show to help her out of her financial woes. The two had marvelous chemistry as a comedy duo, and many of these audio recordings still survive today. He was awarded 3 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 1611 Vine Street, for Radio at 6769 Hollywood Boulevard, and for Recording at 6751 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. His favorite performer was Al Jolson . Caricatured in the Warner Bros.

cartoons "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song", "Hollywood Steps Out", and "What's Up, Doc?" (all as himself), and in "Curtain Razor", "Swooner Crooner" and "The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos" and "Bingo Crosbyana" (all as a bird). Due to the unflattering depiction of him in the last one, he sued Warner Bros. Crosby named his first son, Gary Crosby , after friend and fellow Paramount contractee, Gary Cooper . As early as 1932, Crosby made the list of Top Ten box office stars, which included Mae West , Will Rogers , Wallace Beery , etc. In 1968, Crosby considered doing another "Road" picture, "The Road to Christmas", with Bob Hope and Hayley Mills .

According to "Films in Review's" 1968 career article on the star, Paul Whiteman wanted Crosby to sing "Song of the Dawn" in King of Jazz (1930), but just before filming was to take place, the singer crashed his car on Hollywood Boulevard near the Roosevelt Hotel while driving a "starlet" home, and although no one was hurt, he was sentenced to 60 days for DWI. In his absence, Whiteman had John Boles sing the solo. From the Archives: Bing Crosby Dies at 73 on Golf Course - LA Times From the Archives: Bing Crosby Dies at 73 on Golf Course crosby hope Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the movie "The Road to Zanzibar." Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the movie "The Road to Zanzibar." (File photo) RICHARD WEST and TED THACKREY JR.Times Staff Writers Bing Crosby, who began life as a penny-grubbing grammar school truant and sang and acted his way to riches and into the hearts of millions all over the world, died of a heart attack Friday at a golf course just outside Madrid. He was 73.

Crosby's career was one of the most successful in the history of show business. He made 58 motion pictures, broadcast an untold number of radio shows and sold more than 300 million records. The performer, known affectionately to three generations of fans as Bing in the English-speaking world, Der Bingle in Germany and El Bingo in Spanish-speaking nations, would have had no complaint on the manner in which he left the world. He collapsed while walking to the locker room at the La Moraleja golf club after completing an 18-hole round. He and a Spanish champion had defeated two other Spanish champions by one stroke. Crosby's passion for golf nearly equaled his love of performing. And he was "happy and singing" during the 4 1/2-hour trek around the course Friday, one of his golfing partners said. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Red Cross Hospital in the Spanish capital. A physician listed the cause of death as a heart attack on the death certificate. Crosby was in Spain for relaxation, hunting and golf after recently finishing a tour of Britain, where he had performed to a sell-out audience in the London Palladium.

He was stricken as he and the other members of the foursome — Manuel Pinero, Valentin Barrios and Cesar de Zulueta — were walking toward the clubhouse. Crosby and Pinero had been matched against Barrios and De Zulueta. "We had just finished the 18th hole and were walking toward the clubhouse when Bing had a seizure and fell," Barrios said. "We thought he had just slipped. He injured his head slightly when he fell. "We took him into the clubhouse and he was given oxygen and cardiac tonic injections, but nothing could be done. "Bing has shown no signs of fatigue. He was happy and singing as we went around the course." Barrios said Crosby did not utter a sound as he fell. "There were no last words," the Spaniard said. Pinero, Crosby's partner, said he and the singer were laughing and joking, "happy that we had won," when "all of a sudden Bing dropped and remained on the ground. We carried him to the clubhouse, but it was already too late." Crosby's wife, Kathryn, had left her husband in London Wednesday night and flown home to their estate in Hillsborough on the peninsula south of San Francisco. Mrs.

Crosby was at a recording studio in San Francisco Friday afternoon when she received a telephone call from U.S. Ambassador to Madrid Wells Stabler, who informed her that her husband had died. She immediately returned to her home in Hillsborough by automobile. She drove slowly up the incline leading to the estate, her eyes red and her face wet with tears. She did not say a word as she walked past reporters into the house. But a little while later, trying hard to control her emotions, she came outside and talked to reporters on a patio. Her son, Nathaniel, 15, sat next to his mother and held her hand beneath a marble patio table. "I can't think of any better way for a golfer who sings for a living to finish the round," Mrs. Crosby said. "He's always been a very simple man. I think he is remembered in songs, isn't he? I think that's the way it should be." Mrs. Crosby said she had had a telephone call from one of the men who had been playing golf with her husband, apparently Pinero, and that he told her Crosby had died in the locker room — not on the 17th hole as reported earlier.

"He told me that Bing had a very good round." said Mrs. Crosby, smiling with tears in her eyes. "I'd like that to be said." She said her husband apparently suffered a massive heart attack and "was in only a moment's distress, if any." Mrs. Crosby said her husband's recent performance in the London Palladium was a test of his recovery from a bad fall and back injury he incurred last March in Pasadena while filming a show commemorating his 50th year in show business. Crosby's funeral will be held in Los Angeles, his wife said. Their other son, Harry, 19, and Alan Fisher, the family's former butler, were to fly from England to Spain to accompany the body to Los Angeles. Mrs. Crosby said the body would probably arrive in Los Angeles Monday and that Crosby would be buried in the family plot with his mother, father and first wife. Crosby was a devout Roman Catholic and will be buried after a funeral Mass. In Madrid, U.S.

consular officials said Crosby's body would be taken today to the American air base at Torrejon, outside Madrid, where a mortician being flown in from the United States would prepare the body for the flight to Los Angeles. They said an autopsy would be performed at the base. Mrs. Crosby said her husband was to take part in a benefit at the London Palladium on Nov. 21 to raise funds for the Queen's Charities. She said fans in England could send memorial contributions there and that American fans could contribute to the Bing Crosby Fund at Pebble Beach, which aids hospitals and provides student loans. Mrs. Crosby said her husband's funeral will be "a low Mass only" but that she fears it will be larger than he wanted. "He wanted only the children and myself, but I think there are those who worshiped him for 40 years who have a right to be there," she said. They include his driver, business manager, agent and "the girls in the office." Crosby's popularity never waned during the 50 years he was a performer. In an American personality poll in the 1940s, he beat out Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Harry S.

Truman and the Pope for the rating of the most popular man in the world. His trademarks were his pipes, golf clubs, race horses and colorful sports shirts. He sang in a rich Irish baritone and, especially during his early days, interspersed his ballads with "bub-bub-bub-boo" and a variety of whistling. His theme song, "When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day," was known everywhere. He won an Academy Award in 1944 for his portrayal of a priest in the film "Going My Way." But his favorite movie, he once said, was "High Society," which he made in 1956 with Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong. During the depression, when Crosby already was a millionaire, he made life a little more bearable for his fellow man by playing such movie roles as a poor street troubadour in "Pennies From Heaven" and a hard-pressed cab driver in "East Side of Heaven." His recordings of "Silent Night" and Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" still top the best-seller charts at Christmastime.

He made a series of "Road" pictures with Bob Hope, which resulted in a close and warm friendship with the comedian. The two never missed a chance to trade insults. There is no way of estimating just how many millions of dollars Crosby earned during his long career, but he was without doubt one of show business' wealthiest figures. Crosby was always generous with his money, though, giving freely to charities and to individuals who needed help. In London Friday night, for example, Illtyd Harrington, a leading member of the Greater London Council, disclosed that Crosby gave all the money he earned in Britain last year to youth charities there. Harrington said Crosby showed a great interest in children from London's working-class East End and recently spent a day at a school there with his wife. Crosby had hoped to hold a charity concert in the Westminster Roman Catholic Cathedral in the near future, Harrington said. He liked to joke about impecunious days as a youngster in Tacoma and Spokane, Wash., when he used to skip school to sell papers, collect soft drink bottles for the deposit and even work in a pickle factory. He claimed with pride that he had been well known to truant officers in Tacoma and Spokane.

"Dad was in hock most of the time," he once said. "As soon as he finished paying for a sewing machine, he'd buy a Victrola, or lawnmower, or one of us would need new clothes. "We soon found out there wasn't a lot of money on hand for baseball bats or sodas. Whatever we got, we earned." Crosby kept working right up to the end. Although he was more or less in semi-retirement, he did not like to think so. "I'm enjoying life too much." he said a few years ago as his professional activities slowed up. "I can't quit now." It was undoubtedly a great disappointment for Crosby to die without saying a word, for he loved to reminisce about what his forebears had to say when they died. His father, he said, simply cried out, "I'm going home!" Crosby had a more elaborate story which he embellished with Irish brogue, about his grandmother's death: "Katie, my grandmother, married an Irishman name Dennis Harrigan. On her deathbed Dennis sat nearby watching for some sign of recognition.

"Just before the end, her eyes opened and she said, 'Give me your had, Dinnis.' "He put his hand in hers and said, 'Katie, it's a hand that was never raised against ye.' "Katie's eyes opened wider. 'And it's a domn good thing for ye it wasn't,' she said. The she died." Just before the start of the third World Series game at Dodger Stadium Friday night, the crowd of nearly 56,000 stood for a moment of silence in tribute to Crosby. A whole generation had grown up knowing the name "Bing Crosby" — but having no strong idea of just who or what it meant. For their parents — and grandparents — however, it was a household word; an accepted standard for the ultimate in show business success. Bing Crosby was a legend in his own time ... He was born Harry Lillis Crosby, May 2, 1903, in Tacoma, the fourth of the seven children of Harry Lowe Crosby, a brewery bookkeeper, and Kate Harrigan Crosby. The family moved to Spokane in 1910. The elder children were Larry, Everett and Ted; the younger, Catherine, Mary Rose and Bob.

Harry Lillis became "Bing" about the time of the move to Spokane. He said it was because he liked a comic strip character named "Bingo." The name stuck when he began classes at Webster Elementary School and continued when he graduated to high school. In high school, Bing played basketball, handball and football — and later, semipro baseball for a Spokane laundry team — and took part in elocution contest. The latter interest gave his parents the idea he would make a good lawyer, and he later studied law for three years at Gonzaga University. But he did not become a lawyer. Crosby had never studied music formally, but during his first year of college he got a set of drums for Christmas and soon joined his friend, Al Rinker, in a band called the Musicaladers. Within a year or so, he noticed he was making more money with the band than at the law form where he was a clerk. So, in 1924, he and Rinker bought an old car, tapped elder brother Larry (who was by then a newspaper reporter) for eating money, and headed for Los Angeles.

They played vaudeville dates around the country for nearly two years, then joined another singer, Harry Barris, to form the Rhythm Boys — and were hired by bandleader Paul Whiteman . They toured with Whiteman for three years. Bing's first movie appearance was in Whiteman's "King of Jazz" in 1930. But when the band moved east for a long stay, they decided to stay in California. The Rhythm Boys joined bandleaders Gus Arnheim at the Cocoanut Grove, and became well known to the Hollywood crowd that frequented the night club in those days. Mack Sennett spotted Crosby there one night and signed him for a series of short subjects to be distributed by Paramount. In these 20-minute releases, Crosby was first heard by a wide audience singing "I Surrender, Dear," "Just One More Chance," and "The Blue of the Night," which became his perennial theme song. The short subjects led to Crosby's first record contract, with Brunswick, and when Brunswick was taken over by Decca, he continued with the firm.

He met his first wife, Dixie Lee (nee Wilma Winifred Wyatt) in 1929 when she came to the Montmartre, a Los Angeles nightclub where he was appearing. Miss Lee was then a rising star at Fox Studios. "Everyone warned her against marrying me," the crooner later recalled. "They said she'd be supporting me the rest of her life. But I proposed while we were eating chicken dinner at the Grove and she said okay — and that's how it was." But the newspaper still misspelled his name when reporting the marriage, and Crosby said this was one reason he "settled down to work a little" in order to "get equal billing, at least." He began singing on CBS radio, and performed for 29 weeks at the Paramount Theater in New York, working five to six shows a day. This, he said, was responsible for the "one and only real illness" of his life. He developed nodes on his vocal cords and had to lay off for two weeks to cure his hoarseness. But the voice thereafter was a tone or so lower. Back in Hollywood from his eastern sojourn, the breaks began coming Crosby's way.

And one of them, according to the singer, was that his brother Everett, quit his job as a truck salesman to manage his career. Bing credited Everett with "edging" him into his first featured movie role, in Paramount's "The Big Broadcast" in 1932. And that was the big breakthrough for Bing. He was a star from that picture onward: some of his other 58 pictures included "Too Much Harmony," "Mississippi," "Anything Goes," "Pennies From Heaven," "Waikiki Wedding," "Doctor Rhythm," "Sing You Sinners," "East Side of Heaven," Rhythm on the River," "Holiday Inn," "Dixie," "Blue Skies," "Welcome Stranger," "A Connecticut Yankee," "White Christmas" and "High Society." Notable, too, in the public mind was the series of "Road" pictures ("Road to Singapore," "Road to Zanzibar," "Road to Morocco," "Road to Bali," and others) he did with his friend, Bob Hope. Some of the best comedy dialogue in these films was actually ad-libbed between the two stars, who needled each other happily for the cameras.

His most famous movie role, that of Father O'Malley in "Going My Way," won him the Academy Award in 1944. (He re-created the part twice in "Bells of St. Mary's" and "Say One for Me.") But toward the end of his active movie career Crosby surprised film pundits, who had considered him more a singing personality than an actor, by scoring in such non-singing roles as the distraught father of "Little Boy Lost" and "Man on Fire," and as the fading star in "Country Girl," for which he received another Oscar nomination. In 1948, he was selected, for the fifth consecutive time, as top money-making star of motion pictures in the annual poll of exhibitors conducted by the Motion Picture Herald, a trade paper. His main public image, however, remained that of a singer, and his radio and recording career was at least as successful and remunerative as his film appearances. Crosby was the first recording star to earn a platinum record (gold records are for artists whose single records sell a million or more copies). The platinum disc was presented him in 1960, when sales of his recordings topped 200 million copies.

His radio career began in the 1930s with the weekly Kraft Music Hall and he continued that show, a consistent tops in the ratings, for more than a decade and well into the declining years of network radio. His television appearances had been infrequent, but he controlled a production company, formed under his own name, which continues to rank among the most successful in the field. Crosby's other business interests also prospered over the years. These include oil wells, an orange juice company, a trailer village in Palm Springs, his 25,000-acre cattle ranch near Elko, Nev., and Bing Crosby Enterprises, which marketed everything from television films to toy dogs. He owned about 15% of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball teams and about 5 1/2% of the Detroit Tigers . His exhibition golf matches with Hope raised thousands of dollars for charity and the Pebble Beach Bing Crosby Pro-Am Tournament (proceeds also donated to charities) were financed entirely by the singer. He also was instrumental in establishing the successful Del Mar racetrack in San Diego County, and became president of the operating firm.

This coincided with the beginning of the horse racing-training partnership, Bing-Lin Stable, he formed with his longtime friend, Lindsay Howard. Through it all, Crosby managed somehow to maintain the relaxed, breezy manner that was his public — and private — persona. He deliberately gave the impression of being lazy. He once told an interviewer, "My favorite kind of picture would be one that opened with a shot of me sitting in a rocking chair on a front porch. The rest of the picture would be what I saw ..." But this pose was a deception. Close friends, and the occasional reporter who tried to keep a record of the activities that filled Crosby's days, became aware that he was a tireless worker accustomed to 14 and 16-hour work days, despite the apparent effortlessness of all that he did. His self-deprecation was also proverbial; he professed to hate the hairpieces with which studios disguised his growing baldness, and after his earliest roles refused to let the makeup department paste his somewhat protrusive ears. "Let 'em flap," he said.

"They're real — and they're mine." Nonetheless, he usually wore a hat in public, covering the bald pate, and continued a regimen of diet and exercise to maintain weight and muscle tone for the camera. He called himself "The Groaner" in defense against the "Crooner" designation claimed by a whole generation of Crosby imitators, none of whom quite equaled the performance of the original. His 1953 autobiography, written with Pete Martin, was titled "Call Me Lucky." But Crosby endured his share of bad fortune, too. His first wife, Dixie Lee, retired from her entertainment career shortly after their marriage and they settled in the Toluca Lake district of the San Fernando Valley. This home was destroyed by fire in 1943, and most of the personal possessions the couple had collected of 13 years of marriage went with it. But, poking through the ashes, Crosby retrieved a charred sports shoe from the remains of his dressing room — and grinned as he fished out, unharmed, the $2,000 in cash race winnings he had hidden in the toe. The first Mrs. Crosby died of cancer Nov.

1, 1952 — just three days before her 41st birthday. His four sons by that marriage, Gary Evan, twins Philip Lang and Dennis Michael, and Lindsay Harry were grown and for nearly five years Crosby lived the drifting life of a famous and wealthy bachelor. That ended when he met actress Kathryn Grant (nee Olive Kathryn Grandstaff) a onetime beauty contest winner from Texas. He was 53; she was 23. They were married Oct. 24, 1957 in Las Vegas. They have a son, Harry Lillis, 19; a daughter Mary Frances, 18, and another son, Nathaniel Patrick, 15. The new Mrs. Crosby already had a fine arts degree from the University of Texas. But shortly after the birth of their first child, she entered nurse's training at Queen of Angels Hospital, where she became a registered nurse. She also aided and encourage Crosby in philanthropic efforts.

Just 10 days after their wedding, she accompanied him to Spokane, where Crosby, who had received an honorary doctor of music from Gonzaga University in 1937, helped dedicate the $700,000 library he had donated to his old school. During World War II, Crosby helped sell more than $14 million worth of war bonds and donated the proceeds from his record of "Silent Night" to brother Larry's show troupe, enabling it to tour military installations in the United States. Crosby himself organized Crosby Camp Shows, and he traveled more than 50,000 miles including tours of England, France and Germany, entertaining troops. The Sad Ballad of Bing and His Boys The Sad Ballad of Bing and His Boys Pinterest One thing I know: I’m going to keep yip-ping at these little scoundrels until they’re 21, and I’m going to demand they have a goal in life, a purpose. The most tragic spectacle I can think of is that of a young man slipping aimlessly through school, then life, secure in the belief that affluence means happiness. I’m not going to let up on them.

—Bing Crosby, Call Me Lucky, 1953 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. I counted them off one by one and hoped I would bleed early. To keep my mind off the hurt, I would conjure up different schemes to get back at him, ways to murder him. —Gary Crosby, Going My Own Way, 1983 When the word arrived from Spain, that day in October 1977, Gary Crosby was playing tennis at a Los Angeles club. “One of the ladies came to the back gate,” he recalls. “I could see she was crying. She said, ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but your father just passed away.’ ” Pausing for only that moment, Gary Crosby then continued his game.

“I thought, ‘Am I supposed to act like I loved him all my life?’ ” At the funeral, Gary looked down at the body and said, “Well, now you’re in a place where you can understand it all.” When Bing Crosby, 73, died of a heart attack on a Madrid golf course, he was not only a renowned performer but one of the nation’s most beloved father figures. During a career that spanned five decades, he was acclaimed by LIFE magazine as “incontestably the No. 1 Big Family Man of Hollywood.” The National Father’s Day Committee honored him as “Hollywood’s Most Typical Father.” To an admiring public, the portrayal of a wise, warm, Irish Catholic patriarch was Bing Crosby’s longest-running, most convincing role. That his four sons became notorious for drinking and squabbling scarcely tainted Bing’s image; instead, he became the object of public sympathy, the good father afflicted with unruly and sometimes ungrateful children. That benign view has now been challenged by Gary Crosby, 49, eldest of the singer’s four sons by first wife Dixie Lee Crosby. According to Gary, life with father was a hell of a life.

In his just published memoir Going My Own Way (Doubleday, $15.95), Crosby recounts a Hollywood Gothic horror story that only Christina Crawford could envy. He describes a household populated by an icy, dictatorial father, an alcoholic, lonely mother and a quartet of boisterous, tormented boys. Says Gary, “It was a house of terror all the time.” Gary’s look back in anger has provoked a high-powered fraternal feud. Says younger brother Phillip, 48, “Gary is a whining, bitching crybaby, walking around with a two-by-four on his shoulder and just daring people to nudge it off.” Counters Gary, whose fists often clench at the mere mention of Phillip, “As far as I’m concerned, Phillip’s dead. He isn’t worth the powder to blow him to hell.” Phillip’s twin, Dennis, professes little interest in the family history. He calls the book “Gary’s business.” While Dennis doesn’t deny Gary’s version, he explains, “Gary has a lot of anger.” Baby brother Lindsay, 45, sides with Gary. “I’m glad he did it,” says Lindsay.

“I hope it clears up a lot of the old lies and rumors.” Lindsay’s endorsement is surprising: By most accounts, he was Bing’s favorite of the four. Gary’s public declarations have aroused other relatives and friends. In defense of his brother Bing, bandleader Bob Crosby, 69, insists, “I never remember anyone being physically touched in any way.” Adds Bing’s best friend, bandleader Phil Harris, “I was around the boys practically all the time, and I didn’t see Bing beating them. I don’t think a man can sing like he did and have as many people love him as he did and be too bad.” This week Bing’s second wife, Kathryn, who is five months younger than her stepson Gary, has published her memoir. My Life With Bing is a rosy reminiscence of the entertainer with whom she had three children: Harry Lillis III, 24, a graduate business student at Fordham University; Mary Frances, 23, an actress most famous for shooting J.R. Ewing on Dallas; and Nathaniel, 21, a champion golfer and student at the University of Miami. Kathryn is Bing’s most loyal fan.

“You can’t lie to a camera,” she observed last year. “What comes out on film is what is within the actor.” Despite differing recollections about their father, the Crosby boys generally disagree with Kathryn. The public Bing was cool, easygoing and debonair; the private Bing was someone quite different. Says Lindsay pointedly, “Nobody knows better than us.” The boys’ mother, Dixie Lee (real name: Wilma Wyatt), was a promising 19-year-old actress-singer when she married Bing in 1930. Their first-born arrived three years later and was named after Bing’s buddy Gary Cooper; then Dixie quickly gave birth to twins, and eight years into her marriage, Lindsay. In the early days, recalls Lindsay, “We were very tight.” Gary characterizes the foursome as “red-blooded Irish kids who loved to hassle and play football and raise hell just as much as anybody.” But in the 20-room Crosby mansion in Los Angeles, harsh discipline was the order of the day. Bing and Dixie set rules that governed every waking hour, and violations of the rules resulted in humiliating punishments.

When Phillip hid his bacon and eggs under a rug instead of eating everything on his breakfast plate, Dixie found the food and forced him to eat it, “dirt, hairs and all,” writes Gary. Messiness was not tolerated. If one of the boys did not put away his underwear, he had to tie it on a string and wear it around his neck until bedtime. Bing referred to that as “the Crosby lavalier.” The most serious transgressions brought severe whippings, and as the most rebellious of the brothers, Gary was the one most frequently beaten. “He got the first licking, and we got the second,” says Dennis. Gary began to expect punishment almost daily. “My father would come home at 6 o’clock, and by 6:05 he’d heard the news of what I’d done. Then I’d get bent over and my pants taken down and beat till I bled. He was never an enraged, insane man. He was very methodical.” In fact, the famous even-tempered Bing was infamous in his own household. “He never blew the old cool. It was like dealing with a frigging mop,” says Gary.

Adds Dennis, “He could get cold real quick.” The slightest show of affection galvanized young Lindsay. “Dad would say, ‘Goodnight, I love you,’ and that to me was heaven.” Bing, who considered himself a regular guy, wanted his sons to distrust the glamorous life. In Call Me Lucky, he complained, “Raising the sons of a movie star presents special problems.” Writes Gary in Going My Own Way, “The idea was to be ordinary.” But, the son realized at an early age, “There were a few problems with being just an ordinary kid. For one thing, Dad didn’t seem to be just an ordinary father.” In fact, Bing consciously distanced himself from his children. Once he wrote, “When I want to be especially flattering to one of my offspring, I say, ‘Nice going,’ and let it go at that.” He credited his child-rearing methods to an Italian proverb: “Never kiss a baby unless he’s asleep.” That reserve took its toll on Dixie too.

Says Gary, “My mother was the kind of person who needed to hear, ‘Sweetheart, darling, I love you,’ and he just couldn’t do it.” According to Phillip, Dixie was “painfully shy” and often felt uncomfortable among her husband’s set. She regularly declined Bing’s invitations to accompany him to parties or movie locations. Observes Lindsay, “I think she got lonely because Dad was working all the time.” Instead, Dixie found a reliable companion in the bottle. “She was a wreck,” says Gary. “I’d see her passed out in her room, in bed or on the floor of her dressing room. It scared the hell out of me.” Bing and the boys’ nurse tried to hide Dixie’s condition from the kids. Gary recalls: “They’d say, ‘She’s taking a nap today.’ And I’d say, ‘All day?’ ” When Dixie was not drinking, she was to her sons what Bing was not: “warm and loving,” as all the boys remember her. In 1952 her death from cancer at age 40 resulted in a rare moment of togetherness for the family. If Dixie at times was compassionate, Bing could be cruel.

He gave his sons belittling nicknames. Dennis was “Ugly” and “Stupid.” Lindsay was “The Head” (Bing considered the boy’s head too big for his body). Because Phillip was frequently combing his hair, he was dubbed “Dude” and “Handsome.” Gary did not get off so easily. “I had a big broad ass on me as a kid that used to annoy the hell out of my father.” So his nicknames, which Bing did not hesitate to use in public, were “Satchel Ass” and “Bucket Butt.” Gary’s weight problem, in fact, brought him special attention. Once a week Bing weighed the boy. If the numbers displeased him, Gary was ordered into the office for a whipping. The battles between father and sons continued even after Gary, Phillip and Dennis were sent to a strict, Jesuit-run boarding school south of San Francisco. For Gary, the turning point came at age 17. Home for the Christmas holidays, he overheard his father’s pals discussing Bing’s sexual infidelity. That conversation shattered Gary’s image of his father. “I started looking him dead in the eye for a change. Maybe I wasn’t so bad.

Maybe he wasn’t so goddamn good either.” The beatings ended a few months later. Gary was now a 210-pound high school linebacker just shy of his 18th birthday. By this time Bing had replaced the belt with a cane. “He’d hold it with both hands like he was playing baseball,” reports Gary. “He just stepped into me 13 times.” On this occasion, however, Gary confronted his father. “I took the cane away and broke it over my knees. I cussed him and told him if he ever touched me again, I’d kill him.” The explosion produced no discernible reaction from Bing. “I was a physical, emotional, mental wreck, and he was fine.” The punishment stopped, but, says Gary, “He still won.” Even in adulthood, the sons could not escape Bing’s influence. Gary started a solo singing career with the help of Bing’s agent. Following Dad into show business, the sons found their acts unfavorably compared to his. Bing’s attitude toward his sons continued to color their self-perceptions. Gary considered himself “a dumb stupid ass who wasn’t going to amount to anything.” Lindsay, when he married, found it difficult to express affection for his own family.

“I think we’ve all got that problem,” he says. Today the sons still rely heavily on Bing and Dixie for their livelihoods. Says Phil Harris, “I love them all dearly, but I don’t know a one of them who works.” Each gets a substantial four-figure monthly check from a trust fund Dixie established; Bing’s money was placed in a blind trust, which none of the sons can touch until age 65. It is a nice irony, says Phillip. “My father thought, ‘How much trouble will they be able to get into then?’ ” Although they all live in California, the brothers seldom visit. In fact, they have not seen each other much since their nightclub act, the Crosby Boys, broke up in 1959 after a dressing room brawl erupted among the four in Montreal. What they have shared over the years is a talent for trouble. Among them, the brothers have accumulated 11 wives, at least five drunken-driving arrests, two affiliations with Alcoholics Anonymous and a paternity suit. Compared to his tempestuous past, Gary has a stable home life these days.

He and his second wife, actress Andrea Claudio, 31, have a rented house in the San Fernando Valley. While awaiting job offers—a recent stint on Simon & Simon was his first assignment in almost two years—Gary attends five Alcoholics Anonymous meetings a week. Although he has not had liquor since he completed a treatment program (paid for by Bing) in 1961, Gary says, “I quit drinking but I’ve never stopped being an alcoholic.” Gary’s solo singing career ended with a drunken opening-night appearance in a Chicago club in 1961. (His first line to the audience: “I don’t want to waste my time with you.”) Says his first wife, Barbara Cosentino, a former Las Vegas dancer who separated from him in 1979 after 19 years of marriage, “When I got to Chicago to pick him up, he was dead drunk in his hotel room, and a lady was in his bed.” Although he occasionally appeared on such TV series as Chase and Emergency! in the 1970s, Gary’s reputation as a troublemaker crumbled his career.

Says Barbara, “He was obsessed with the fact that he couldn’t get a job and convinced that everybody hated him.” Only in recent years has his anger ebbed. A 1980 triple-bypass heart operation changed his outlook, as has AA. Nowadays, he says, “There aren’t that many lows like those tremendous depths that I used to tumble into.” Writing Going My Own Way may have exorcised some demons too. “It was something Gary had to do,” says Lindsay. Phillip, however, guards the family honor. Says he, “Gary has been an embarrassment to the family since he was in grade school.” Replies Gary, “Phillip milks his position as Dad’s son for everything he can get.” Keeper of the flame is indeed Phillip’s full-time occupation. He lives alone in a three-bedroom Los Angeles home that is a mockery of the Holmby Hills mansion in which he was raised. Boxes of junk and piles of old magazines litter the rooms. A bathroom emits the smell of urine. In the den, two televisions play simultaneously. Empty milk cartons are stacked against the kitchen wall. In one corner, soft-drink and beer cans form a pyramid.

The object of Phillip’s game is to throw yet another can on the pyramid without disturbing the pile. Phillip too has a history of drinking. But his approach is different from Gary’s. “A man’s got to believe in something,” jokes Phillip, “and I believe I’ll have another drink.” In 1980 he was arrested on three occasions for drunken driving. Says he, smiling, “I don’t drink anymore—but I don’t drink any less.” An 18-month stint with AA has proved ineffective. Phillip does not consider himself an alcoholic. “An alcoholic is someone who can’t control his drinking. I can, but I don’t want to.” Like his older brother, Phillip was first married to a Las Vegas lady—a showgirl named Sandra Jo Drummond. Second and third wives (Mary Joyce Gabbard and Georgi Edwards) were also Vegas showgirls. Says Phillip of Georgi, his favorite, “She was the only one who didn’t have a cookie in the oven when I married her.” The impending arrival of Phillip Jr. (one of his four children) prompted his marriage to fourth wife Peggy Dorris, a part-time actress. They divorced in 1975.

Phillip describes himself as a “saloon singer,” and speaks wistfully of returning to “where I started, in the big rooms in Vegas.” His last gig was at a 1982 Elks Club party in Burbank, Calif., where he was backed by a high school band. “From there,” he says, “the only place I can go is up.” Phillip vehemently disputes most of the revelations in Gary’s book. “We never got an extra whack or a cuff we didn’t deserve,” he insists. Nor does he believe that Dixie was an alcoholic. “If she was, she did a hell of a job disguising it.” From his perspective, his parents had “a very good marriage.” Phillip contends that he “understood Dad probably better than anybody in the whole family.” He does not deny that Bing believed in corporal punishment. “When I was in high school, Dad caught me smoking in the barn at our ranch in Elko, Nev. There just happened to be a plank laying there, and he said, ‘Assume the position.’ ” But he harbors no resentment toward Bing.

“If Dad had picked up a goddamn monkey wrench and said, ‘Assume the position,’ I would have done it.” He savors the pleasant memories of his father, who was “very affable and easy to get along with.” In his wallet he carries a letter from Bing signed “Love, Dad.” Says Phillip, “I’d almost rather have that than a gold record or an Academy Award.” Twin brother Dennis has fashioned a far different life for himself. He has been married for 17 years to his second wife, Arleen, 38, whom he met when she was a secretary at Bing Crosby Inc., his father’s business firm. The couple live with their daughters, Kelly Lee, 16, and Erin Colleen, 12, in Pebble Beach, Calif., the site of the annual Crosby National Pro-Am Golf Tournament. Both daughters are accomplished equestriennes, and Dennis, who does not work, describes his life as “calm and horsey.” Dennis too has a showgirl in his past. Unsurprisingly, his marriage to first wife Pat Sheehan was rocky from the start.

Just days after the ceremony, a Los Angeles divorcee nailed Dennis with a paternity suit, which he subsequently lost. His last arrest for drunken driving was seven years ago, and Dennis says now, “I only drink beer.” Gary says all the boys have had battles with the bottle, but it’s a subject they never discuss. Says he, “My brothers are afraid I’m going to give them a little religion in the form of Alcoholics Anonymous.” Dennis professes little interest in rattling family skeletons. He is “a very easygoing person,” according to wife Arleen, who has provided her husband with strong support over the years. Of all the Crosby boys’ outlooks on the past, his is the most ambivalent. “I was happy to be who I was,” he says, “even if I had the hell kicked out of me.” If any brother can make a claim to Bing’s untainted affection, it is Lindsay. As Bing’s favorite, he spent the most time with his father. While the other sons went to boarding school, Lindsay lived at home. When the Crosby Boys act broke up, Lindsay went to work reading scripts for Bing. “I still miss him,” says Lindsay, whose eyes frequently dampen when he discusses his father.

“I probably didn’t realize how much I’d miss him when he died.” In middle age, Lindsay looks more like a cowboy than a movie star’s son. He drives a black Trans Am with the speakers blaring, a can of beer by his side. He keeps a stable of about a dozen quarter horses, which he hopes to breed. Of his three wives (dancer Barbara Frederickson, secretary Janet Schwartz and former Miss Alaska Susan Marlin) and four sons, Lindsay says, “I don’t have any regrets but the hurt I’ve caused.” Separated for five years from Susan, he shares a two-bedroom Los Angeles condo with his dogs, Olivia and Bear. Smiling, Lindsay says, “Olivia doesn’t mind when I cheat on her.” Lindsay maintains the most tempered view of Bing. He does not dwell on the emotional toll of being a Crosby kid, but remembers “all the good things I did with my dad and forget the times that were rough.” Of his father’s discipline, he observes, “He was right on the button with all the important things.” He dismisses Bing’s distance as immaterial.

“I never expected affection from my father so it didn’t bother me.” Of the war between Bing and Gary, he says simply, “They were both wrong and they were both right.” Gary concedes that Bing’s parental style was perhaps only a more extreme version of the conventional thinking of the day. Bing “was like a lot of fathers of that time. He was not out to be vicious, to beat children for his kicks.” Bob Crosby acknowledges that his brother Bing was “a disciplinarian” but adds, “My mother and father were like that. We were brought up that way.” Apparently Bing was not as harsh and demanding with the children from his second marriage. In the acknowledgments of Going My Own Way, Gary addresses Kathryn and her three children: “I think you’ll find the Bing Crosby here a rather different man from the one you knew.” Kathryn has insisted that Bing “was the best father he could be to all his children,” but she admits that he was embarrassed to express affection. “That’s your good Jesuit boys’ school upbringing,” she says. Gary and Kathryn are on good terms, and he in fact stayed with Kathryn, a registered nurse, during part of his recovery from heart surgery.

He calls her “a great wife to my father and a great mother to their children.” In the last year of his father’s life, Gary affected a tentative reconciliation with Bing. Gary and his then wife, Barbara, occasionally spent weekends with Kathryn and Bing at the Crosby estate outside San Francisco. Recalls Gary, “One day he said, ‘Take a walk with me around the grounds.’ We didn’t talk about anything special, but somehow I felt the war was over. For all those years, I was the only one fighting. Goddamn it, he wasn’t. When I look back, he wasn’t.” Observes Gary in a reflective moment, “In music, Bing was the greatest thing there ever was. As far as raising kids, he didn’t have a clue. I was going to say that if I could have had it either way, I’d rather have had it the way I did. But that isn’t true.” Try as he might, being Bing’s son may be a role Gary cannot shake. Show Full Article

Question: In which country did Bing Crosby die?
Answer: Spain