49 Fun Facts About Bing Crosby

In which Washington State city was Bing Crosby born in 1903?

Bing Crosby was born in Tacoma on 3 May 1903, at 1112 North J Street; the family moved east to Spokane in 1906, where he grew up.

What was Bing Crosby's real first name?

He was Harry Lillis Crosby Jr., born in 1903 to bookkeeper Harry Lowe Crosby and his Irish-American wife Catherine Harrigan.

Where did the nickname 'Bing' come from?

A neighbour, Valentine Hobart, dubbed the boy 'Bingo from Bingville' around 1910.

Which Spokane college did Crosby attend for three years without graduating?

Gonzaga University in Spokane enrolled Crosby from 1920; he left after three years without a degree, and the campus now keeps his boyhood home as a museum, his Oscar included.

Which instrument did Crosby play in the Musicaladers, his first band in Spokane?

Crosby played drums, bought by mail order, in the Musicaladers, the Spokane band he formed with Al Rinker around 1923; the two left for California in 1925.

Crosby's first big break came when he and Al Rinker were hired in 1926 by which bandleader?

Paul Whiteman signed Crosby and Rinker in 1926 at 150 dollars a week; they debuted with his orchestra at Chicago's Tivoli Theatre that December.

Crosby, Al Rinker and Harry Barris performed as which vocal trio?

The Rhythm Boys formed in 1927 when pianist-songwriter Barris joined Crosby and Rinker; the trio appeared in the 1930 film King of Jazz.

Crosby's first number one hit, in 1928, was a jazz-influenced version of which song?

Jerome Kern's 'Ol' Man River', from Show Boat, was Crosby's first number one in 1928, recorded as a band vocalist alongside Bix Beiderbecke and the Dorsey brothers.

Which record company did Crosby sign with in late 1934, backing its 35-cent singles?

Decca, founded by Jack Kapp in 1934, signed Crosby that year and sold his records at 35 cents; Kapp also steered him from jazzy mannerisms toward a cleaner vocal style.

Which weekly NBC radio show did Crosby host from 1936 for a decade?

Crosby hosted NBC's Kraft Music Hall from January 1936 until 1946, opening each week with his theme 'Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)'.

Which trumpeter got equal billing at Crosby's insistence in Pennies from Heaven?

Louis Armstrong received featured billing on Pennies from Heaven (1936) after Crosby insisted on it, rare then for a Black performer; the two later sang 'Now You Has Jazz' together in High Society.

Crosby's intimate singing style, made possible by the microphone, earned which popular label?

Crooner became the label for Crosby's intimate, microphone-based style, which replaced the shouting projection earlier stars needed to reach the back rows unamplified.

On what date did Crosby first perform 'White Christmas' on his radio show?

Crosby first sang 'White Christmas' on his NBC radio show on 25 December 1941, eighteen days after Pearl Harbor; he recorded it the following May in about 18 minutes.

Who wrote 'White Christmas'?

Berlin called it not just the best song he ever wrote but 'the best song anybody ever wrote'.

Crosby's 'White Christmas', the best-selling physical single, has sold over how many copies?

Crosby's 'White Christmas' has estimated sales of more than 50 million copies, the most of any physical single; the familiar version is a 1947 re-recording made after the 1942 master wore out.

What self-deprecating remark did Crosby make about his part in the success of 'White Christmas'?

Crosby downplayed his role, saying 'a jackdaw with a cleft palate could have sung it successfully'; the song stayed his signature for the rest of his life.

'White Christmas' was introduced in which 1942 film co-starring Fred Astaire?

The film's title later inspired the name of the Holiday Inn hotel chain.

For which 1944 film did Crosby win the Academy Award for Best Actor?

Going My Way (1944) won Crosby the Best Actor Oscar as Father Chuck O'Malley; the film was the year's top earner and also took Best Picture.

Crosby's Oscar nod for The Bells of St. Mary's made him the first actor nominated twice for what?

Crosby's 1945 nomination for The Bells of St. Mary's was for playing the same character, Father O'Malley, as in his Oscar-winning film of the previous year; no actor had been nominated twice for one role before.

Who played the elderly priest Father Fitzgibbon opposite Crosby's Father O'Malley?

Barry Fitzgerald played the old pastor Father Fitzgibbon and won Best Supporting Actor after being nominated as both lead and supporting actor for the one role, a quirk the Academy then outlawed.

Which Best Original Song winner did Crosby sing with a boys' choir as Father O'Malley?

'Swinging on a Star', by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke, won the 1944 Best Original Song Oscar; Crosby introduced four winning songs in all, beginning with 'Sweet Leilani' in 1937.

The first of the Crosby-Hope buddy pictures, in 1940, took them on the road to where?

Road to Singapore (1940) launched the series, with Crosby and Hope as playboys fleeing to the South Seas; another film, Road to the Fountain of Youth, was in planning when Crosby died in 1977.

Who was the female lead in all but the last of the Road films?

Dorothy Lamour, the sarong girl, was the female lead in every Road picture except The Road to Hong Kong (1962), where she was reduced to a cameo after Crosby judged her too old.

Crosby earned his third Oscar nomination playing an alcoholic has-been actor in which 1954 film?

The Country Girl (1954) cast Crosby as Frank Elgin, a washed-up alcoholic actor, his third Oscar nomination; Grace Kelly won Best Actress as his wife and William Holden co-starred.

High Society (1956), starring Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra, was a musical remake of which film?

High Society reworked The Philadelphia Story, the 1940 Katharine Hepburn comedy, with Cole Porter songs and the setting moved from Philadelphia's Main Line to Newport, Rhode Island.

In which five consecutive years was Crosby America's number one box-office attraction?

Crosby topped the Quigley exhibitors' poll of box-office stars every year from 1944 to 1948; in 1946 alone he starred in three of the year's five biggest hits.

Bing Crosby invested $50,000 in which company to build tape recorders after seeing a captured German machine?

Crosby put 50,000 dollars into Ampex in 1947 after hearing a Magnetophon captured from Germany; its Model 200 let him pre-record his radio shows, and he gave Les Paul one.

Bing Crosby Enterprises gave the first demonstration of what technology in November 1951?

Bing Crosby Enterprises showed videotape recording in Los Angeles on 11 November 1951, a machine by John Mullin and Wayne Johnson running quarter-inch audio tape at 360 inches per second; the images were 'blurred and indistinct'.

Crosby made a fortune as a principal stockholder in which juice company?

Crosby was an early principal stockholder in Minute Maid, promoting its frozen orange juice concentrate on a daily radio show from 1948 and later in television commercials with his family.

Crosby owned a 25% share of which baseball team from 1946 until his death?

Crosby held a minority stake in the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1946 until he died; too nervous to watch Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, he listened by radio in Paris and had the telecast kinescoped.

Crosby was a founding partner of which California racetrack's thoroughbred club?

Crosby helped found the Del Mar Turf Club, which opened in 1937 with him greeting patrons at the gate; his Binglin Stable's Ligaroti lost a famous 1938 match race there to Seabiscuit.

Crosby's 'Clambake' pro-am, founded in 1937, moved in 1947 to which California course?

The Clambake began at Rancho Santa Fe in 1937 and moved in 1947 to Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula, where it became the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 1986.

Which actress did the widowed Crosby marry in 1957?

Kathryn Grant, a Texas-born Paramount actress thirty years his junior, married Crosby in Las Vegas in October 1957; they had three children, including the actress Mary Frances.

Crosby's daughter Mary Frances is best known for playing which character in TV's Dallas?

Mary Crosby played Kristin Shepard, Sue Ellen's scheming sister, and fired the shots in the 1980 'Who shot J.R.?' cliffhanger, one of the most watched episodes in television history.

What was the title of the critical 1983 memoir by Crosby's eldest son Gary?

Going My Own Way (1983), Gary Crosby's memoir, portrayed his father as cold and physically abusive; biographer Gary Giddins later argued much of it was unreliable.

With which rock star did Bing Crosby record 'Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy' in September 1977?

Bowie disliked 'Little Drummer Boy', so the counter-melody was written on the spot; the single reached No. 3 in the UK in 1982.

Where did Bing Crosby die on 14 October 1977?

He had just finished 18 holes at La Moraleja and said 'That was a great game of golf, fellas' before collapsing with a heart attack.

What nickname did Crosby's German wartime listeners give him?

Der Bingle was the nickname that stuck after Crosby recorded programmes in German for the Office of War Information, broadcast to Germany in 1944.

In which three Hollywood Walk of Fame categories does Crosby have stars?

Crosby's three Walk of Fame stars honour his work in motion pictures, radio and audio recording, reflecting a career that dominated all three media in the 1930s and 40s.

Which long-running CBS sitcom set in a German POW camp was made by Bing Crosby Productions?

Hogan's Heroes ran on CBS from 1965 to 1971 under the Bing Crosby Productions banner, which also made the medical drama Ben Casey and Crosby's own ABC sitcom of 1964-65.

Roughly how many songs did Crosby record over his career?

Crosby recorded some 1,600 songs over five decades, from his 1926 debut as a band vocalist to sessions in his final weeks in 1977, alongside more than 70 feature films.

Which Road picture sent Crosby and Hope to the Alaskan gold rush?

Road to Utopia (1946) sent the pair north to Alaska in search of a stolen gold-mine map, with humorist Robert Benchley popping up as an on-screen commentator.

Which entertainer, seen ad-libbing at a hometown theatre in 1917, did the teenage Crosby call 'electric'?

Crosby had a summer job as property boy at the theatre and watched Jolson parody Hawaiian songs from the wings.

Which actress was the leading lady in The Road to Hong Kong (1962)?

Joan Collins, then 28, played the leading lady in The Road to Hong Kong (1962); the series' usual leading lady was limited to a lengthy cameo.

Which weekly ABC programme did Crosby begin recording on tape in 1947, a network first?

Philco Radio Time, Crosby's ABC show from 1946, went onto tape in 1947 when Jack Mullin recorded it on a German Magnetophon with 50 reels of I.G. Farben tape found near Frankfurt; editing was the prize.

Crosby's short-lived early-1930s rivalry with which singer was billed as the 'Battle of the Baritones'?

Russ Columbo, a rival singer with a similar intimate style, was pitted against Crosby in 1931-32 as the 'Battle of the Baritones'; Columbo died in 1934, aged 26, from an accidental gunshot.

Crosby's son Nathaniel won which golf title in 1981 at age 19?

Nathaniel Crosby won the 1981 U.S. Amateur at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, four years after his father's death; Bing had taken up golf as a boy caddy.

Which 1980 horror film cast one of Crosby's sons as the camp counsellor Bill?

Friday the 13th (1980) cast a Crosby son as Bill, a counsellor at Camp Crystal Lake found pinned to a door by arrows; the actor later left films for a career in finance.

Which singer joined Crosby and his family on his final concert tour of Britain in September 1977?

Rosemary Clooney, his White Christmas co-star, sang with Crosby and his family for two weeks at the London Palladium in 1977; he recorded his final album, Seasons, during the trip.