Bing Crosby obituary

Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby Jr. was an American singer and actor. He was born on May 3, 1903 and died on October 14, 1977 at age 74.

Crosby was the first multimedia star and was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide.

From 1926 to 1977, he dominated record sales, radio ratings, and box office gross. He was one of the world’s first cultural icons. He directed over 70 feature films and recorded over 1,600 songs.

Crosby won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Going My Way (1944), and was nominated again for its sequel, The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), opposite Ingrid Bergman, making him the first of six actors to be nominated twice for the same role.

In 1948, polls in the United States named him the “most admired man alive,” ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. In the same year, Music Digest estimated that his recordings accounted for more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours of recorded radio music in the United States.

He is one of 33 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: motion picture, radio, and audio recording.

Crosby had an impact on the post-World War II recording industry. After seeing a demonstration of a German broadcast quality reel-to-reel tape recorder brought to the US by John T. Mullin, he invested $50,000 in the California electronics company Ampex to manufacture copies.

He then convinced ABC to let him tape his shows. He was the first performer to record his radio shows in advance and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape.

In addition to his work with early audio tape recording, he assisted in the development of videotape, purchased television stations, bred racehorses, and co-owned the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, which won two World Series during his ownership (1960 and 1971).

Crosby had two marriages. Dixie Lee, an actress and nightclub singer, was his first wife from 1930 until her death from ovarian cancer in 1952. Gary, twins Dennis and Phillip, and Lindsay were their four sons.

Crosby’s second wife was Kathryn Grant and they had three children: Harry Lillis III (who played Bill in Friday the 13th), Mary Frances (best known for portraying Kristin Shepard on TV’s Dallas), and Nathaniel (the 1981 U.S. Amateur champion in golf).