His composition "At Your Command" was number 1 for three weeks on the U.S. pop singles chart beginning on August 8, 1931. [51] He was, by his own definition, a "phraser", a singer who placed equal emphasis on both the lyrics and the music. By 1936, he replaced his former boss, Paul Whiteman, as host of the weekly NBC radio program Kraft Music Hall, where he remained for the next ten years. Relying on a retroactive amendment to the California Civil Code, Dixie's trust brought suit again, in 2010, alleging that Crosby's right of publicity was community property, and that Dixie's trust was entitled to a share of the revenue it produced. His Legendary Years How's the sound? The June 18, 1945, issue of Life magazine stated, "America's number one star, Bing Crosby, has won more fans, made more money than any entertainer in history. Bing Crosby net worth: Bing Crosby was an American singer and actor who had a net worth equal to $50 million inflation adjusted dollars. Jack Mullin: The man and his Machines. A "Battle of the Baritones" with singer Russ Columbo proved short-lived, replaced with the slogan "Bing Was King". Edit Search New Search Jump to Filters. Collins was used in place of their longtime partner Dorothy Lamour, whom Crosby felt was getting too old for the role, though Hope refused to do the film without her, and she instead made a lengthy and elaborate cameo appearance. "Marketing Iron Pigs, Patriotism, and Peace: Bing Crosby and World War IIA Discourse. Crosby became the star attraction of the Rhythm Boys. [42] His recording of "White Christmas", has sold over 50 million copies around the world. In all the files there is only one single reference to a person associated with the Mafia. Crosby was born on May 3, 1903, in Tacoma, Washington, in a house his father built at 1112 North J Street.In 1906, his family moved to Spokane in Eastern Washington state, where he was raised. However, while Crosby can be called a jazz singer, he was not strictly only a jazz singer as he modeled the style and techniques to a broad scope of music that he performed, ranging from Jazz to Country to even such material as operetta arias. The mega fame he achieved during his first marriage took a toll on his family due to all the commitments that frequently took him away. As far as I know [Gary] wrote it because it was about himself and what he felt his life was about. On August 12, 1938, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club hosted a $25,000 winner-take-all match race won by Charles S. Howard's Seabiscuit over Binglin's horse Ligaroti. ISBN 978-0316886451; Grudens . There was something magical for listeners in the fact that what they were hearing was being performed and heard live everywhere, at that precise instant. bing! Belmont, California: Wadsworth. They have all reportedly described their father as loving and kind. And his star is still in the ascendant. [74] Mullin explained how one new broadcasting technique was invented on the Crosby show with these machines: One time Bob Burns, the hillbilly comic, was on the show, and he threw in a few of his folksy farm stories, which of course were not in Bill Morrow's script. Crosby was survived by his four sons from his first marriage, Gary, Lindsay, Phillip and Dennis; as well as by his second wife, Kathryn, and their three children, Nathaniel, Harry and Mary. The fourth of seven children in a poverty-level family who loved to sing, he was briefly sent to vocal lessons early on by his mother, until he grew tired of the training. Alexander M. Poniatoff ordered Ampex, which he founded in 1944, to manufacture an improved version of the Magnetophone. His parents were Harry Lincoln Crosby (aka Harry Lowe Crosby) and Catherine Harrigan. Harry Crosby was 19 when his father, Bing, died in 1977. . They appeared as guests on each other's shows and on Armed Forces Radio Service during and after World War II. They got enormous laughs, which just went on and on. His contract with Decca runs until 1955. In 1929, the Rhythm Boys appeared in the film King of Jazz with Whiteman, but Crosby's growing dissatisfaction with Whiteman led to the Rhythm Boys leaving his organization. A landmark piece of Peninsula property is on the sales block with the listing of Bing Crosby's family home in Hillsborough for $13.75 million. It topped the charts again in 1945 and a third time in January 1947. Crosby and Armstrong remained warm acquaintances for decades, occasionally singing together in later years, e.g. Crosby had separate charting singles every year between 1931 and 1954; the annual re-release of "White Christmas" extended that streak to 1957. Crosby invested $50,000 in Ampex with the intent to produce more machines. However, Crosby had already sold his Elko ranch a year earlier, in 1958, and it is doubtful how much he was really involved in that meeting. 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). Keyword. In 1906, his family moved to Spokane in Eastern Washington state, where he was raised. His social life was frantic. For fifteen years (1934, 1937, 1940, 19431954), Crosby was among the top ten acts in box-office sales, and for five of those years (19441948) he topped the world. . Doors open at 8 a.m. . Kapp helped Crosby have number one hits in Christmas music, Hawaiian music, and country music, and top-thirty hits in Irish music, French music, rhythm and blues, and ballads. Bing Crosby Productions, affiliated with Desilu Studios and later CBS Television Studios, produced a number of television series, including Crosby's own unsuccessful ABC sitcom The Bing Crosby Show in the 19641965 season (with co-stars Beverly Garland and Frank McHugh). [41] The weekly broadcast made him a hit. [125] He was 74 years old. The advantage was editing. A Crosby-led group purchased station KCOP-TV, in Los Angeles, California, in 1954. [91], Crosby was married twice. [39], Success with Whiteman was followed by disaster when they reached New York. In the summer of 1966, he spent a week as the guest of Lord Egremont, staying in Cockermouth and fishing on the River Derwent. The singer was married to Jan Dance for 36 years and shared a son with her, Django Crosby, 27. Denise Crosby (granddaughter) Dixie Lee (born Wilma Winifred Wyatt; November 4, 1909 - November 1, 1952) was an American actress, dancer, and singer. Amateur championships, was a five-time club champion at Lakeside Golf Club in Hollywood, and once made a hole-in-one on the 16th hole at Cypress Point. In the wake of a solid decade of headlining mainly smash hit musical comedy films in the 1930s, Crosby starred with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour in six of the seven Road to musical comedies between 1940 and 1962 (Lamour was replaced with Joan Collins in The Road to Hong Kong and limited to a lengthy cameo), cementing Crosby and Hope as an on-and-off duo, despite never declaring themselves a "team" in the sense that Laurel and Hardy or Martin and Lewis (Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis) were teams. 3 Baths. After less than a year in show business, they were attached to one of the biggest names. [125] On October 14, at the La Moraleja Golf Course near Madrid, Crosby played 18 holes of golf. These are the first pictures ever taken inside their house. Mary Crosby: Age, Parents, Siblings, Family. [11] In 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. [83][84] Operating from the Del Mar Racetrack at Del Mar, California, the group included millionaire businessman Charles S. Howard, who owned a successful racing stable that included Seabiscuit. [2] He made over 70 feature films and recorded more than 1,600 songs. NTSC VHS tape, 1989 AES. Bing had three children from his second marriage. Crosby credited Kapp for choosing hit songs, working with many other musicians, and most important, diversifying his repertoire into several styles and genres. They had a lively style that was popular with college students. This ad-lib way of working is commonplace in the recording studios today, but it was all new to us. Bing married twice. In 1957 Crosby married actress-starlet Kathryn Grant who was some 30 years younger than him. Now the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the tournament is a staple of the PGA Tour, having featured Hollywood stars and other celebrities. And what a voice. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. Bing Crosby with his four sons Gary, Lindsay, Dennis and Phillip (Image: GETTY) Mary Crosby has disputed her half-brother Gary's claims (Image: GETTY) "And Gary said to me that the publishers. [97], Crosby reportedly had an alcohol problem between the late 1920s and early 1930s, but he got a handle on his drinking in 1931. He was one of the first global cultural icons. When Dixie died in 1952, her will provided that her share of the community property be distributed in trust to her sons. [52] Paul Whiteman's hiring of Crosby, with phrasing that echoed jazz, particularly his bandmate Bix Beiderbecke's trumpet, helped bring the genre to a wider audience. Gary said to me before I read it, "It's not the same book I wrote."[112]. Crosby hired Mullin to start recording his Philco Radio Time show on his German-made machine in August 1947 using the same 50 reels of I.G. This new sound led to the popular epithet crooner. Shortly before Gary's book was actually published, Lindsay said, "I'm glad [Gary] did it. A number of Argentine-bred horses were purchased and shipped to race in the United States. Crosby admired Louis Armstrong for his musical ability, and the trumpet maestro was a formative influence on Crosby's singing style. However, he. [42] Before the end of the year, he signed[clarification needed] with both Brunswick Records and CBS Radio. His mother was a second generation Irish-American. In 1999, the parties settled for approximately $1.5 million. [59] In 1960 Crosby was honored as "First Citizen of Record Industry" based on having sold 200 million discs. I can't pinpoint it. There have been disputes between Crosby's two families beginning in the late 1990s. [115], Bing's younger brother, singer and jazz bandleader Bob Crosby, recalled at the time of Gary's revelations that Bing was a "disciplinarian", as their mother and father had been. 'He got the first licking, and we got the second.'"[113]. The group performed on Spokane radio station KHQ, but disbanded after two years. Mullin's 1976 memoir of these early days of experimental recording agrees with Crosby's account: In the evening, Crosby did the whole show before an audience. "[45][46], The biggest hit song of Crosby's career was his recording of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", which he introduced on a Christmas Day radio broadcast in 1941. bing! The 3-acre property at 101 Robin Road was built in . [3]:6[9] In 1948, Music Digest estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music in America.[9]. (1990), Bob Hope wrote, "Dear old Bing, as we called him, the Economy-sized Sinatra. He always believed he was born on May 2, 1904. Harry Barris wrote several of Crosby's hits, including "At Your Command", "I Surrender Dear", and "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams". "Sail Away from Norway" (1977) Crosby wrote lyrics to go with a traditional song. "Out of Nowhere", "Just One More Chance", "At Your Command" and "I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)" were among the best selling songs of 1931.[42]. They made one film appearance together in Road to Rio singing "You Don't Have to Know the Language", and sang together on the radio throughout the 1940s and 1950s. As I passed a Hindu sitting on the corner of a street, I heard something surprisingly familiar. When they got a chance to present an independent act, they were spotted by a member of the Paul Whiteman organization. The California Court of Appeal reversed, however, holding that the 1999 settlement barred the claim. Above, Crosby appears in Los Angeles on September . [42] Shortly before his death in 1977, he had planned another Road film in which he, Hope, and Lamour search for the Fountain of Youth. Bing's paternal grandfather was Nathaniel Crosby (the son of Nathaniel Crosby and Mary Lincoln). Mary Crosby was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Bing Crosby and Kathryn Grant.