Yep
Posted on 12/13/2006 4:03:46 PM PST by pissant
Some facts about the life of entertainer Bing Crosby:
-He was the first performer to receive Oscar nominations for the same role in two different films: as Father O'Malley in "Going My Way" (1944 - he won) and again in "The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945).
-From 1944 to 1948, he was five times the top moneymaking star at the box office in Quigley Publications annual poll of movie exhibitors, a record later equaled by Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and then surpassed by Tom Cruise, who has been tops six times.
-He was pictured on a 29 cent U.S. postage stamp in the "Legends of American Music" series in 1994.
-At the time of his death in 1977, he was the biggest selling recording artist of all time.
-He is one of only five actors to have a No. 1 single and an Oscar for best actor or actress. The others are Barbara 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, Crosby's 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 Co.'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 number one box office attraction for five years, beaten only by Tom Cruise who was number one for seven years.
-From the 1940s to the 1960s, he owned 15 percent of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team.
-He was the first choice of "Columbo" creators Richard Levinson and William Link to portray the famed detective, but didn't want to take time from his golf game.
-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. He was the top-rated radio star for eighteen of those years.
-He is estimated to have sold between 500 million and 900 million records worldwide. Most of the sales were singles.
-In 1962, Crosby was the first recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
-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.
-His recording of "White Christmas" became the best-selling single for more than 50 years, until overtaken in 1997 by "Candle in the Wind", Elton John's tribute to the late Princess Diana.
Instead we get Brittany and Paris and Mel and Babs....you get the picture *sigh*
I get the picture. I miss "old" Hollywood.
I get the picture. I miss "old" Hollywood.
Bing Crosby was the only man able to stare down Chuck Norris and live to tell about it.
(This sounded too much like those Chuch Norris lists that I had to say it) :>)
This may be urban legend but he was a truly marvelous entertainer. My favorite films were "Holiday Inn" and a Connecticut Yankee in King Arhtur's Court!
Are you a 'Zags fan?
Wasn't he born in Tacoma, Washington?
after Pvt Mullin "liberated" a Radio Berlin Magnetophon recorder in 1945, it was Ampex who back engineered it into the magnetic tape recorder using a variation of 3M recording tape. It was the Bingster who first recorded on these machines. It has been said that Bing didn't care for the drive into Hollywood every evening for the live show and for him this new tech absolutely changed his career.
I miss the days when even most liberals in Hollywood were patriots
He was probably wearing his priest costume to get away with that!
I love the On the Road series. Oh, and Christmas would not be complete without the Bells of St. Mary's.
"An Avid golfer he had just completed a round and as he returned to the club house he had a heart attack and died."
I remember hearing that on the radio and going and telling my mother. I thought she was going to pass out from the news.
Bing was great.
Yep, even though they hail from across state.
Yep, and baptized at Holy Rosary.
I've heard that as well. AN icon in many respects, including the "recording" part of the recording industry.
He was a class act and makes Hollywood look as if they have no talent.
Fortunately, the ones I liked best were Republicans, but I agree with your sentiment entirely.
Ahhhhhhhh, Jimmy Stewart, what an absolutely classy man. Although I'm not from his generation, I'm really sad that he is gone. These group of people were such a source of American Pride; I get all choked up when I think about it.
Wow, Holy Rosary is not far from where I grew up. The church is still there. Thanks for the info.
Yep
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