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.
IT was probably split evenly betwixt dems and pubbies 40 years ago. The 1960s and 70s saw a sea change.....for the worse.
I get choked up big time evary time I watch It's a WOnderful Life. And to think that this man really did have just that.
Jimmy Stewart was always my favorite.
Yep, we go to St. Pats usually, but I took my daughter to Holy Rosary last sunday for the heck of it.
War hero too.
Incredible actor and vocalist and American. HORRIBLE FATHER and HUSBAND.
There is no excuse for how he treated his kids and family.
Bing was a bastard.
Ya beat me to it! I had the same thought when I saw the headline.
That is not true, in the least. It was a book written by an achoholic, suicidal son who was refuted by the other children and everyone, including Bob Hope, that knew the family well.
Thank you.
>I get the picture. I miss "old" Hollywood.<
I wish I'd kept all the movie mags I collected as a teenager. They'd be worth a fortune now, but I don't think I would sell them. Those were the days when America's hearts beat in sync, and nothing seemed impossible to achieve. I grew up in Spokane, too. Great city.
Bing Crosby did a duet with David Bowie a few months before he died ("Little Drummer Boy"). Most know it as a classic Christmas song but there is a slightly longer version with some banter between Bing and David at the beginning. This is the version to get.
I wish I'd kept mine too! I did save them for years!
How many of his kids killed themselves out of depression and booze addiction? They were miserable...he left them zip in his will until they would reach their 80th birthday? If they managed to live that long? I have read a few accounts from family members that describe him as being ruthless, uncaring, cold, distant, beyond strict, and cruel with his mouth...verbally abusive wouldn't begin to describe what he said and was quoted over the years.
Oddly enough..a lot of it mimic's what Joan Crawford's life was told as..by her children.
The amazing facts in your post aren't the Bing Crosby facts, they are the Burt Reynolds facts. Hell, I knew Bing was a legend.
I also remember Bing on Barbara Walters from years and years ago where Walters asked him "What would you do if your son came home with a woman and she spent the night over the house and they were not married?"
His response "I would disown him and never talk to him ever again.."
Walters: "Ever? Just for sleeping over the house?"
Crosby: "Never...hit the road pal...and don't look back"
I understand Bing's being a strict by the rules Dad and showing respect there...but he meant it..and it just showed that he lacked serious reason in his mind..and lacked the ability to give a love. Who the hell disowns their kid for life if they have a female sleep over? This is a man who of course based everything on his name and credibility on what he had built...however..he lived in Hollywood..and he saw everything that came with it.
You have to be kidding me Bing.
Bing was indeed born in Tacoma, but raised in Spokane.
Now this story is from my mother who attended North Central High School in Spokane and Bing and brother Bob were fellow NC students at that time.
Bing, for some reason unknown to me, was expelled from NC and enrolled in Gonzaga Prep HS where the Jesuit priests got him under control.
Brother Bob Crosby was on the NC stage crew as was I many years later. As was the custom for stage crew members, we would find a spot up in the "fly" and paint our names on the wall - out of sight except for stage crew types. Bob's name along with his crew was there.
Bing and Bob went into the music industry/movies, but Bing always remembered his roots. He endowed Gonzaga University with the funds to build a library which bears his name on the Gonzaga campus.
Bing also owned a summer home on the shores of nearby Hayden Lake in Northern Idaho that the family would visit often.
Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth with Bowie is what I remember seeing on one of Bing's Christmas special in th eearly 1970s. Those were alot of fun.
Yep. I've read all of that too. And if you dig a little deeper, as I have, you'll find it's a load of bull about the abuse. It made a good MSM story while it lasted though.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.