Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. was born on May 3, 1903, in Tacoma, Washington, and died on October 14, 1977. He worked as both a singer and actor and is remembered as one of the earliest multimedia stars, achieving enormous popularity and influence across the globe throughout the 20th century. From 1926 until his death, he led the pack in record sales, radio ratings, and box office earnings. He became one of the first truly global cultural icons, appearing in more than 70 movies and recording over 1,600 songs.

His rise came at a time when new recording technology let him craft a close, intimate singing style. That approach shaped a long line of male vocalists, including Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Elton John, John Denver, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney. During World War II, *Yank* magazine named him the person who did the most for the morale of overseas servicemen. In 1948, American polls ranked him the most admired man alive, ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. That same year, *Music Digest* estimated that his recordings made up more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours of recorded radio music in North America.

Crosby won the Academy Award for Best Actor for *Going My Way* (1944) and earned a nomination for its sequel, *The Bells of St. Mary's* (1945), opposite Ingrid Bergman. This made him the first of six actors to be nominated twice for playing the same character. He was the top box office draw for five straight years, from 1944 to 1948. At his peak in 1946, he starred in three of the year's five highest-grossing films: *The Bells of St. Mary's*, *Blue Skies*, and *Road to Utopia*. In 1963, he received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. He is one of 33 people with three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in motion pictures, radio, and audio recording. He also worked closely with his friend Bob Hope on the *Road to ...* films from 1940 to 1962. His connection to Christmas began with Irving Berlin's musical *Holiday Inn* and the film *White Christmas*, where he sang the title song.

Crosby helped shape the post–World War II recording industry. After seeing a demonstration of a German broadcast-quality reel-to-reel tape recorder brought to the U.S. by John T. Mullin, he invested $50,000 in the California electronics company Ampex to build copies. He then convinced ABC to let him tape his shows, becoming the first performer to prerecord his radio programs and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape. This allowed him to produce his radio shows with the same editing, retaking, rehearsal, and time-shifting techniques used in film, a practice that became the industry standard. Beyond audio tape, he helped finance the development of videotape, bought television stations, bred racehorses, and co-owned the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, which won the World Series twice, in 1960 and 1971.

Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington, in a house his father built at 1112 North J Street. Three years later, the family moved to Spokane, where he grew up. In 1913, his father built another house at 508 E. Sharp Avenue, which now stands on the campus of Gonzaga University and serves as a museum housing over 200 artifacts from his life, including his Oscar. He was the fourth of seven children: brothers Laurence Earl "Larry" (1895–1975), Everett Nathaniel (1896–1966), Edward John "Ted" (1900–1973), and George Robert "Bob" (1913–1993); and sisters Catherine Cordelia (1904–1974) and Mary Rose (1906–1990). His father, Harry Lillis Crosby Sr. (1870–1950), worked as a bookkeeper, and his mother, Catherine Helen "Kate" (née Harrigan; 1873–1964), was a second-generation Irish-American. His father had Scottish and English roots; an ancestor, Simon Crosby, emigrated from England to New England in the 1630s during the Puritan migration. Through another paternal line, Crosby descended from *Mayflower* passenger William Brewster (1567–1644).

His parents introduced him to music. His father played the family's Edison phonograph loudly, and his mother was a singer, which helped most of the children develop musical skills. As a boy, Crosby preferred whistling and humming over singing, and he later incorporated whistling into many of his songs, including "White Christmas." In 1917, he took a summer job as a property boy at Spokane's Auditorium, where he saw acts like Al Jolson, whose ad-libbing and parodies of Hawaiian songs held Crosby spellbound. He later described Jolson's delivery as "electric."

Crosby graduated from Gonzaga High School in 1920 and enrolled at Gonzaga University, attending for three years without earning a degree. As a freshman, he played on the university's baseball team. According to the son of his coach Gus Dorais, Crosby played home games but didn't make the smaller traveling squad. Still, his teammates liked him so much they would sneak him onto the train and hide him. He brought his guitar along and entertained them in return. The university granted him an honorary doctorate in 1937 and now houses a large collection of his photographs, correspondence, and other materials.

The Associated Press reported as early as February 1932—later confirmed by Crosby and his biographer Charles Thompson—that his nickname "Bing" came from a neighbor, Valentine Hobart, around 1910.