The Full Biography
Bing Crosby. Singer. Actor. The baritone who taught the microphone to speak at the volume of a living room.
This is his story.
The image most people still carry is a man in a cardigan or a priest’s collar, pipe nearby, a voice that does not push. The song is “White Christmas.” The year on the first recording is 1942. What the broadcast cannot show is Harry Lillis Crosby of Tacoma and Spokane, a college singer who understood electronics better than most of the men who owned the studios, a Hollywood partner to Bob Hope, and a last chapter that ended on a golf course in Spain the afternoon after a good round.
He was born on May 3, 1903, in Tacoma, Washington, and raised in Spokane. The nickname Bing came from a newspaper comic, The Bingville Bugle. Gonzaga University was meant to lead to law. It led to bands. He sang with the Rhythm Boys, then with Paul Whiteman, then under his own name when radio and electrical recording made a soft voice more valuable than a vaudeville shout. The old singers filled a hall. Crosby filled a microphone, which is a different instrument. Millions of people felt he was in the kitchen. That feeling is the career.
Decca, then the rest of the catalog: “Pennies from Heaven,” “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “Swinging on a Star,” “White Christmas.” Irving Berlin wrote the last of those. Crosby sang it in Holiday Inn (1942) and again in the 1954 picture that took the song as a title. It became, and remains, one of the best-selling records ever pressed. He did not treat it as a novelty. He treated it as a standard he was obligated to keep in tune. On radio he was a weekly habit. On screen he was a priest in Going My Way (1944) and won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The Road pictures with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour — Singapore, Zanzibar, Morocco — are lighter, and they lasted because the two men liked the same joke and did not mind who got the bigger close-up on a given Tuesday.
The business brain is the part the cardigan hides. Crosby invested early in tape. After the war he backed Ampex and the engineer Jack Mullin, and his radio show became a demonstration that a performer could record, edit, and not be chained to a live clock. That habit changed American broadcasting. He owned pieces of enterprises the public never filed under his name. He played golf as if it were a second profession. He was, in the mid-century sense, a conglomerate with a pipe.
The work is a weekly habit before it is a holiday single. He sang with Al Rinker in Spokane, then with the Rhythm Boys in Paul Whiteman’s band, then under his own name when electrical recording and radio made a soft voice more valuable than a vaudeville shout. Mack Sennett shorts taught him the camera. CBS and then NBC made him a Tuesday. Decca signed him in 1934. “Pennies from Heaven.” “I’ve Got a Pocketful of Dreams.” “I’ll Be Seeing You.” “Swinging on a Star,” which he sang in Going My Way (1944) and which won the song Oscar while he won Best Actor as Father O’Malley. The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945) put the collar back on opposite Ingrid Bergman and earned another nomination. The Country Girl (1954), with Grace Kelly and William Holden, is the bruise: an alcoholic singer, not a priest, and another nomination. High Society (1956) put him in a room with Frank Sinatra and Kelly again. The Road pictures with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour ran from Singapore (1940) through Zanzibar, Morocco, Utopia, Rio, Bali, to Hong Kong (1962). They lasted because the two men liked the same joke.
Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas.” Crosby sang it in Holiday Inn (1942) and again in White Christmas (1954). It became, and remains, one of the best-selling records ever pressed. He did not treat it as a novelty. He treated it as a standard he was obligated to keep in tune. After the war he backed the engineer Jack Mullin and the Ampex tape machines; Philco Radio Time became a demonstration that a performer could record, edit, and not be chained to a live clock. That habit changed American broadcasting. He invested in Minute Maid. He ran thoroughbreds. He built the Crosby Clambake at Pebble Beach into a pro-am that is still a January weather system on the Monterey Peninsula. Golf was not a hobbyist’s story. It was how he spent the time the studio no longer owned.
Everyone thinks I’m easygoing. I’m not. I just sound that way.Bing Crosby, on the difference between the microphone and the man
The turn is the family file. He married Dixie Lee in 1930. They had four sons. She died in 1952. In 1957 he married Kathryn Grant; they had three children, including Mary Crosby. The public Crosby remained the uncle at Christmas. The private house, especially in the first family, was stricter than the records. After his death, his son Gary wrote a memoir that described a hard father. Other children disagreed in public. The honest listener has to hold both: the voice that tucked a country in, and a household that did not always feel tucked. Fond memory is not a cleaned room. Absolute truth is both reels.
The radio years are a second monument. Kraft Music Hall made him a Thursday. Philco Radio Time, taped in Hollywood and then edited, proved a star could work like a film actor and still sound live in the kitchen. He hired John Scott Trotter. He hired guests who could sing and guests who could talk. Hope came through. Louis Armstrong came through. The American Forces Network carried him to men who were not in a kitchen. During the war he toured, recorded V-Discs, and sang for troops without turning the trip into a single publicity still. The Oscar did not end the weekly habit. The weekly habit is why the Oscar felt like a man the country already knew.
He made Rhythm on the Range (1936), Waikiki Wedding (1937), Sing You Sinners (1938) with a young Fred MacMurray and a younger Donald O’Connor. The Star Maker (1939). If I Had My Way (1940). The Paramount years are a stack of light pictures that paid for the radio and the tape machines. Here Comes the Groom (1951). Little Boy Lost (1953). The Country Girl is the one dramatic part people who only know the cardigan should be made to watch. After High Society the pictures thinned and the specials thickened. Christmas became the civic job. Hillsborough, California, and a place in Baja held the second family. The first family — Gary, Dennis, Phillip, Lindsay — had already grown up inside a stricter house than the microphone admitted. Dennis and Lindsay would die by suicide years after their father, a fact that belongs in the file without becoming the whole file.
Harry Lillis Crosby of Tacoma and Spokane was supposed to be a lawyer. Gonzaga lost that argument to a band. The Rhythm Boys, Paul Whiteman, Mack Sennett, Decca, Kraft, Philco, Paramount, the Road pictures, Father O’Malley, “White Christmas,” Ampex, Pebble Beach, the Christmas specials, La Moraleja — that is the working list. The microphone is the instrument. The old singers filled a hall. He filled a kitchen. Millions of people felt he was in the room. That feeling is the career. The pipe and the cardigan are the costume. The tape machines and the first family’s argument are the rest of the truth. He died after a good round, walking toward a clubhouse in Spain, seventy-four, a baritone who had already taught the century how quietly a famous man could speak.
Dixie Lee died in 1952. The four sons of that house — Gary, Dennis, Phillip, Lindsay — grew up with a famous father who was stricter than the records. Kathryn Grant in 1957, then Harry, Mary, Nathaniel. Mary shot J.R. on Dallas in 1980 and became a different national fact. Gary’s Going My Own Way (1983) is still in the file. So are the children who said the house they knew was different. Both belong. The Clambake at Pebble Beach is still a January weather system. “White Christmas” still opens a certain kind of American December. Tape is now a metaphor. The habit of editing a performance after the fact is how all popular music works. He underwrote that habit. Then he walked off a green in Madrid.
Gonzaga was meant to lead to law. The microphone won. The Bingville Bugle gave him a nickname. Decca gave him a catalog. Hope gave him a partner who did not mind who got the bigger close-up on a given Tuesday. Berlin gave him a song he was obligated to keep in tune. Mullin and Ampex gave him a way to work like a film actor and still sound live in the kitchen. Spain gave him a last good score. That is the working list, without the cardigan.
Six things most people never knew
- He was supposed to be a lawyer. Gonzaga, Spokane. The microphone won the argument.
- The nickname is from a comic strip, not a publicist. The Bingville Bugle. Harry Lillis is the name on the certificate.
- He helped underwrite magnetic tape in American radio. Mullin and Ampex. The prerecorded hit show is partly his invention as a businessman.
- “White Christmas” is not his only monument. An Oscar, a decade of Road pictures, and a radio habit that predated the holiday single.
- The easy manner was a technique. Engineers and colleagues describe a professional who knew exactly where the microphone sat.
- He died after a walk from the eighteenth green. Madrid, October 14, 1977. A heart attack, minutes after a round he had enjoyed. The last years ended in motion, not in a sickroom scene.
Kathryn and the younger children were the second household, warmer in the telling of those who lived in it. He kept working: television specials, the Christmas programs that became civic furniture, records that no longer needed to prove the point. Golf was not a hobbyist’s story. It was how he spent the time the studio no longer owned.
The later years
Those years were specials, a lighter film load, and a fame that had become climate. Kathryn Grant, married in 1957, and the younger children — Harry, Mary, Nathaniel — were the second household, warmer in the telling of those who lived in it. Mary would, in 1980, shoot J.R. on Dallas and become a different kind of national fact. He kept working: television Christmas programs that became civic furniture, records that no longer needed to prove the point, a last British tour in the autumn of 1977. He played the Brighton Centre on October 10. Younger singers — from Sinatra, who had learned the microphone in Crosby’s weather, to men who only wanted the cardigan — filed through his example. He did not become a nostalgia act in the sad sense. He became the season. Every December the same voice arrived in the same houses. He knew it. He showed up.
Golf remained the second profession. The Clambake at Pebble Beach was already an institution. On October 14, 1977, he played La Moraleja, outside Madrid, with his Spanish hosts. He finished the round, walked toward the clubhouse, and collapsed of a heart attack. He was seventy-four. Partners reported that he had enjoyed the score. The last day was a good walk and a sudden stop. There was no long public decline for the cameras to narrate. The specials simply did not have a next year. The first family’s argument would arrive in print after the funeral. Gary’s memoir, Going My Own Way (1983), described a hard father. Other children disagreed in public. Both reels belong. The voice that tucked a country in, and a household that did not always feel tucked, are the same life. Kathryn kept the second house. Harry, Mary, and Nathaniel grew up in a warmer telling. The last British concerts in the autumn of 1977 — including Brighton on October 10 — were a working singer’s dates, not a farewell branded as one. Four days later the walk from the eighteenth green at La Moraleja ended the calendar. He was seventy-four. The specials did not have a next December. The record did.
After he was gone
The catalog did not need a revival. It had never left the stores. “White Christmas” still opens a certain kind of American December. The Road pictures still play as a two-man vaudeville that film schools underrate. Tape is now a metaphor; the habit of editing a performance after the fact is how all popular music works. Gary’s book is still in the file. So are the children who said the house they knew was different. Both belong.
He came out of Spokane, skipped the law, made the microphone intimate, won an Oscar in a collar, sang Berlin’s song until it was climate, underwrote the technology that freed radio from the clock, and died on a fairway in Spain. If you only remember the cardigan, you have the special. If you remember the tape machines, the first family’s argument, and the walk from the eighteenth green, you have him.
Portrait: Paramount Pictures (anonymous/unknown) · Public domain (PD US not renewed) · via Wikimedia Commons