Actors - Bing Crosby

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	Actors - Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor whose career flourished from 1926 until his death in 1977.

Bing Crosby's influence on popular culture and popular music is considerable as from 1934 to 1954 he held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses. He is usually considered to be one of popular music's holy trinity of ultra-icons, alongside Elvis Presley and The Beatles¹.

Bing Crosby popularized singing with conversational ease, or crooning. His musical interpretations amalgamated rhythm and romance with scat singing, whistling, rythmic improvisation and melodic paraphrasing as elements of a hotter, sexier sound than had been conceived before.

Crosby is also credited as being the inspiration for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, and more recently Harry Connick Jr. and Michael Bublé. In 1992, Artie Shaw offered his opinion of Crosby's place in American culture in these terms: "The thing you have to understand about Bing Crosby is that he was the first hip white person born in the United States"¹.

In 1962, Crosby was the first person to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Early life

Harry Lillis Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington on May 3, 1903 in a house that his father built (1112 North J Street, Tacoma, Washington). His family later moved to Spokane, Washington in 1906 to find work. He was the fourth of seven children - five boys Larry (1895-1975), Everett (born 1896), Ted (born 1900) and Bob (1913-1993) and two girls Catherine (born 1905) and Mary Rose (born 1907) - born to English-American Harry Lowe Crosby (1871-1950), a bookkeeper and Irish-American Catherine Harrigan (1873-1964), (affectionately known as Kate), the daughter of a builder from County Mayo in Ireland. His paternal ancestors Thomas Prence and Patience Brewster were born in England and immigrated to the U.S. in the 17th century; Brewster's family came over on the Mayflower.

It should be noted that Bing Crosby had no birth certificate and that his birth date was shrouded in mystery until his childhood Roman Catholic church in Tacoma, Washington, released the baptismal records that revealed his date of birth.

The nickname "Bing" was bestowed upon on him by a childhood friend, Valentine Hobart, who shared Bing's interest in a newspaper comic strip called "The Bingville Bugle". Valentine Hobart began calling Harry Crosby "Bingo from Bingville." Eventually the nickname was shortened to "Bing" and was adopted by Bing's other friends and even his teachers.

Bing Crosby's parents loved music and they both loved to sing. Bing was even sent away to singing lessons, but dropped out because he did not like the demands of the training. Bing's favorite singer and idol was Al Jolson. However, Bing's style is quite different from Jolson's loud, high volume approach to singing.

Bing enrolled in the Jesuit-run Gonzaga College in Spokane, Washington in the fall of 1920 with the intent to become a lawyer. While in Gonzaga he sent away for a set of mail order drums. After much practice he soon became good enough and was invited to join a local band which was made up of mostly local high school kids called the "Musicaladers", managed by one Al Rinker. He made so much money doing this he decided to drop out of school during his final year, to pursue a career in show business.

Popular success

In 1926, Crosby caught the eye of Paul Whiteman (who promoted himself as The King of Jazz) while singing on the vaudeville in Los Angeles. Hired to join one of the most popular bands in America, the fledgling vocalist would receive a musical education from the greatest musicians of the era. Unlike the typical vaudeville "shouters," he learned to work the microphone (and the crowd) drawing the audience in with his smooth, gentle style.

He was thus able to take popular singing beyond the kind of "belting" associated with a performer like Al Jolson, who had to reach the back seats in New York theatres without the aid of the microphone. With Crosby, as Henry Pleasants noted in The Great American Popular Singers, something new had entered American music, something that might be called "singing in American," with conversational ease. The oddity of this new sound led to the epithet "crooner".

Bing soon became the star attraction of the band and sang Whiteman's biggest hit of 1928, "Ol' Man River." However, his repeated youthful peccadilloes forced Whiteman to fire him 1930. Crosby had no desire to step out on his own, but was now forced into a solo career.

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Actors - Bing Crosby

Early life

Popular success

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