50 Fun Facts About Bing Crosby

In which Washington State city was Bing Crosby born in 1903?

The family moved to Spokane three years later, where he grew up and where his boyhood home now stands on the Gonzaga campus.

What was Bing Crosby's real first name?

He was Harry Lillis Crosby Jr., the fourth of seven children of a bookkeeper and an Irish-American mother.

Where did the nickname 'Bing' come from?

A neighbour, Valentine Hobart, dubbed the boy 'Bingo from Bingville' around 1910.

Which Spokane college did Crosby attend for three years without graduating?

He played on its baseball team as a freshman; the campus now houses his boyhood home as a museum, Oscar included.

Which instrument did Crosby play in the Musicaladers, his first band in Spokane?

His bandmate Al Rinker went with him to California in 1925.

Crosby's first big break came when he and Al Rinker were hired in 1926 by which bandleader?

They earned 150 dollars a week and debuted with the orchestra at Chicago's Tivoli Theatre that December.

Crosby, Al Rinker and Harry Barris performed as which vocal trio?

Barris, a pianist and songwriter, joined in 1927; the trio appeared in the 1930 film King of Jazz.

Crosby's first number one hit, in 1928, was a jazz-influenced version of which song?

He was still with the Whiteman organisation, recording alongside Bix Beiderbecke and the Dorsey brothers.

Which record company did Crosby sign with in late 1934, backing its 35-cent singles?

Founder Jack Kapp also talked Crosby into dropping his jazzier mannerisms for a cleaner vocal style.

Which weekly NBC radio show did Crosby host from 1936 for a decade?

His whistled theme song was 'Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)'.

Which trumpeter got equal billing at Crosby's insistence in Pennies from Heaven?

Studio boss Harry Cohn had baulked at paying Armstrong's air fare; the two men later sang 'Now You Has Jazz' in High Society.

Crosby's intimate singing style, made possible by the microphone, earned which popular label?

He took popular singing beyond the shouting style of Al Jolson, who had to reach the back rows unamplified.

Crosby first performed 'White Christmas' on his radio show a few weeks after Pearl Harbor. On what date?

It came a few weeks after Pearl Harbor; he recorded it for Decca the following May in just 18 minutes.

Who wrote 'White Christmas'?

Berlin called it not just the best song he ever wrote but 'the best song anybody ever wrote'.

Crosby's 'White Christmas', the best-selling physical single, has sold over how many copies?

The version usually heard today is a 1947 re-recording, made because the 1942 master wore out.

What self-deprecating remark did Crosby make about his part in the success of 'White Christmas'?

He was associated with the song for the rest of his life regardless.

'White Christmas' was introduced in which 1942 film co-starring Fred Astaire?

The film's title later inspired the name of the Holiday Inn hotel chain.

For which 1944 film did Crosby win the Academy Award for Best Actor?

He played Father O'Malley; the film was the year's top earner and won seven Oscars including Best Picture.

Crosby's Oscar nod for The Bells of St. Mary's made him the first actor nominated twice for what?

His co-star in the sequel was Ingrid Bergman; five other actors have since matched the feat.

Who played the elderly priest opposite Crosby in Going My Way?

Director Leo McCarey and Crosby later presented a copy of the film to Pope Pius XII.

Which Oscar-winning song does the choir sing in Going My Way?

Crosby introduced four Best Original Song winners in all, starting with 'Sweet Leilani' in 1937.

How many 'Road to...' films did Crosby make with Bob Hope between 1940 and 1962?

Dorothy Lamour co-starred in six; Joan Collins replaced her in The Road to Hong Kong, though Lamour got a cameo.

The first of the Crosby-Hope buddy pictures, in 1940, took them on the road to where?

A final Road film, in which the trio would hunt for the Fountain of Youth, was being planned when Crosby died.

Who was the female lead in six of the seven Road films?

Crosby felt she had grown too old for The Road to Hong Kong; Hope refused to make it without her.

Crosby earned his third Oscar nomination playing an alcoholic has-been actor in which 1954 film?

Grace Kelly won Best Actress as his long-suffering wife; William Holden co-starred.

High Society (1956), starring Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra, was a musical remake of which film?

Cole Porter wrote the songs and Louis Armstrong appeared; the story was moved to Newport, Rhode Island.

Crosby was the number one box-office attraction for five consecutive years. Which years?

In 1946 he starred in three of the year's five highest-grossing films.

Bing Crosby invested $50,000 in which company to build tape recorders after seeing a captured German machine?

He became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows on tape, and gave an early machine to Les Paul, who invented multitrack recording with it.

Bing Crosby Enterprises gave the first demonstration of what technology in November 1951?

The images were 'blurred and indistinct', produced on a modified Ampex audio recorder running tape at 360 inches per second.

Crosby made a fortune as a principal stockholder in which juice company?

His family's Hillsborough home served as the set for some of the brand's TV commercials.

Crosby owned a 25% share of which baseball team from 1946 until his death?

Too nervous to watch Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, he listened in Paris while having the telecast recorded on kinescope.

Crosby was a founding partner of which California racetrack's thoroughbred club?

His Binglin Stable horse Ligaroti lost a famous 1938 match race there to Seabiscuit.

Crosby's 'Clambake' pro-am, founded in 1937, moved in 1947 to which California course?

It began at Rancho Santa Fe, moved to the Monterey Peninsula after the war and was renamed the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 1986.

Crosby's first wife, Dixie Lee, died in 1952. Which actress did he marry in 1957?

Their daughter Mary Frances went on to play Kristin Shepard, the woman who shot J.R., in Dallas.

Crosby's daughter Mary Frances is best known for playing which character in TV's Dallas?

Her brother Harry appeared in Friday the 13th and her brother Nathaniel won the 1981 US Amateur golf title.

What was the title of the critical 1983 memoir by Crosby's eldest son Gary?

It portrayed his father as cold and abusive; biographer Gary Giddins later argued it is unreliable.

With which rock star did Bing Crosby record 'Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy' in September 1977?

Bowie disliked 'Little Drummer Boy', so the counter-melody was written on the spot; the single reached No. 3 in the UK in 1982.

Where did Bing Crosby die on 14 October 1977?

He had just finished 18 holes at La Moraleja and said 'That was a great game of golf, fellas' before collapsing with a heart attack.

What nickname did Crosby's German wartime listeners give him?

Journalist Bob Musel coined it in 1944 after Crosby recorded programmes for broadcast to Germany.

Crosby is one of only 33 people with three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In which three categories?

He also received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award in 1963.

Which long-running CBS sitcom set in a German POW camp was made by Bing Crosby Productions?

The company also produced the medical drama Ben Casey and Crosby's own short-lived ABC sitcom.

Roughly how many songs did Crosby record over his career?

He also made more than 70 feature films and, by Guinness's 1977 count, had sold 500 million records.

Crosby was the fourth of how many children in his family?

His siblings included Bob Crosby, who became a bandleader in his own right, and his father was a bookkeeper.

Which entertainer, seen ad-libbing at a hometown theatre in 1917, did the teenage Crosby call 'electric'?

Crosby had a summer job as property boy at the theatre and watched Jolson parody Hawaiian songs from the wings.

Which singer replaced Dorothy Lamour as the leading lady in The Road to Hong Kong?

Lamour was limited to a lengthy cameo in the seventh and final Road picture in 1962.

Which weekly ABC programme did Crosby begin recording on tape in 1947, a network first?

Engineer Jack Mullin recorded it on a German Magnetophon using 50 reels of I.G. Farben tape found near Frankfurt; the big advantage was editing.

Crosby's short-lived early-1930s rivalry with which singer was billed as the 'Battle of the Baritones'?

The rivalry gave way to a new slogan, 'Bing Was King', as ten of the top 50 songs of 1931 featured Crosby.

Crosby's son Nathaniel won which golf title in 1981 at age 19, then the youngest ever to do so?

His father had taken up the game as a 12-year-old caddy and founded the pro-am 'Clambake' tournament in 1937.

Crosby's son Harry Lillis III appeared as Bill in which 1980 horror film?

He is one of three children from Crosby's 1957 marriage to actress Kathryn Grant, alongside Mary Frances and Nathaniel.

Which singer joined Crosby and his family on his final concert tour of Britain in September 1977?

The tour included two weeks at the London Palladium; Crosby recorded his final album Seasons and his last Christmas special during the trip.