Bing Crosby...

After raping all those women you can still ask if he's a monster???

...and his son wrote a book.

All his sons are dead. All his sons, dead.

R2 WRONG. Only his sons from his first marriage are dead. The two sons from his second marriage are still with us.

He leaves me cold so when anything featuring him is on tv, I turn the channel.

This clip makes me laugh though. Der Bingle showing how hip he was in the 70s by singing a Christmas duet with David Bowie.

"Only his sons from his first marriage are dead."

True, but you forget to mention that two of his sons from his first marriage (Lindsay & Dennis) killed themselves.

He was horribly cheap. My great aunt and her husband would play cards with Bing and whatever wife he was with. "Not a nice man", she said & "cheap".

What did Mary Crosby have to say about his parenting skills?

Bing's daughter Mary only said that when Gary Crosby's book, "Going My Way," was published they decided not to comment. She now sees that as a life changing mistake because some of the public only remembers Gary's account of Bing as a terrible man and father.

It seemed like his first family got the worst of his attacks.

Two of Gary's three brothers supported his allegations.

Rosemary Clooney and others (Lucille Ball, Mary Martin et al) did speak out in Bing's defense.

He was a monster.

terrible drunk, slap the shit out of every single woman in his midst

See, it's not just the kids saying nasty things about him, no one has good things to say about him. I've honestly never heard anyone but his daughter say anything good about him.

Old joke:

How do you know that Bing Crosby was uncircumcised?

There was just no end to that prick.

To be fair, when Gary Crosby's book was published, some Hollywood stars did defend Bing. But, I wonder how well they knew him in private life.

It's well known that Crosby and Bob Hope barely spoke to each other when not performing.

It should be hard for you to watch White Christmas because it's an ancient pile of tripe, only famous for the 3 minute song.

add this to the scary logos collection

Mrs. Vorhees was angel compared to dad.

[quote]only famous for the 3 minute song.

Which song? Sisters? Count Your Blessings? Heat Wave? White Christmas? Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me?

PBS just aired a great American Masters on Bing last week. It seemed to be a very fair and complete view of the man, warts and all.

Widow Kathryn Crosby (who looks like quite a gargoyle due to plastic surgery), daughter Mary and the two sons appeared and offered their remembrances, which were all positive, of course.

I got the impression that perhaps Bing truly learned from the mistakes of his 1st marriage (wife #1 was actress Dixie Lee, who became a raging alcoholic and manic-depressive) and treated his second family with the proper and appropriate respect.

I had a crush on his son, Nathaniel

The thing is...I don't remember any of his co-workers coming to his aid, when the book first hit the book stores.

Who was the Crosby on Star Trek?

Lt. Yar?...she said her family refused to use his name.

Denise Crosby was the one on Star Trek, she was Bing's granddaughter. She was the illegitimate child of Bing's son Dennis, who had no relationship with her, and she never even met her grandfather.

Bing Crosby was the first popular singer to sing in a casual and effortless style, known as "crooning" at the time.

The invention of the microphone and popularity of the radio essentially allowed him and singers of his day to relax and not push out and declaim the notes as Al Jolson and Rudy Vallee were doing.

It seems such a simple notion today and one we now take for granted but it was revolutionary at the time (even though Negro singers had previously been doing it 10 years earlier).

Ironically, since the advent of American Idol, popular singers today are doing just the reverse.

Rudy Vallee was also a casual and relaxed 'crooner' r25. Nothing like Jolson... and yes, it's all down to the invention of the electric microphone. Now you didn't have to sing loud enough for the whole house to hear you.

By the way, the term 'Crooner' was seen as an insult at the time, as it was considered un-manly.

Marjorie Reynolds (who was cast in HOLIDAY INN only after Mary Marin & Alice Faye proved unavailable) did not like working with Crosby, discreetly describing him as "nothing like his public image."

She had nothing but nice things to say about Fred Astaire, going on about how helpful and kind he was to her.

Was Astaire gay?

I got the feeling he was more asexual.

Late in his life Bing Crosby was in Peninsula Hospital, south of San Francisco, at the same time as my mother. She used to chat with him in the solarium, and said he was a nice guy, as were his children. Mrs C, not so much.

My father asked him to autograph a copy of his 1953 autobiography, 'Call Me Lucky' which he graciously did (it was ghost written by Pete Martin, who also ghosted Merman's book 'Who Could Ask for Anything More?').

After talking with him awhile, my father was most impressed by the revelation that Crosby was influential in the development of magnetic recording tape (by investing in 3M) because he was looking for a way out of doing his weekly radio shows live, and NBC would only allow him to pre-record it if the sound quality was indistinguishable from a live broadcast.

Smart businessman that he was, Crosby secured exclusive west coast distribution rights to what became Scotch magnetic recording tape, making him a very rich man (He also was an early investor in Minute Maid, as well as their spokesman for many years).

We also have Crosby to thank (blame) for the laugh track, which he had engineers insert to augment the audience reaction to his jokes.

I think his first round of kids all had fetal alcohol syndrome.

[quote]I got the feeling he was more asexual.

He married twice and had children. There are no rumors that I have heard of of him having sex with men. He (along with Bing) was very conservative and member of the republican party.

He did seem sexless onscreen. They said that's why the pairing with Ginger Rogers worked. He made her seem classy and she made him seem sexy.

Who's "crooning" was the most bland & white bread? Crosby or Perry Como?

My idea of hell would be having to listen to Crosby & Como records back to back to back to back to back. And this is coming from someone who adores the music of that era!

I think it was SCTV who spoofed Como's relaxed style by having him singing flat on his back, in bed, in pyjamas, half asleep.

Yes, R33. LOL

[quote]Crosby was influential in the development of magnetic recording tape (by investing in 3M

I thought he had some connection with Ampex.

He wasn't very gay friendly. When Barbara interviewed him, he said something to the effect of he'd throw his kid out of the house if he found out he was gay and never speak to him again.

Actually, I thought I remember him being surprisingly tolerant about homosexuality in that interview with Barbara Walters, which was shown in a clip as part of the American Masters PBS show.

While it's true that Rudy Vallee's singing style was an early form of "crooning" and a big departure from Al Jolson, it was nothing like the casual, relaxed and "real" song styling of Bing Crosby.

Bing's style was so natural that most people today can't imagine how artificial (like Vallee), everything was that came before it.

[quote]Bing's style was so natural that most people today can't imagine how artificial (like Vallee), everything was that came before it.

However, Bing's singing style was a response to the invention of electronic amplification. Before microphones existed, singers had to project their voices naturally. It was the unnatural advantage of technology that allowed crooning to be enjoyed by the masses.

[quote]While it's true that Rudy Vallee's singing style was an early form of "crooning"

You have no idea what you are talking about do you? Vallee is widely considered the first popular crooner... Art Gilham was 'an early form of crooning'. Rudy Vallee was crooning at it's height. The only major difference between Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby is that Rudy was a tenor and Bing was a baritone.

It doesn't get much more casual or relaxed than this

I wonder if Gary Crosby based his portrayal of Adam 12's assholish cop Officer Ed Wells on his father?

It almost seems like most men of Bing's generation were assholes, am I wrong?

I preferred Bing's voice over Perry's.

R36 is right about Crosby the homophobe. This Bob Hope bio pulls no punches, beginning with The Road to Greenwich Village.

The 1947 film, SMASH UP: THE STORY OF A WOMAN, is said to have been based on the Bing Crosby/Dixie Lee marriage. Susan Hayward received an Oscar nomination; a lot of actresses turned down the part of an alcoholic wife who sacrificed her singing career for her husband's career. These actresses were said to be afraid of crossing Crosby.

Philip Crosby denied most of the events in his brother's book.

Bing Crosby set up trust funds for his son that so that they couldn't touch the money until they were in the 50s or 60s. Only Phillip lived long enough to receive his inheritance. Dennis and Lindsay committed suicide and Gary died of cancer

Of course Philip Crosby denied the events. He wound up with his 3 dead brothers money.

Katherine Crosby said in the PBS show that Bing had started to treat their own children coldly but she reprimanded him and more or less taught him how to be affectionate with their children.

I believe that Kathryn Crosby was severely injured and her second husband was killed in an automobile accident a few years ago, near their house in the San Francisco suburbs

I am surprised that Bing's late in life interview with Barbara Walters has not been mentioned. Walters asked if Bing would be ok with his daughter living with a boyfriend before they were married.

In a very cold way, Bing said he would cut her completely out of his life if that ever happened.

Yeah you heard the term "cold" a lot when describing him. He was rumoured to be vrry controlling as well.

Horrible to the first set of kids even worse to their mother. The second time around the wife set him straight.

It still amazes me that Grace Kelly fucked this guy. She could act but was desperately insecure about staying employed in Hollywood.

According to the recent Bob Hope biography they effectively never socialized, he considered Bing cold but they had no problems working together. They would show up and the light would go on! Hovever Dorothy Lamour worked well with Hope but hated Crosby who totally ignored her.

Gary Crosby was sexy. Bing never was.

When young loved Going My Way which is a pretty effective film from the era. That scene at the end with Barry Fitzgerald seeing his mother is a killer. They really knew how to pull off this sentimental stuff without making you want to gag like today's hacks.

After hearing he was an insane monster to his first set of sons cannot enjoy his films anymore.

Including the above maligned White Christmas. It has some great numbers, Vera Ellen(though looking anorexic,) Rosemary Clooney, Robert Alton dances and Mary Wicks.

[quote]He was horribly cheap. My great aunt and her husband would play cards with Bing and whatever wife he was with. "Not a nice man", she said & "cheap".

The grandmother of a friend of mine came to town to visit in the 1990s, along with her best friends, a couple who also socialized with Bing and Kathryn. The grandmother's friend said she liked Kathryn but they were always glad when Bing was out of the house, which was frequently. He was aloof and rude. Both these older ladies insisted that, "Bing could only sing one note! He's nothing special!" They were great, I liked hanging out with them.

Bing was a bully and his first wife was fragile, so he ran all over her and abused her kids. The second wife wasn't going to put up with that, and he immediately backed down.

Someone a while back mentioned that Bing's brothers were on his side -- well, Bob Crosby WOULD be on Bing's side, because Bing really did the heavy lifting when Bob got in trouble for beating his wife. Actually, he didn't get into trouble at all, thanks to Bing.

Bob had been hitting his wife June one night and she fought back with a letter opener, stabbing him in the shoulder. She then screamed to their little girl to call the cops. Bob ran out of the house and straight to Bing, who hid him in another state so the cops couldn't get to him. He then bounced from brother to brother for a while, and Bing got Bob some press contacts so he could tell his side of the story.

Bob's oldest daughter Cathy Crosby was a late teen at the time of this stabbing incident. She was in the hospital with a "nervous breakdown," often attributed as the result of abuse from her dad. At 16 she was already sexually active and was dating some married guy in his late 30s. Her parents disapproved of course but Bob went nuts, even hiring private investigators to have her followed and intimidate them. Cathy was freaked out by all this and ran off. (Of course, one has to wonder why, at 16, she was already sleeping with older father figures.)

The rumor is that Bob was blaming June for Cathy's hospitalization. Bob did indeed go to the papers and tell them that June was entirely at fault for making him mad, because she didn't know where one of their kids was right at that moment. He blamed June entirely, saying she was hysterical and in a rage and a bad mother, and he was the real victim. Bob had some cultural cachet but Bing is said to have worked overtime with the press to make June look bad, and it worked.

June tried to divorce Bob more than once but never did get out of that marriage. I've always wondered why. Maybe because of all their kids, who knows.

An interesting thread would be why do many mothers allow their husbands to abuse their children emotionally and physically.

I thought mothers were supposed to protect their children like a lioness protecting her cubs.

There are too many instances where that is not the case.

You would think a woman would kill her husband before she would allow him to destroy their children.

Religion and denial have destroyed so many people.

I think Bing's accepting the part in The Country Girl was interesting because he was playing a man who was a bit of a bastard as well as a drunk. I guess he could have removed himself from any comparison by calling it acting but he did dare to play unlikeable which was something in the Hollywood of the times.

Der Bingle is so in need of a bio pic.

Yes, he was a rotten, child-abusing scumbag!

Who could play him?

I loved him on I Spy and the Crosby Show.

Here's the Barbara Walters interview.

"...and his son wrote a book."

Youngsters, Crosby's rough treatment of his sons was public knowledge long before Gary's book. I first read about it in a question in Parade Magazine's Personality Parade when Bing was still alive. I asked my mother (who didn't read Parade) and she made a wisecrack about it. It was known, it was also know that the sons from the first marriage were wayward "party boys," boozers, without money, employment or direction. I thought they were kind of cute as a singing team.

He had a nice voice, my dad loves his music.

I don't know anything about his childhood -- that must have had something to do with the way he treated women and kids when he grew up.

R65, Bing Crosby was an alcoholic. No dispute about that. He and his first wife, Dixie, horribly abused all their his sons. My father abused his children, but not like the Crosbys and Joan Crawford. Therefore, I recognize it. Deniers remain among my relatives. What does it say when all of Bing Crosby's sons by his first wife died of heart attacks, cancer or suicide? Bing Crosby intentionally withheld inheritances from first 4 sons until they turned 65. Only 1, Phillip, made it, then died of a heart attack at 69. Those boys and men suffered needlessly and terribly. Bing and Dixie Crosby are not deceiving me.

Is that Bing and Dixie were alcoholics news? That's fall down traditional drunk at 11AM drunks. Dixie was the silent parent. That why Bing was such a take charge SOB abuser.

Bing was a horrible father to his sons in his first marriage, but supposedly very different when he started his second family.

I always thought it strange that Grace Kelly got the Oscar for "The Country Girl" for a so/so performance, when it was Bing who was wonderful in a very unsympathetic role.

Bing is known for his early crooning, but he was at his best when he did jazz, or scat with Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong.

Bing was a horrible father to his sons in his first marriage, but supposedly very different when he started his second family.

I always thought it strange that Grace Kelly got the Oscar for "The Country Girl" for a so/so performance, when it was Bing who was wonderful in a very unsympathetic role.

Bing is known for his early crooning, but he was at his best when he did jazz, or scat with Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong.

[QUOTE] or scat

*chortle*