Before singers like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Elvis Presley gained their popularity they were highly influenced by the crooner Bing Crosby. Crosby is often credited with helping develop the postwar recording industry. He invested in the recording company Ampex, persuaded broadcasting giant ABC to allow him to tape his shows, and became the first singer to prerecord his radio shows. But his tireless work in the entertainment industry took its toll on his personal and professional life eventually. This is the tragic truth about Bing Crosby.
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00:00Bing Crosby was one of the most beloved entertainers of all time,
00:04dominating the silver screen, music charts, and airwaves from the 1930s to 1960s. Yet,
00:09despite all his success, Crosby's personal life was filled with hardship, tragedy,
00:15and controversy. This is the tragic real-life story of Bing Crosby.
00:20Bing Crosby's early career in the mid-1920s saw him performing with a musical trio called
00:25The Rhythm Boys. It was during this time that Crosby's love for jazz took center stage,
00:31and he showcased his scat singing skills and jazz-style phrasing.
00:34By the time Crosby had hit it big in the early 1930s, copycat Crosbys were beginning to appear,
00:40from Perry Como to Dean Martin. As one musician said at the time,
00:45All the singers tried to be Crosbys. You were either a high Crosby or a low Crosby."
00:49However, as the iconic crooner was rising to the top, he was dealt a blow that almost
00:54derailed everything â a battle with laryngitis. Indeed, listening to Bing Crosby's early records
01:01of the 20s and 30s reveal a certain hoarseness to his voice, which seems to have coalesced
01:06as a result of his vocal problems. Crosby's troubles eventually led him to developing
01:11a note on one of his vocal cords in 1931, and while doctors told Crosby to rest,
01:17the star refused and instead chose to carry on singing and drinking, which only did him further
01:22damage. Around the mid-1930s, Crosby's voice became lower and he lost his ability to hit the
01:28high notes. As a result, he abandoned his scat-style jazz sound and focused instead on ballads.
01:36Luckily, these songs were more suited for mass appeal, and in turn, Crosby became known as the
01:41voice of a nation. The early years of Bing Crosby's career were filled with both success and love.
01:48In 1929, the singer met his biggest flame, Dixie Lee, when Lee was already a rising
01:53actress in her own right at Fox Studios. The pair tied the knot on September 29, 1930,
01:59with Lee resigning from her career as a silver screen icon in order to start a family with
02:03Crosby. They settled in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles in 1936, snagging a beautiful estate that sprawled
02:10across four acres. Unfortunately for Crosby and his family, tragedy struck in 1943, when a fire
02:17destroyed their home and most of their personal possessions. The $250,000 fire occurred in early
02:23January, after Lee and the kids were taking down Christmas tree decorations, resulting in a short
02:28circuit that ignited the tree. The damage was catastrophic, destroying Crosby's horse racing
02:34and golf trophies, as well as his prized collection of musical recordings. Thankfully for Crosby,
02:40there was one small silver lining to all this. He managed to salvage a charred sports shoe from
02:45the remains of his dressing room, which miraculously still contained an unharmed $2,000
02:51of cash race earnings. Although Dixie Lee was once an entertainer herself, her relationship
02:57with the spotlight was much more complex and destructive than being Crosby's. In fact,
03:02Lee didn't duck out of public life just to help her husband's career. She also did it because
03:07she was deeply uncomfortable in front of the camera. As it turned out, leaving the limelight
03:12wasn't all the former star needed. In his memoir, Dixie and Bing's son Gary Crosby wrote,
03:18"...my mother was the kind of person who needed to hear,
03:20sweetheart, darling, I love you, and he just couldn't do it."
03:24She often turned down her husband's invitations to join him on movie sets or parties,
03:29but this also had an effect on her well-being. Gary Crosby further revealed,
03:33"...I think she got lonely because Dad was working all the time."
03:36While Bing Crosby managed to kick his alcohol addiction to the curb after marrying Dixie,
03:41his wife found solace in the bottle. In a 2014 documentary, Bing's daughter Mary revealed,
03:48"...it got so that she didn't leave the house and she would pass out and the kids would come home.
03:53She'd be, you know, on the floor, and I think that's permanently scarring on just about
03:57every level for anybody."
04:00Sadly, Dixie Lee's alcohol abuse didn't have a lasting impact on just herself.
04:04Along with the psychological scars she most likely gave her children,
04:08it also had physical consequences for the couple's two twin sons,
04:12Dennis and Philip Crosby. The twin Crosby brothers were victims of fetal alcohol syndrome.
04:17Heartbreakingly, because the issue wasn't discussed at the time, neither Lee or Bing
04:22knew how to help their children. Eventually, all of Bing's sons from his marriage to Lee became
04:28alcoholics, and by the time Dennis was 56, he had died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot
04:34wound. At Dennis' memorial service, Gary Crosby said,
04:38"...when my mother died, I saw the light go out of his eyes. As far as I'm concerned,
04:43he's been trying to get back to her ever since."
04:46Although Bing Crosby had begun a family with Dixie Lee, he had done so just as he solidified
04:52his status as an A-lister, and as a result, the star was often away from home. It's something
04:57that the world-famous pruner admitted near the end of his life, as well. Speaking with Barbara
05:02Walters in 1977, Bing looked back on his time as a father.
05:06"...I was very busy then, making three or four pictures a year,
05:09had the radio and records, and they were in boarding schools most of their high school years."
05:16If that's not all, Bing also seems to have been obsessed with the idea that his children would
05:21grow up corrupted by greed, which is often the norm with celebrity kids. As his son Gary Crosby
05:27once revealed,
05:28"...he always said he didn't want any Hollywood kids in the house. He was frightened to death
05:33that we were going to become what his idea of rich kids were."
05:37But Bing's obsession only pushed the boys away. It was only during Bing's second marriage to
05:42his wife Catherine Grant that he finally kicked his paternal instincts up a notch.
05:46The singer's youngest son, Nathaniel Crosby, confirmed to The Express,
05:50"...as far as raising kids, he didn't have a clue. I can't say what happened with my
05:54father's first family. I believe he had more time to spend with us as his career was less
05:59of a priority later in life." Throughout his career, Bing Crosby presented an idyllic
06:04image of himself to the masses. As the singer's second wife Catherine once said,
06:09"...everyone in the world was in love with Bing Crosby."
06:13If you weren't obsessed with Bing at the time, you probably saw him as a bit of a square and
06:17an old-school crooner. Regardless of which side you were on, however, one thing was for certain.
06:22Bing Crosby was harmless. But that perception wouldn't last forever. After Bing's death in
06:271977, his public persona was dealt a massive blow after his eldest son, Gary Crosby,
06:33published a memoir in 1983 which detailed his father's abusive tendencies. Specifically,
06:40he claimed that Bing would mock Gary based on his appearance and beat him whenever he gained weight.
06:45While Bing's other children came in for their fair share of abuse, too, however,
06:49Dennis Crosby explained at the time that Gary frequently came in for the worst of it.
06:54Philip Crosby, meanwhile, downplayed his brother's claims.
06:57Nonetheless, Gary would stick to his narrative for years to come, even revealing in 1987,
07:03"...as far back as I can remember in my lifetime, the earliest childhood memory that I have,
07:08I don't remember a time when terror, bewilderment, and anxiety and despair
07:12weren't on my shoulders constantly." When Gary Crosby published his harrowing
07:17memoir in 1983, the A-list crooner wasn't alive to witness the devastating blow that followed.
07:23His son, Lindsay Crosby, sided with his brother, confirming the allegations of abuse.
07:29As People magazine revealed at the time, Lindsay's endorsement was surprising,
07:33since, by most accounts, he had been Bing's favorite child.
07:37When their father was still alive and the boys were already adults, it seems like Bing put time
07:41and energy into trying to make sure his sons didn't go astray. In fact, while Lindsay was
07:46struggling with alcohol and depression, Bing, concerned for his son's health, considered placing
07:51him in a psychiatric ward. Lindsay reportedly rejected Bing's pleas for help and sadly never
07:57recovered from his mental health issues. In December 1989, Lindsay died by suicide after
08:03learning the family inheritance he had was gone. The youngest of Bing and Dixie Lee's children had
08:09battled alcoholism and depression for years, along with the considerable strain of living
08:13in the shadow of his famous father. If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
08:19please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK, 1-800-273-8255.
08:28After years of loneliness coupled with decades of alcohol abuse, Bing Crosby's wife,
08:33Dixie Lee, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in June 1952, at only 40 years old.
08:40Even more tragic was Bing's absence when his wife passed that same year.
08:44Lee's doctors had decided not to let her know the cancer was terminal,
08:49and her husband subsequently jetted off to Paris for a scheduled movie shoot,
08:53so as not to raise suspicion anything was wrong. Because Bing Crosby was such a star,
08:58the singer didn't even have peace on the day of his wife's funeral. Gary Crosby later explained,
09:04It was a freaking circus. Through it all, it was like he was alone.
09:09In an ironic twist of fate, Dixie Lee's passing brought the family closer together,
09:13if only for a brief period of time. As for Bing himself, the crooner has been quoted as saying,
09:19I will never talk about my grief at losing her. I believe grief is the most private emotion a
09:24human being can have, and I'm going to keep mine that way. Based on Gary Crosby's scathing memoir,
09:31it seems that one thing is for certain about Bing Crosby.
09:35The iconic singer never found it easy to express his emotions.
09:39This fact is something Barbara Walters touched upon, too, during her 1977 interview with Bing,
09:45when she elaborated on the public's perception of the singer.
09:48This picture of a man who finds it very hard to give or receive emotion.
09:55Bing shrugged off these allegations at the time, calling himself a, quote,
09:59surface fella. Yet his second wife, Catherine, can't attest to her late husband's stoic nature.
10:05Speaking about his relationship with his son Harry, she explains,
10:09He started shaking hands with Harry when Harry was four. I said,
10:12What are you doing? You hug him.
10:14And it appears that this sense of stoicism stayed with Bing until the day he died,
10:19on a golf course in October 1977. Speaking to the Express, his youngest son,
10:25Nathaniel, recalled being with his father during his final moments.
10:28And even then, there was no final confession of love before his sudden death from a heart attack.
10:33Nathaniel revealed,
10:35His last words weren't particularly memorable. He said,
10:38That was a great game of golf, fellas. And then, let's go have a Coca-Cola.
10:42Throughout Bing's lengthy career, the legendary crooner put out an incredible 1,200 tunes.
10:49The star covered every class of song over the years, from hymns to light opera to R&B.
10:54Crosby's greatest hit, however, is almost certainly the holiday classic, White Christmas.
10:59Bing Crosby first recorded the track in May 1942,
11:03with the song's estimated sales hitting around 50 million copies worldwide. Afterwards,
11:08White Christmas found its way into the first-ever Guinness Book of World Records in 1955
11:13as the best-selling single of all time, and held that title for decades to come.
11:17Although Crosby's legacy remains, has this long and impressive career been
11:22overshadowed by one transcendent moment of beloved holiday cheer?
11:26Some seem to think so. As record producer Ken Barnes so succinctly puts it,
11:31History doesn't see Bing as a trailblazer. History sees him as the guy who comes out
11:35every year and sings White Christmas. Luckily, Bing himself never worried about the song.
11:40In 1977, Barbara Walters pressed to find out if Crosby was sick of his own Christmas classic.
11:46No, I could never be sick of it. I just fear that people will be sick of it.
11:50But if nothing else, it's clear that Bing Crosby would find solace in the fact that,
11:55all these years later, his legendary Christmas gift just keeps on giving.