Father, with singer Dixie Lee, of sons Gary Crosby, Phillip Crosby & Dennis Crosby (twins) and Lindsay Crosby. All 4 deceased. Both Dennis and Lindsay died due to suicide.
Four songs Crosby sang in movies - "Sweet Leilani" (1937), "White Christmas" (1942), "Swinging on a Star" (1944), and "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (1951) - won Oscars.
From the 1940s to the 1960s he owned 15% of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. His cameo in Angels in the Outfield (1951) was as part-owner of the team.
Grandfather of Denise Crosby
Grandfather of L. Chip Crosby Jr.
Has a street named after him in Iowa City, Iowa.
He and his second wife and younger children did TV commercials for Minute Maid orange juice, because he owned considerable stock in the company.
He appeared on approximately 4,000 radio broadcasts, nearly 3,400 of them his own programs, and single-handedly changed radio from a live-performance to a canned or recorded medium by presenting, in 1946, the first transcribed network show on ABC, thereby making that also-ran network a major force.
He is estimated to have sold between 600 million and 900 million records worldwide. Most of these sales were singles.
He is only one of five actors to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films. He played Father O'Malley in Going My Way (1944) (for which he won the Oscar) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945). The others are Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986), Peter O'Toole as Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), Al Pacino as Michael Corleone for The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974) and Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007).
He is the most electronically recorded voice in history.
He received 23 gold records and was awarded platinum discs for his two biggest selling singles, "White Christmas" in 1960 and "Silent Night" in 1970.
He sang on 4,000 radio shows from 1931 to 1962 and was the top-rated radio star for eighteen of those years.
He was awarded 3 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 1611 Vine Street, for Radio at 6769 Hollywood Boulevard, and for Recording at 6751 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
He was the 20th century's first multi-media entertainer: a star on radio, in movies and in chart-topping recordings. He had 38 No. 1 singles, which surpassed even Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
His eldest son Gary Crosby was vocal in criticizing Bing's violent ways as a father. He wrote a sensationalist tell-all biography titled "Going My Own Way" in 1983 which was touted as a "Daddy Dearest" about Bing. Though Lindsay Crosby and Dennis Crosby fluctuated between agreeing and disagreeing with Gary's criticisms of their father, Phillip Crosby defended Bing after the book was published. Two of the sons suffered bouts of depression, much as their mother Dixie Lee had, throughout their lives and committed suicide(Lindsay and Dennis, in 1989 and 1991, respectively). Gary died of lung cancer in 1995. Phillip died of a heart attack in 2004, having defended his father to the end. Bing's children from his second marriage, including daughter and actress Mary Crosby, praised him as a kind and loving father in later life.
His estate was valued at $150 million, making him one of the wealthiest entertainers in Hollywood, along with his friends Bob Hope and Fred MacMurray.
His father was of Irish Descent and his mother was Irish-American.
His favorite performer was Al Jolson.
His large ears were pinned back during his early films, until partway through She Loves Me Not (1934).