1903-1977
Born Harry Crosby Jr. in Tacoma, Washington; he was three when his parents moved the family to Spokane, where he grew up. He acquired his nickname of Bing at the age of seven, when an older neighborhood boy started calling him "Bingo from Bingville" after a local popular satirical columnist's serials in a newspaper. This morphed into Bing and stuck. In 1917 he took a job at the local auditorium and was enthralled by the acts he was able to see there free of charge--amongst them Al Jolson. He was bitten by the professional music bug and had gained a love of the stage. He graduated from high school in 1920. Obviously he is such a towering figure in the 20th century American consciousness, there is no point to go into his full history. He is commemorated here only because he, by 1928, had managed to help pen a tune that made it into a very, very early musical (a small part actually silent in nature), The Singing Fool in 1928, ironically starring Al Jolson. The rest is history, of course. Crosby died on October 14, 1977 just outside Madrid in Spain after an enjoyable game of golf. He had been battling illnesses and injury since around 1974. For more see his Wikipedia entry below. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, CA. next to his first wife Dixie; his grave marker mistakes the correct year of his birth.
IMDb (note that Internet Movie Database also gets his birthday wrong by the day)
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