Yes, I know it’s not Christmas.
American signer and actor Bing Crosby was born on this day in 1903. The biggest song in his career was his recording of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.
During World War II Crosby made numerous live appearances before American troops in Europe. He also learned to pronounce German from written scripts and would read propaganda broadcasts intended for the German Forces. In a poll of U.S. Troops at the end of the war, Crosby was at the top of the list, ahead of FDR, Dwight Eisenhower and Bob Hope.
Wikipedia reports that with 1,077,900,000 movie tickets sold, Crosby is, by that measure, the third most popular actor of all time behind Clark Gable and John Wayne.
After recovering from a life threatening infection in 1974, Crosby came out of semi-retirement to record more albums and appear in more concers. Following a taping of a 50th anniversary special with Bob Hope he backed into an orchestra pit and ruptured a disc. In his first performance following that on August 16, 1977 the power went out but he kept on singing. In September of that year, he began a concert tour in England with Rosemary Clooney. While in England he recorded his last album, and his final TV Christmas special with guest David Bowie. That speical aired several months after Crosby’s death. His last concert was at the Brighton Centre just four days before his death. Following his work in England, Crosy flew to Spain to hunt and play golf. He died of a massive heart attack on October 14, 1977. He was 74.
365 Things I Believe is a revisioning of a year long web project. I initially launched the blog 365 Things I Believe because I think there are important things I have to say. There are eternal truths that are non-debatable, although I realize they’re not universally accepted.
So for a year I did a daily post of one thing I believe to be an indisputable truth. I’m relaunching here at The Write Side of My Brain and will continue through the next year to re-post (mostly) from the original project.
This time graphics and commentary are included. You can buy today’s print here.