Kathryn Crosby, who starred in such movies as Operation Mad Ball, The seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Anatomy of a Homicide earlier than she curtailed her appearing profession because the spouse of Hollywood legend Bing Crosby, has died. She was 90.
Crosby died Friday night time surrounded by her household at her house in Hillsborough, California, a household spokesperson stated.
Billed beneath her stage title, Kathryn Grant, the Houston native made 5 options for famed movie noir director Phil Karlson, together with Tight Spot (1955), The Phenix Metropolis Story (1955) and The Brothers Rico (1957).
She additionally performed the youthful sister of Martha Hyer’s character in one other movie noir, the Blake Edwards-directed Mister Cory (1957), starring Tony Curtis, and portrayed a budding trapeze artist in The Massive Circus (1959), starring Victor Mature.
Quickly after wrapping manufacturing in Spain together with her flip because the damsel in misery Princess Parisa within the Ray Harryhausen fantasy The seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), she grew to become Bing’s second spouse once they wed in a Las Vegas church on Oct. 24, 1957. She was 23, he was 54.
“I’m glad I married an older man,” she stated in Richard Grudens’ 2003 ebook, Bing Crosby: Crooner of the Century. “After I married Bing, he was already fashioned, his character was set. In different phrases, I knew what I used to be getting. With a youthful man, you possibly can’t inform how he’ll develop with the years.”
Kathryn just about put appearing on the again burner as she had three youngsters with the famed singer and Oscar-winning actor: Harry (born in 1958), Mary (born in 1959) and Nathaniel (born in 1961). All survive her.
Nonetheless, she appeared typically together with her husband and the children on Christmas specials, on the ABC selection present The Hollywood Palace and in Minute Maid orange juice commercials, the image of the all-American household. (Bing was a longtime Minute Maid pitchman and stockholder.)
After his loss of life at age 74 on Oct. 14, 1977, from a coronary heart assault after a spherical of golf in Spain, Kathryn appeared onstage in such productions as Similar Time, Subsequent Yr and Charley’s Aunt and labored alongside John Davidson and Andrea McArdle within the 1996 Broadway revival of State Truthful.
She was born Olive Kathryn Grandstaff in Houston on Nov. 25, 1933, and raised in West Columbia, Texas.
Quickly after ending runner-up in a Miss Texas magnificence pageant, Kathryn left the College of Texas in 1952 to return to Hollywood with the assistance of Roy Rogers’ agent, Artwork Rush. Paramount rapidly signed her to a contract after she screen-tested with William Holden.
She was writing a weekly column known as Texas Lady for newspapers again house and dealing in a short lived job within the Paramount wardrobe division when she first met Bing in 1953 as he was ending up work on Little Boy Misplaced.
They ran into one another once more just a few months later as she was escorting guests to the set of White Christmas, and she or he interviewed him for her column.
(Bing had been married to actress-dancer Dixie Lee from 1930 till her loss of life from ovarian most cancers at age 42 in 1952. He and Dixie had 4 sons: Gary, Dennis, Phillip and Lindsay.)
Bing and Kathryn had set a number of marriage ceremony dates over a three-year interval earlier than they might really alternate vows, however he saved suspending as he was romantically concerned with two of his co-stars, Grace Kelly and Inger Stevens.
The Crosby household within the early Seventies, clockwise from prime left: Kathryn, Bing, Harry, Mary and Nathaniel.
Courtesy of Everett
Kathryn had begun her appearing profession with uncredited roles in such movies as So This Is Love (1953), Casanova’s Massive Evening (1954) and Rear Window (1954) earlier than Paramount launched her from her contract in 1954.
Undaunted, she appeared in seven motion pictures launched in 1955 and on an episode of NBC’s Father Is aware of Finest whereas going again to Texas that yr to finish her positive arts diploma. (In 1963, she graduated from nursing college.)
She performed a nurse and Jack Lemmon’s love curiosity in Richard Quine’s Operation Mad Ball (1957), the spouse of James Darren‘s mobster in The Brothers Rico and the daughter of the slain innkeeper in Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Homicide (1959), starring James Stewart.
In one in all her uncommon onscreen appearing gigs whereas she was married to Bing, she guest-starred on a 1966 episode of ABC’s — and Bing Crosby Productions’ — Ben Casey. Within the ’70s, she stayed near their house outdoors San Francisco by internet hosting a morning discuss present on KPIX-TV and moonlighting with the American Conservatory Theater.
Bing “was a reasonably cute child when it got here to convincing a lady that what she actually needed was to remain house and to wash flooring,” Kathryn stated in an interview quickly after his loss of life. “He didn’t know that he was a male chauvinist pig, however he was!” she added with fun.
She wrote three units of memoirs about her life with him: 1967’s Bing and Different Issues, 1983’s My Life With Bing and 2002’s My Final Years With Bing.
In 2000, she married longtime companion Maurice William Sullivan, an educator whom she and Bing had employed to tutor their youngsters. He later grew to become trustee of the Crosby property.
In November 2010, Sullivan, 85, was killed and Kathryn was severely injured in a automotive accident within the Sierra Nevada. He was on the wheel when their car went off the street, rolled over and struck a boulder.
As for her youngsters, Harry grew to become an funding banker; Mary is an actress identified for her flip as J.R. Ewing shooter Kristin Shepard on Dallas; and Nathaniel was a superb newbie golfer. She is also survived by a number of grandchildren.