Kathryn Crosby, actress and widow of Bing Crosby, dead at 90
Kathryn Crosby, the actress who was married to Bing Crosby, has died. She was 90.
A Crosby family representative confirmed to EW she passed away Friday night at her home in Hillsborough, Calif. while surrounded by family.
The late star was born Olive Kathryn Grandstaff in West Columbia, Texas, in Nov. 1933.
Her earliest acting roles included the 1950s movies “Operation Mad Ball,” The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,” “Anatomy of a Murder” and “The Big Circus.”
She typically went by the stage names Kathryn Grant and Kathryn Grandstaff.
Come the 1960s, Kathryn largely retired from acting. She became a registered nurse in 1963 after studying at Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles.
Kathryn was 23 when she married then Bing, then 54, in a Las Vegas church in October 1957.
“We kept meeting each other, and then we’d plan to get married, and he would have a kidney stone or something dreadful like that,” Kathryn told Smashing Interviews magazine in 2014. “We kept waiting, and I kept working. Later on, we finally managed to get married, which was a secret.”
Kathryn also addressed being asked about the couple’s 30-year age difference, saying, “When asked about I suppose that happened, but I didn’t hear it. By the time we had courted, I knew I liked him very much, and he liked me very much.”
She added, “By the time we married, I realized I could survive without him, and he realized he didn’t want to survive without me. I liked that. That’s a good attitude to enter a marriage with.”
Kathryn and Bing had three children together, Harry, 66, Mary, 65, and Nathaniel, 62. Bing had four kids with his first wife, Dixie Lee, who died in 1952.
While married to Bing, Kathryn guest starred on “The Bing Crosby Show” in the 1960s.
She also hosted her own local daytime show, “The Kathryn Crosby Show,” in the 1970s.
After Bing’s death in 1977 at age 74, Kathryn returned to performing and notably was the lead role in the 1966 Broadway musical revival of “State Fair.”
She also hosted the charitable Crosby National Golf Tournament in North Carolina for 16 years until 2001.
Kathryn married her second husband, Maurice William Sullivan, in 2000.
Ten years later, Sullivan died in a car accident in the Sierra Nevada. He was 85.
Kathryn is survived by her three children and several grandchildren.
