Holidays with Bing & Kathryn Produced by Dolores Hope

Kathryn Crosby, film, television and stage star recently brought her one-woman show to the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood.  Bing Crosby was remembered by Kathryn Crosby in Holidays with Bing & Kathryn, with Musical Director Edward Sayegh at the piano,  produced by her dear friend Dolores Hope. While Kathryn was in town rehearsing and performing for the show, she was a guest with Dolores Hope, wife of Bob Hope.  Crosby explained, “After Bing died Bob and Dolores just about adopted me.” They were the dearest of friends!  Mrs. Hope is still well and sharp at the age of ninety-eight.  In fact, Crosby said that she is so sharp “that she beat me for eleven dollars last night playing gin rummy!”

In addition to numerous hit songs and stories, the show included a multi-media presentation with film clips that followed the lives of Kathryn and Bing from their Las Vegas wedding as well as footage of Bing and Bob Hope on the golf course, and home movies of Bing welcoming his first daughter Mary.  Act Two contained a celebration of Holiday music, which of course included Bing's most famous hit "White Christmas." Kathryn performed this show last year at Feinstein's at the prestigious Regency Hotel in New York, at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills and across the country.

A pert, vivacious and absolutely stunning brunette, the former Kathryn Grant (born Olive Kathryn Grandstaff) is now known publicly as Kathryn Crosby. She was born in the 'Deep South' in 1933 and appeared on stage from age 3 in Toymaker’s Dream. A graduate of the University of Texas and a student nurse at one point, she found her way into films via the beauty pageant circuit. The fresh-faced hopeful soon rose up through the standard starlet ranks from unbilled parts to chipper sis types and decorative love interests alongside filmdom's top male stars.

Kathryn Crosby was married to Bing Crosby from 1957 until his death in 1977. Kathryn was unchallenged as an actress and she retired rather uneventfully after marrying Crosby. They were the parents of three children, sons Harry, Nathaniel and actress Mary Crosby of "Dallas" fame.  Seemingly content with family life, she, along with her children, dutifully appeared opposite her husband singing and lightly joking in his many popular Christmas-special presentations. The show was filmed at different times of the year and always had the true Christmas spirit.  Kathryn remembers one year they filmed in Sun Valley, Idaho in April and had “all the real snow we could stand!”  She described the Christmases that the family shared in their Hillsborough, CA home as large affairs with as many as sixty guests, all Crosby’s and Grandstaff’s (Mrs. Crosby’s maiden name).  She fondly recalled decorating their Christmas trees with homemade ornaments made from Styrofoam with family pictures glued to them.  And every year, Alan Fisher, longtime Crosby butler, would hoist Mary Frances by the ankles to the top of the tree to place the star.

After Bing's death, however, she slowly involved herself in acting again, appearing every now and then on stage in such productions as "Same Time, Next Year'" "Charley's Aunt" and, most recently, a revival of the musical "State Fair" in 1996. She’s written three books about her life with Bing.  The first, “Bing and Other Things” published in 1967.  Next was her book “My Life with Bing” in 1983 and finally “My Last Years with Bing” in 2002.

Kathryn annually hosts the Crosby Gold Tournament in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.