Kathryn Crosby, an actress and singer who largely stepped away from her Hollywood career after marrying legendary crooner Bing Crosby—with the exception of appearances in the family's Christmas specials—has died. She was 90 and died Friday night at her home in Hillsborough, California, of natural causes, a family spokesperson said, per the Hollywood Reporter. Her husband "was a pretty cute kid when it came to convincing a girl that what she really wanted was to stay home and to scrub floors," she said shortly after he died in 1977. "He didn't know that he was a male chauvinist pig, but he was," she added before laughing.
As Kathryn Grant, the actress starred in more than 20 films including Operation Mad Ball, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Anatomy of a Murder, per Variety. She also made five movies for film noir director Phil Karlson, including, in the 1950s, Tight Spot, The Phenix City Story, and The Brothers Rico. Grant appeared in seven movies released in 1955, as well as an episode of TV's Father Knows Best while traveling home to Texas to complete a fine arts degree. She later graduated from nursing school, per the Reporter. She married Crosby in 1957 when she was 23 and he was 54. He had promised he'd support her continuing her career after they married but changed his mind, per the Washington Post. Crosby wanted his wife with him as he began semiretirement, managing his business interests from home.
She eventually agreed, saying she wanted him to have a life much different from the one he'd had with his first wife, actress Dixie Lee, whose alcoholism plagued their marriage until her death in 1952. He had four sons from that marriage and three children with Kathryn Crosby; their daughter, Mary Frances Crosby, made her mark in pop culture when her character shot J.R. Ewing on the TV series Dallas. Kathryn Crosby resumed acting after her husband's death and worked to preserve his legacy. "I'm glad I married an older man," she was quoted as saying in the 2003 book, Bing Crosby: Crooner of the Century. "When I married Bing, he was already formed, his character was set. In other words, I knew what I was getting." (More obituary stories.)
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