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Cathy Crosby Profile
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| (Cathleen Denyse Crosby) |
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| 24 November 39 | is born to orchestra leader Bob Crosby, brother of Bing Crosby, and his wife June, a singer, the first-born of four |
| ? | attends private schools in Southern California |
| ? | makes her debut on Bing's radio show at age 10 |
| June 52 | is quoted: "My name is Cathy Crosby. Of that I am glad. Maybe my mother married the wrong Crosby, but she sure married the right Dad!" |
| December 54 | her father says about her singing debut, "It's not bad enough that I've been known as Bing's brother and Gary's uncle. Now I be known as Cathy Crosby's father." |
| February 55 | arrives in Lausanne, Switzerland, to enter the Monfertile School for Girls, which her mother attended. She reports she feels like a celebrity because reporters called for interviews. |
| June 55 | is reported nixing her first marriage proposal in Paris. "She stopped off in the French fun zone on her way home from Switzerland." |
| July 55 | is on the cover of Life |
| August 55 | her favorite fella is young actor Claude Jarman |
| 30 September 55 | is named a "Deb Star of 1955" before a crowd of 2,000 at a ball sponsored by makeup artists and hair stylists. The other winners introduced by Maureen O'Hara are Jody Lawrence, Anita Ekberg, Lilian Montevecchi, Kipp Hamilton, Mara Corday, Lori Nelson, Tracey Morgan, Marisa Pavan, and Gloria Thomas. |
| October 55 | studies ballet with Nico Charisse |
| February 56 | joins her father at his Sahara Hotel opening in Las Vegas at age 16 |
| June 56 | returns from Hawaii and admits fondness for former Oregon State College football star Ray Westphal. "It's not an engagement or anything like that. After all, I'm only 17 and he has to go into the Marine Corps. But I do like him. I don't want to say much about for fear of spoiling something. I'll just wait and see what happens." She sings three days a week on her father's daytime TV show on CBS. |
| October 56 | is seen at the Plymouth House with Dino Castelli of Rome |
| ? | starts a romance with handsome Dino Castelli, maitre at Frascati's restaurant in Los Angeles. They met in the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. He's 32; she's 17. |
| March 57 | is reported having a "king-size crush on Robert Wagner - as what teenager hasn't..." |
| June 57 | leaves home and gets her own apartment |
| August 57 | columnist Walter Winchell asks: "Did Cathy Crosby defy her parents and marry the 40-year-old maitre'd?..." |
| 22 December 57 | wins court approval of a contract launching her on an independent career as a singer. Superior Judge Edward R. Brand grants approval of the contract with Music Corporation of America. |
| February 58 | her big success in Las Vegas is reported dampened by the absence of her parents on her opening night. "The pretty young singer had broken off her engagement to an older man hoping to effect a reconciliation with her family, but apparently they still haven't forgiven her for seeing him against their wishes." |
| columnist Harrison Carroll reports that the restaurant maitre who has been the number one man in her life has some competition: "Since Cathy went to Las Vegas to sing in Jayne Mansfield's show, Lance Reventlow, Barbara Hutton's son, flew up in his private plane to date her. They met at a recent Hollywood party." |
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| Castelli tells friends the romance is over. "Her family was bitterly opposed to their marrying because he's twice her age." |
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| ? | earns $1,500 a week as a singer at the Hotel Tropicana in Las Vegas |
| March 58 | her Las Vegas chaperone, hired by her father, is reported quitting: "I just couldn't take that girl's temper any longer." |
| April 58 | says "You know, I now have an aunt named Kathy Crosby, who isn't much older than I. Fortunately, she spells her name with a âKâ and mine is a âC,â but I have had a number of people wish me well on my marriage to Bing." |
| May 58 | the press reports the Crosby feud still on: "Cathy and her bandleader dad have been on the outs since last June when the 18-year-old beauty packed her bags, flew the coop. Their differences stemmed from a romantic fling which paps Bob did not approve. Since then Cathy and her boyfriend have parted, but the rift with her father continues." |
| July 58 | refuses to make her movie debut in Mardi Gras when the role calls for her to do a striptease |
| is pictured arriving in New York via American Airlines from the West Coast to make a TV appearance |
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| Tommy Sands asks her to lunch, but she begs off when she learns that cousin Gary would join them |
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| August 58 | columnist Mike Connolly reports: "Lance Reventlow hosted a birthday party for his girlfriend, Fox starlet Jill St. John, and the young multi-millionaire son of Barbara Hutton wasn't kidding when he escorted Cathy Crosby, one of the young guests, out to his private parking lot after the party and asked solicitously, 'Cathy, are you going home in the same Jaguar you arrived in?..." |
| she and Bob Evans are noted "fiddling around at Chez Vito" |
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| September 58 | is reported getting the big rush from Michael Dante, "an actor once romantically linked with Lana Turner..." |
| columnist Lee Mortimer confesses: "If I never get another Crosby item I'll be happy. The same goes for Bob Evans items and now that Cathy Crosby and Bob have found each other (thanks to the press agents) I can drop both in the same well..." |
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| November 58 | tells the press about her relatives: "I never met my aunt Kathy. Maybe I never will. And I haven't seen Uncle Bing for four years. Gary and the twins are busy with their own lives, so we never bump into one another." |
| columnist Earl Wilson reports that her romance with "a rich Chicagoan (and its climax) barely missed making headlines..." |
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| March 59 | she and Cindy Robbins are the only dolls dated by Edd Byrnes |
| April 59 | her newest is Dave Kinder |
| May 59 | is reported happy because Michael Dante is back from a visit to his home town, Stamford, Connecticut |
| columnist Harrison Carroll reports all strained relations between her and her family ironed out. "Cathy and her mother have been seeing each other for some time, but she and her father, Bob Crosby, have remained at odds. The rift was mended when Cathy was invited to the family home for dinner and later to attend the preview of Bob's picture. 'I'm so happy,' Cathy tells me. 'I've grown up a little. This was one of the first things that needed taking care of. I asked mother how to go about it. She called back with a message from dad just to come over to the house for dinner and go to the preview with the family.'" |
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| Mid-May 59 | Carroll tells that Michael Dante cooked a spaghetti feed at his apartment for her and a group of friends. "It was Michael who dated Cathy at the reconciliation dinner with her family." |
| 16 June 59 | shortly after midnight, she is injured in a head-on auto collision at Sunset Boulevard, West Los Angeles. She is treated at UCLA Medical Center for a scratched knee. "She wasn't seriously hurt," her father says. "At least they said that so far it just looks like bruises." The driver of the other car, 51-year-old Joanna Eckstein, socially prominent in Seattle, Washington, suffers a possible broken wrist and cuts on the right leg. |
| July 59 | she and Mike Garth are a new twosome |
| Early October 59 | columnist Walter Winchell knows: "The tell-it all trend now brings Cathy Crosby's intimate candor in Redbook. It verges on self-malice..." |
| 17 October 59 | is under treatment at a Los Angeles hospital for a nervous breakdown. Her mother calls reporters to the office of her lawyer to squash what she says are "a deluge of unfounded rumors." She announces Cathy definitely will resume her entertainment career. One of the most persistent rumors was one that she had slashed her wrists over a unhappy love affair with an older man. |
| End October 59 | MGM starlet Maggie Pierce is reported taking over her apartment lease. "This means Cathy will be going home to her parents, Bob and June, following her hospitalization for a mental breakdown. The beautiful 20-year-old never should have been allowed to leave home in the first place, at the age of 17. Parental disapproval of her romance with Dino Castelli, a man old enough to be her father, was what feed it all off, of course, but there must have been another way of making Cathy see the error of her ways." |
| 10 November 59 | her parents, Bob and June, hit the title pages with their separation after a bedroom battle, which leaves him stabbed twice and her with a broken rib. 39-year-old June Crosby tells the press: "Bob came home in a violent mood. He had been drinking and wanted to fight with somebody. I guess it made him madder when I refused to get out of bed or react to his anger. Bob said I needed a beating up, which he gave me. Then I picked up the letter opener and the tussle went on. I jabbed him in the shoulder. I thought it would scare him and make him run away. But it didn't." She declares their marriage is over and that there will be no attempt at reconciliation. They have four children: Cathy, 20; Christopher, 17; George Robert, Jr., 15; and Joni-Malia, 8. |
| Mid-January 60 | the press reports her "happy to be on her own" |
| March 60 | reports talking to her on the set of College Confidential. "She looks wonderful and certainly appears to have recovered completely from her threatened nervous breakdown. One of the boys she has been dating, Cathy tells me, is Jim Herman, son of Polly Ann Young and Carter Herman and, of course, a nephew of Loretta Young." |
| August 60 | is seen at the Casa Madrid with actor Les Johnson |
| columnist Walter Winchell asks: "Did I say something about Cathy Crosby and actor Les Johnson?..." |
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| November 60 | and Jody McCrae have discovered each other again. "They were at the Casa Madrid. Cathy has moved into a new apartment with her friend, Edith Jamisson..." |
| December 60 | young Jody McCrae is reported asking her to join him for a week of skin diving as soon as he finishes All Hands on Deck, which won't be for two months |
| August 61 | columnist Harrison Carroll tells of rumors that she will wed Tony Ruffo, "Joan Tyler's soon-to-be ex, but Cathy assures me they haven't any plans..." |
| Mid-September 61 | her family announces in Hollywood that she will marry Texas oilman Eddie Gilbert in Houston in about two weeks. "I'm hoping Mom and Dad can fly down for the ceremony," she says. Her parents are in the process of moving to Honolulu and already have sold their Beverly Hills home. |
| 25 September 61 | marries wealthy oilman Edwin F. Gilbert in the chapel of the St. John the Divine Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas. Family and close friends attend the simple ceremony performed by Reverend Thomas W. Summers. Bob Crosby gives the bride away. She wears a white chiffon dress and a silver lace jacket. There is a big reception at the plush Houston Club downtown. She says from here on her only career is that of a housewife. She and Gilbert began dating four months ago. They plan to live in Houston following a "two to three weeks" honeymoon to New Orleans, Miami and Puerto Rico. He's 32; she's 22. This is the first marriage for both. |
| October 61 | her ex-roomie, actress Sharon Wiley, is reported steady-dating Cathy's brother Chris |
| February 62 | expects her first child in July |
| 12 July 62 | her daughter Lisa Malia is born in Houston, Texas |
| 28 November 63 | her daughter Amber Denyse is born in Houston, Texas |
| 9 September 70 | is among the celebrity models at the Salute to the Seventies candidate reception of the Los Angeles County Federation of Republican Women held in the ballroom of the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles |
| May 75 | models Occidental fashion with Chinese influence at Screen Smart Set's luncheon benefiting Motion Picture and Television Fund held at the Century Plaza Hotel |
| October 75 | is among the guests at Jim and Henny Backus' welcome back to Hollywood party for David and Jane Wayne at Ah Fong's restaurant in Beverly Hills. She's reported the new flame of Henry Berger, "the bon vivant." |
| 14 November 82 | marries Leo D. Hanson in Los Angeles. He's 54; she's 43. |
| 22 | lives in Parker, Colorado |
| May 23 | is featured in Classic Images |
| Sources: The Coshocton Tribune, Long Beach Press-Telegram, The Daily Review, The Delta Democrat-Times, The Dixon Evening Telegraph, Albuquerque Journal, Atchison Daily Globe, Mansfield News-Journal, The News, The Lima News, The Holland Evening Sentinel, Kingsport News, Parade, Nevada State Journal, Independent Star News, The Newark Advocate, The Vidette-Messenger, Oakland Tribune, Humboldt Standard, The Albuquerque Tribune, The Independent, The Times Recorder, The Daily Courier, The Daily Gleaner, The Herald-Press, Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star, The Lethbridge Herald, Pasadena Independent, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, Nevada State Journal, Progress-Bulletin, Long Beach Independent, www.Ancestry.com | |
| Recommended Books: Pat: A Biography of Hollywood's Blonde Starlet by Samuel Clemens Musicmakers of Network Radio: 24 Entertainers, 1926-1962 by Jim Cox | |
| Links: Filmography | |