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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.

Kathryn and Bing Crosby. NBCUniversal via Getty Images

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.

Bing and Kathryn Crosby in 1957. Getty Images
Bing and Kathryn Crosby at a golf tournament in England in 1975. Getty Images

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.”

Bing and Kathryn Crosby at the Academy Awards ceremony on March 30, 1955. Michael Ochs Archives
Bing and Kathryn Crosby at San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital. Bettmann Archive

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.”

Bing and Kathryn Crosby with their three children. Getty Images

Kathryn and Bing had three children together, Harry, 66, Mary, 65, and Nathaniel, 62.

While married to Bing, Kathryn guest starred on “The Bing Crosby Show” in the 1960s.

The Bing family in Bing Crosby’s Sun Valley Christmas Show in 1973. NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Bing and Kathryn Crosby with their son Harry in London in August 1961. Bettmann Archive

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.”

Kathryn Crosby and her kids at the 2014 Summer TCA Tour. Getty Images

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.

This post was originally posted by NYPost

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Written by Eric Todisco

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