title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell died of influenza, just after 8 pm on 2 February 1970 at his home in Penrhyndeudraeth. His body was cremated in Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970 with five people present. In accordance with his will, there was no religious ceremony but one minute's silence; his ashes were scattered over the Welsh mountains later that year. Although he was born in Monmouthshire, which was not legally re-included into Wales until 1972, and died in Penrhyndeudraeth in Wales, Russell identified as English. Later that year, on 23 October, he left an estate valued at £69,423 (equivalent to £ million in ). In 1980, a memorial to Russell was commissioned by a committee including the philosopher A. J. Ayer. It consists of a bust of Russell in Red Lion Square in London sculpted by Marcelle Quinton.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Lady Katharine Jane Tait, Russell's daughter, founded the Bertrand Russell Society in 1974 to preserve and understand his work. It publishes the "Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin", holds meetings and awards prizes for scholarship, including the Bertrand Russell Society Award. She also authored several essays about her father; as well as a book, "My Father, Bertrand Russell", which was published in 1975. All members receive "Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies".


title: Bertrand Russell

text: For the sesquicentennial of his birth, in May 2022, McMaster University's Bertrand Russell Archive, the university’s largest and most heavily used research collection, organized both a physical and virtual exhibition on Russell’s anti-nuclear stance in the post-war era, "Scientists" "for Peace: the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and the Pugwash Conference", which included the earliest version of the Russell–Einstein Manifesto. The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation held a commemoration at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, London, on 18 May, the anniversary of his birth. For its part, on the same day, "La Estrella de Panamá" published a biographical sketch by Francisco Díaz Montilla, who commented that "[if he] had to characterize Russell's work in one sentence [he] would say: criticism and rejection of dogmatism."


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Bangladesh's first leader, Mujibur Rahman, named his youngest son Sheikh Russel in honour of Bertrand Russell.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell first married Alys Whitall Smith (died 1951) in 1894. The marriage was dissolved in 1921 with no issue. His second marriage was to Dora Winifred Black MBE (died 1986), daughter of Sir Frederick Black, in 1921. This was dissolved in 1935, having produced two children:


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell's third marriage was to Patricia Helen Spence (died 2004) in 1936, with the marriage producing one child:


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell's third marriage ended in divorce in 1952. He married Edith Finch in the same year. Finch survived Russell, dying in 1978.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell is generally credited with being one of the founders of analytic philosophy. He was deeply impressed by Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), and wrote on every major area of philosophy except aesthetics. He was particularly prolific in the fields of metaphysics, logic and the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, ethics and epistemology. When Brand Blanshard asked Russell why he did not write on aesthetics, Russell replied that he did not know anything about it, though he hastened to add "but that is not a very good excuse, for my friends tell me it has not deterred me from writing on other subjects".


title: Bertrand Russell

text: On ethics, Russell wrote that he was a utilitarian in his youth, yet he later distanced himself from this view.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: For the advancement of science and protection of liberty of expression, Russell advocated The Will to Doubt, the recognition that all human knowledge is at most a best guess, that one should always remember:


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell described himself in 1947 as an agnostic or an atheist: he found it difficult to determine which term to adopt, saying: For most of his adult life, Russell maintained religion to be little more than superstition and, despite any positive effects, largely harmful to people. He believed that religion and the religious outlook serve to impede knowledge and foster fear and dependency, and to be responsible for much of our world's wars, oppression, and misery. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association and President of Cardiff Humanists until his death.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for most of his life. Russell remained politically active almost to the end of his life, writing to and exhorting world leaders and lending his name to various causes.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell argued for a "scientific society", where war would be abolished, population growth would be limited, and prosperity would be shared. He suggested the establishment of a "single supreme world government" able to enforce peace, claiming that "the only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation". Russell also expressed support for guild socialism, and commented positively on several socialist thinkers and activists.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell was an active supporter of the Homosexual Law Reform Society, being one of the signatories of A. E. Dyson's 1958 letter to "The Times" calling for a change in the law regarding male homosexual practices, which were partly legalised in 1967, when Russell was still alive.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: In "Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday" ("Postscript" in his "Autobiography"), Russell wrote: "I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken".


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell was a champion of freedom of opinion and an opponent of both censorship and indoctrination. In 1928, he wrote: "The fundamental argument for freedom of opinion is the doubtfulness of all our belief... when the State intervenes to ensure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favour of that doctrine ... It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to make a living". In 1957, he wrote: "'Free thought' means thinking freely ... to be worthy of the name freethinker he must be free of two things: the force of tradition and the tyranny of his own passions."


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell has presented ideas on the possible means of control of education in case of scientific dictatorship governments, of the kind of this excerpt taken from chapter II "General Effects of Scientific Technique" of "The Impact of Science on society".


title: Bertrand Russell

text: He pushed his visionary scenarios even further into details, in the chapter III "Scientific Technique in an Oligarchy" of the same book, stating as an example


title: Bertrand Russell

text: Russell was the author of more than sixty books and over two thousand articles. Additionally, he wrote many pamphlets, introductions, and letters to the editor. One pamphlet titled, "I Appeal unto Caesar': The Case of the Conscientious Objectors", ghostwritten for Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Hobhouse, allegedly helped secure the release from prison of hundreds of conscientious objectors.


title: Bertrand Russell

text: His works can be found in anthologies and collections, including "The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell", which McMaster University began publishing in 1983. By March 2017 this collection of his shorter and previously unpublished works included 18 volumes, and several more are in progress. A bibliography in three additional volumes catalogues his publications. The Russell Archives held by McMaster's William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections possess over 40,000 of his letters.


title: A Serbian Film

text: A Serbian Film () is a 2010 Serbian horror-thriller film produced and directed by Srđan Spasojević in his feature film debut. Spasojević also co-wrote the film with Aleksandar Radivojević. It tells the experience of a financially struggling pornstar who agrees to participate in an "art film", only to discover that he has been drafted into a snuff film with pedophilic and necrophilic themes. The film stars Serbian actors Srđan Todorović, Sergej Trifunović, and Jelena Gavrilović.


title: A Serbian Film

text: Upon its debut on the art film circuit, "A Serbian Film" received substantial attention and controversy for its graphic violence and sexual content. The film has been banned in several countries including the Philippines, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Norway, and was temporarily banned from screening in Brazil. It is widely regarded by many as the most disturbing movie of all time.


title: A Serbian Film

text: Miloš is a semi-retired pornstar who lives in Belgrade with his wife, Marija, and their six-year-old son, Petar. His brother Marko is a corrupt police officer who envies Miloš's life and is sexually attracted to Marija. Marija is curious about her husband's feelings towards his past and is concerned about the family's income. Lejla, a former co-star, offers Miloš a starring role in an art film directed by Vukmir, an independent pornographer who wishes to cast Miloš for his powerful erection. Having already caught Petar watching one of his films and not informed of the details of Vukmir's film, Miloš is hesitant to participate and continue his career but accepts to secure his family's financial future. While meeting Vukmir, Miloš passes a bald man and his entourage, regarding them warily.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The filming begins at an orphanage, where Vukmir feeds Miloš instructions through an earpiece given by Vukmir's one-eyed driver Raša, while a film crew follows him. Miloš sees a young girl named Jeca, who is being scolded by her mother for disgracing her deceased war hero husband's memory by becoming a prostitute. In a dark room, screens show Jeca eating an ice pop while Miloš is given fellatio by a nurse. Then, Miloš is instructed to receive it from the mother, while Jeca watches. Miloš refuses but is forced to continue. Marko later informs him that Vukmir is a former psychologist who has worked in children's television and state security. Vukmir meets a hesitant Miloš afterward to explain his artistic style, showing a film of a woman giving birth to a newborn which is immediately raped by Raša, in what the director terms "newborn porn." Miloš storms out and drives away. At a road junction, he is approached and seduced by Vukmir's female doctor.


title: A Serbian Film

text: A bloodied Miloš wakes up in his bed sometime later with no memory of what has happened. He returns to the now abandoned set and finds several tapes. Viewing them, Miloš discovers that he was drugged to induce an aggressive, sexually aroused, and suggestible state. At Vukmir's manipulative direction, Miloš beats and rapes Jeca's mother before decapitating her, and later, a catatonic Miloš is sodomized by Vukmir's security. He then watches footage of Lejla voicing concern for Miloš, only to be restrained as her teeth are removed. A masked man then enters the room and forces his penis down her throat to kill her by suffocation. The footage continues as Miloš is led to Jeca's home where an elderly woman praises him for killing her mother and offers Jeca as a "virgin commune." Miloš refuses and escapes through a window to an alleyway, where he watches a girl pass by. He begins masturbating and is attacked by a group of thugs before they are killed by Raša, who then takes Miloš back to a warehouse with Vukmir.


title: A Serbian Film

text: At the warehouse, Vukmir's doctor administers more drugs after which Miloš overpowers her, sticking the syringe into her throat. He is then taken into a room to have intercourse with two hidden bodies under a sheet. Miloš is guided onto one body and the masked man from Lejla's movie enters and begins sexually assaulting the other. Miloš doesn't notice that his victim is bleeding profusely from the rectum. Vukmir then reveals the masked man to be Marko, his brother. Marko's victim is revealed to be Marija, while Miloš's is revealed to be Petar, his son. Vukmir's doctor then staggers into the warehouse, clothes disheveled with her vaginal area covered in blood. She is holding a bloodied metal pipe in her hand, implying that she masturbated herself to death after being shot up with the same drug she used on Miloš to make him sexually aroused and aggressive. She falls and dies from massive vaginal hemorrhaging. With everyone's attention diverted, an enraged Miloš lunges at Vukmir and smashes his head against the floor, initiating a brawl during which Marija bites Marko in the jugular before bludgeoning him to death with a sculpture. Miloš wrestles a gun from a guard and shoots all but Raša, whom he kills by shoving his erect penis into his empty eye socket. A dying Vukmir praises Miloš's actions as truly worthy of a film.


title: A Serbian Film

text: Miloš, having recalled his actions, including locking his wife and son in their basement before passing out earlier, returns home to find them. He and his wife come to a mutual understanding that he, his wife, and their son should die together, so the three gather in bed and embrace before Miloš fires a fatal shot through himself, Petar, and Marija. Sometime later a new film crew, including the bald man from earlier, enters the bedroom. He unzips his fly, as the director advises him to "start with the little one."


title: A Serbian Film

text: Speaking more than a decade after the film's release, its writer Radivojević discussed the specifics of the material for what would eventually become "A Serbian Film" being gathered over a period of ten years, starting in the late 1990s from a film school screenplay idea of his that the Belgrade University of Arts' Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) dramaturgy student initially developed only as far as a synopsis titled "Orgazmatron". Radivojević further revealed that, when it comes to the general framing of the original screenplay idea, he drew inspiration from the porn star and filmmaker Rocco Siffredi’s 1990s cinematic exploits: “Siffredi had been cranking out VHS tapes depicting himself engaged in brutal sexual acts on location with local girls in different parts of Europe (mostly in marginalized and poor post-communist Eastern European countries), all of which had an uncomfortable undertone of colonialism. One particular scene that stayed in my mind has him having sex with a girl in a car while in the background you see this forest out of which a group of grizzled beggars suddenly starts to emerge, at which point Siffredi who by now is done with the girl, 'returns her' to the downtrodden locals, handing her over to them in the manner of a modern-day Marquis de Sade as if to say: ‘here you go, I’ve finished what I needed do, she's all yours now’. So, by making the main character in that original synopsis an aging male porn star, I began to incorporate this notion of modern-day colonialism via sexual exploitation of a poor country's human resource".


title: A Serbian Film

text: After graduating, Radivojević became friends with fellow budding filmmaker Srđan Spasojević, a film direction graduate from 's Academy of Arts. Bonding over their similar cinematic tastes—mutual appreciation of Paul Schrader's screenwriting opus as well as Brian de Palma's "Dressed to Kill", Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound", and David Lynch—the two young men began collaborating professionally. However, unable to get multiple cinematic projects off the ground in Serbia throughout early-to-mid-2000s, the duo grew frustrated with country's film industry—financially completely reliant on the European Union (EU) arts council grants as well local Ministry of Culture and public service television funding. In 2022, Radivojević discussed his and Spasojević's professional struggles via looking back on Serbia's 2000s cinematic output: "It was utterly hopeless. On the one hand, you had Zdravko Šotra's folksy comedies or costumed dramas/sitcoms sucking up oxygen to the near exclusion of everything else. Meanwhile, on the other hand, and this was most depressing of all, you had this EU arts council funded production using Serbia for EU's political agitprop agenda of 'promoting tolerance and reconciliation in the post-war Balkans' by boosting sappy local projects of no aesthetic value whose sole reason for receiving EU financing was their respective authors' willingness to amplify the EU-approved message, i.e. to express 'Serb contrition over what happened in the Yugoslav Wars' via essentially making victim porn, showing small miserable Serb people who are struggling mightily while nevertheless simultaneously 'doing their part in search of collective redemption' by being extremely remorseful. Breaking through that barrier and getting conventional financing in Serbia for the kind of movies we wanted to make was simply impossible".


title: A Serbian Film

text: In March 2009, six months after the shooting wrapped, film's director Spasojević and writer Radivojević stated that the at-that-point-still-unreleased film is a parody of modern Serbian-made politically correct films that are financed by foreign arts council funds such as Eurimages. Commenting the decision to connect the movie to the country via the title, Radivojević replied: "We have become synonymous with chaos and lunacy. The title is a cynical reference to that image. "A Serbian Film" is also a metaphor for our [Serbian] national cinema—boring, predictable and altogether unintentionally hilarious which to a certain extent is commented on and subtly parodied throughout our film." Similarly, Radivojević dismissed Serbian cinema as "pathetic state-financed films made by people who have no sense or connection to film, but are strongly supported by foreign arts council funds", while adding: "the quality of their films is of no concern to them, only the bureaucratic upholding of the rule book on political correctness."


title: A Serbian Film

text: In a May 2010 interview, while the film was doing rounds on the festival circuit, Spasojević is quoted as saying the film "denounces the fascism of political correctness". Questioned by the Croatian media on whether the violence depicted deals with crimes committed by Serbian soldiers during the Yugoslav Wars, Spasojević answered: ""A Serbian Film" does not touch upon war themes, but in a metaphorical way deals with the consequences of post-war society and a man that is exploited to the extreme in the name of securing the survival of his family."


title: A Serbian Film

text: While promoting the film's December 2010 UK theatrical release, Spasojević stated that the character of Vukmir is "an exaggerated representation of the new European film order", adding: "In Eastern Europe, you cannot get your film financed unless you have a barefoot girl who cries on the streets, or some story about war victims in our [Balkan] region ... the Western world has lost feelings, so they're searching for false ones, they want to buy feelings."


title: A Serbian Film

text: The first ever showing of "A Serbian Film" took place on 15 March 2010 at midnight in Austin as part of the 2010 South by Southwest. During the introduction by Alamo Drafthouse Cinema's owner Tim League, the audience in the theater was once again warned about the extreme nature of the scenes they were about to see and given one last chance to leave the screening. He also coaxed a handful of audience members to join him on the stage – where they jointly snorted lines of salt, squeezed lime juice into their eyes and took shots of tequila in order to "understand what Serbians have been through to create a culture of "A Serbian Film"". The next day, a brief report from the screening appeared in the blog section of the "Wall Street Journal" web site thus giving the movie its first piece of U.S. corporate media press, with the WSJ reporter expressing shock not so much at the film's content but at the fact "it looks like a relatively expensive production, moves along at a competent pace and includes solid performances, indicating the filmmakers’ serious intentions lurking beneath the surface".


title: A Serbian Film

text: Next was a screening at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film in April 2010 where the movie also received a lot of attention over its shocking content.


title: A Serbian Film

text: On 11 June 2010, the film had its premiere screening in Serbia as part of the Cinema City festival in Novi Sad. Due to high demand resulting from the press buzz that the movie had been generating throughout preceding months, the festival organizers decided to schedule additional screenings.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The film was run on 16–19 July 2010 during the Fantasia Festival in Montreal as part of the Subversive Serbia program.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The film was due to screen on 29 August 2010 at the Film Four FrightFest in London, UK but was pulled by the organizers following the intervention of Westminster Council. Films shown at this festival are usually shown pre-certificate but in this case Westminster Council refused to grant permission for its exhibition until it had been classified by the BBFC. Following its DVD submission to the BBFC (there were no theatrical materials available in the time frame requested for a proper theatrical classification), 49 cuts totaling four minutes and eleven seconds were requested for DVD certification. The UK distributor, Revolver Entertainment, initially looked into the possibilities of the process, but it became clear that the film would then have to be resubmitted to the BBFC and further cuts may then have been required. It was decided that to show a heavily edited version was not in the spirit of the festival and consequently its exhibition was pulled from the schedule. The film was replaced at the festival by Rodrigo Cortés' "Buried" starring Ryan Reynolds.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The Raindance Film Festival, that picked up the film at the Cannes Film Festival in May, subsequently held the UK premiere and "found a way around the ban by billing the screening as a 'private event. Westminster Council requested to monitor the invitations to the screening. The 35mm print was shipped from the BBFC for 8 October 2010 premiere.


title: A Serbian Film

text: On 21 October 2010, the film had a single screening at Toronto's Bloor Cinema. It took place as part of the monthly event called Cinemacabre Movie Nights organized by the "Rue Morgue" magazine. The publication also spotlighted the film and featured it on its cover.


title: A Serbian Film

text: On 26 November 2010, the film was refused classification by the Australian Classification Board, banning sales and public showings of the film in Australia. However, on 5 April 2011, the Australian Classification Board approved a censored version of the film.


title: A Serbian Film

text: During March 2011, "A Serbian Film" won the Special Jury Prize in the 31st edition of Fantasporto, Portugal's biggest film festival, in Porto.


title: A Serbian Film

text: On 12 and 16 July 2011, the film was screened at FANTASPOA in Porto Alegre, Brazil and at least at one other film festival in the country, before being banned just before a screening in Rio de Janeiro. Initially the ban applied only in Rio, but afterwards the decision became valid throughout the country, pending further judgement of the film.


title: A Serbian Film

text: In 2020, Unearthed Films started to distribute the film uncut and uncensored in the United States in Blu-ray and DVD.


title: A Serbian Film

text: On 24 September 2010, "A Serbian Film" was released uncensored (104 minutes) in Serbian theaters, with screening times scheduled late at night.


title: A Serbian Film

text: From 3 December 2010, "A Serbian Film" began a limited theatrical release in Croatia without age restriction. "Jutarnji list" reported that the first screening at the Kaptol Centar cinema in Zagreb attracted only seven people, six males and a female—with the female reportedly leaving the theater temporarily during the film's most notorious scene due to finding the specific onscreen proceedings unbearable to watch.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The film had a limited release in UK cinemas on 10 December 2010 in the edited form (99 minutes), with four minutes and eleven seconds of its original content removed by the British Board of Film Classification due to "elements of sexual violence that tend to eroticize or endorse sexual violence". "A Serbian Film" thus became the most censored cinema release in Britain since the 1994 Indian film "Nammavar" that had five minutes and eight seconds of its violent content removed.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The film had a limited release in the United States on 6 May 2011, edited to 98 minutes with an NC-17 rating. It was released on VOD at the website FlixFling on the same day, except only slightly edited to 103 minutes.


title: A Serbian Film

text: Through Invincible Pictures, a limited edition uncut version was released via DVD on 22 May 2012. Tom Ashley, CEO of the distribution company, had this to say, "Of course we would have preferred an uncut release last year. Unfortunately, the charges brought against Mr. Sala [director of the Sitges Film Festival] were something we had to seriously factor into that release. Now that those charges have been dropped, we can bring "A Serbian Film" to its fans as its director had intended."


title: A Serbian Film

text: Unearthed Films released a 104 minute uncut and uncensored version of the film on Blu-Ray and DVD in the United States in January 2021.


title: A Serbian Film

text: "A Serbian Film" was banned by a court in San Sebastián, Spain, for "threatening sexual freedom" and thus could not be shown in the XXI Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror (21st Horror and Fantasy Film Festival). The film was shown at an adults-only screening at the Spanish Sitges Film Festival during October 2010. As a result, the festival's director Ángel Sala was charged with exhibiting child pornography by the Spanish prosecutor who decided to take action in May 2011 after receiving a complaint from a Roman Catholic organization over a pair of scenes involving the rapes of a young child and a newborn. The charges were later dropped.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The film was temporarily banned for screening in Brazil. Although the film was shown in July 2011 at the 7th Fantastic Film Festival in Porto Alegre, after being selected for the Fantastic Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro (RioFan), in the same month, the film was removed from the program at the request of Caixa, the sponsor of the festival, under the argument that the company “understands that art should have the limit of the artist's imagination, but not all creative products fit unrestrictedly in any support or place”. The cancellation of the screening of the film received notes of repudiation from the festival's organization and from the Brazilian Association of Film Critics (Abraccine).


title: A Serbian Film

text: The organizers of festival scheduled a new screening of the film, on the same day that it had been scheduled for screening at the festival (July 23, 2011). However, in the day before screening, the film copy was seized by a court order, thanks to a lawsuit filed by the regional office of the Democrats party, arguing that the film would "incite pedophilia". Later, in August of the same year, a preliminary injunction by a federal court in Belo Horizonte prohibited the film from being shown all over the country, arguing that the film "subverts the natural and logical order of what is reasonable" and arguing that if the injunction was not granted "serious and irreversible damages will be caused to the legal order, to the national consumer, in view of the fact that the film will be sent to the country's cinemas and shown to the entire population". Despite the ban, the film was widely downloaded illegally on the internet, increasing the interest among viewers. This was the first time a film was banned in Brazil since the promulgation of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. On 5 July 2012, this court decision was overturned, after the judge considered "that there are no more legal reasons that prevent the film from being shown".


title: A Serbian Film

text: Before its release, major Australian DVD retailer JB Hi-Fi announced that they would not be distributing the film, either online or in physical stores. They attributed this to the "Disturbing content of the film" and to a disagreement with the (then) R18+ rating. However, the film was available from this retailer for a time.


title: A Serbian Film

text: It was refused classification and thus effectively banned in South Australia just days before its release date.


title: A Serbian Film

text: On 19 September 2011, the Australian Classification Review Board again refused classification, effectively banning the film from distribution Australia-wide. According to the Review Board, ""A Serbian Film" could not be accommodated within the R18+ classification as the level of depictions of sexual violence, themes of incest, and depictions of child sexual abuse in the film has an impact which is very high and not justified by context."


title: A Serbian Film

text: On 25 May 2012, the film was banned outright by the New Zealand Office of Film and Literature Classification.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The film was given a "Restricted rating" twice by the KMRB. The first edit was submitted on 9 August 2011 with a duration of 94 minutes but was rejected for having extreme violence. The second edit was trimmed to 88 minutes and labelled as the director's edition, was submitted on 6 October 2011, but was also given the same restricted rating, this time for extreme themes.


title: A Serbian Film

text: The film was released to great controversy over its portrayal of sexual violence. Spasojević has responded to the controversy with "This is a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government ... It's about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don't want to do. You have to feel the violence to know what it's about."


title: A Serbian Film

text: While acknowledging some level of conservatism among the public and theater owners, Spasojević says that government-enforced censorship in Serbia is non-existent and was not the driving force behind the making of "A Serbian Film": "In Serbia we don't have ratings, there is no law forbidding anything from being shown in a film and there is no law forbidding anyone from buying a ticket."


title: A Serbian Film

text: In a March 2011 interview, Serbian actor and film director Dragan Bjelogrlić criticized the film: "Shallow and plain wrong—sum up my feelings about this movie. I have a problem with "A Serbian Film". Its director in particular. I've got a serious problem with this boy whose father got wealthy during the 1990s—nothing against making money, but I know how money was made [in Serbia] during the '90s—and then pays for his son's education abroad and eventually the kid comes back to Serbia to film his view of the country using his dad's money and even calls the whole thing "A Serbian Film". To me that's a metaphor for something unacceptable. The second generation comes back to the country and using the money that had been robbed from the people of Serbia, smears the very same people by portraying them as the worst scum of the earth. You know, when the first generation of the Rockefellers finished robbing America, the second one built museums, galleries, charitable organizations, and financed America. But in Serbia we're seeing every segment of society continually being taken apart and for me this movie is a paradigm of that. I've never met this kid and I really don't want to either since that meeting wouldn't be pleasant at all."


title: A Serbian Film

text: In a middle-of-the-road review, "Blic"s cinema critic Milan Vlajčić praised the movie's direction, technical aspects, "effective iconography", and "video game pacing" while adding that its story has been taken to the edges of self-parody.


title: A Serbian Film

text: Đorđe Bajić and Zoran Janković of the web magazine "Popboks" gave the film a highly affirmative review, summing it up as "the dark Grand Guignol that shreds its celluloid victims with unconcealed intensity while showing, in full color and detail, the collapse of the last bastions of decency, morality, and rationality" and concluding that "it has a lot to say outside of the mere and unrestrained exploitation".


title: A Serbian Film

text: Based on 32 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 47% of critics gave "A Serbian Film" a positive review, with an average rating of 5.24/10. The site's consensus reads: "A pointless shocker and societal allegory, a film whose imagery is so gruesome as to leave you scarred for life... or rolling your eyes for 100 minutes."


title: A Serbian Film

text: A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" wrote in his review, "At first glance—and few are likely to dare a second—it belongs in the high-concept shock-horror tradition whose most recent and notorious specimen is probably "The Human Centipede". As is often the case with movies like this, "A Serbian Film" revels in its sheer inventive awfulness and dares the viewer to find a more serious layer of meaning."


title: A Serbian Film

text: Karina Longworth of "The Village Voice" called the film "a passionate argument against a no-holds-barred exploration of extreme human sexuality and violence" and referred to the film's supposed commentary on the sad state of post-Milošević Serbian society as "specious lip service". She concludes: "That this film exists at all is a more cogent commentary on the nation's collective trauma than any of the direct statements or potential metaphors contained within."


title: A Serbian Film

text: Scott Weinberg wrote, "I think the film is tragic, sickening, disturbing, twisted, absurd, infuriated, and actually quite intelligent. There are those who will be unable (or unwilling) to decipher even the most basic of 'messages' buried within "A Serbian Film", but I believe it's one of the most legitimately fascinating films I've ever seen. I admire and detest it at the same time. And I will never watch it again. Ever."


title: A Serbian Film

text: Alison Willmore wrote that, "Movies can use transgressive topics and imagery toward great artistic resonance. They can also just use them for pure shock/novelty/boundary-pushing, which is where I'd group "Serbian Film". That it comes from a country that's spent decades deep in violent conflict, civil unrest, corruption and ethnic tensions makes it tempting to read more into the film than I think it actually offers—ultimately, it has as much to say about its country of origin as "Hostel" does about America, which is a little, but nothing on the scale its title suggests."


title: A Serbian Film

text: "Ain't It Cool News" Harry Knowles lists it in his Top 10 films of 2010, stating "This is a fantastic, brilliant film – that given time, will eventually outgrow the absurd reactions of people that think it is a far harder film than it actually is."


title: A Serbian Film

text: "Time Out New York"s Joshua Rothkopf accuses "A Serbian Film" of pandering to "mouth-breathing gorehounds who found "Hostel" a bit too soft (i.e., fanatics who would hijack the horror genre into extremity because deeper thinking is too hard)" before concluding that "the movie says as much about Eastern Europe as "Twilight" does about the Pacific Northwest".


title: A Serbian Film

text: Tim Anderson of horror review site "Bloody Disgusting" strongly discouraged anyone from ever viewing the film, writing, "If what I have written here is enough to turn your feelings of wonder into a burning desire to watch this monstrosity, then perhaps I haven't been clear enough. You don't want to see "Serbian Film". You just think you do."


title: A Serbian Film

text: In his very negative review of "A Serbian Film", BBC Radio 5 Live's Mark Kermode called it a "nasty piece of exploitation trash in the mould of Jörg Buttgereit and Ruggero Deodato", going on to add that "if it is somehow an allegory of Serbian family and Serbian politics then the allegory gets lost amidst the increasingly stupid splatter". Furthermore, he mentioned "A Serbian Film" again in his review of "", pairing the two as his least favourite viewing experiences of the year.


title: A Serbian Film

text: Calum Waddell of "Total Sci-Fi" in a negative review took issue with the filmmakers' statements that their film says something about the politics of Serbia, writing, "if you want to learn about Serbia, chances are, you won't be watching a movie whose main claim to fame is that a man rapes a newborn baby", before concluding that "Srđan Spasojević will go to his grave being known as the guy who filmed a grown man having sex with a baby. And that's something that – despite all of the money, attention and champagne parties at Cannes – I would never want on my conscience. Good luck to him in regaining some humanity."


title: A Serbian Film

text: "Total Film" awarded the film two stars out of five, finding the film's shock hype not to be fully deserved: "a film that was slightly silly and none-too-distressing to begin with. Works best as a reflection on modern day porn's obsession with masochism and humiliation."


title: A Serbian Film

text: "A Serbian Film" has been discussed in a number of academic film studies journals from different perspectives. Mark Featherstone and Shaun Kimber analyse the film within its national and historical context and through examining its production history. Alexandra Kapka analyses the film in the context of its popularity on streaming and piracy web sites, arguing that the loss of the director's introduction on the retail DVD, in which Spasojević states "A Serbian Film" is a political allegory, means that the film loses much of its intended meaning. Large-scale, international audience research by Martin Ian Smith examines how ordinary viewers of the film discuss negative experiences with it and talks about how many viewers, contrary to academic interpretations of the film, often have no knowledge of the film's historical context. The study also investigated how audiences judged the censorship debate surrounding the film, with those most in favour of its censorship being those who saw no value in the film.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a leader in record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1926 to 1977. He made over 70 feature films and recorded more than 1,600 songs.


title: Bing Crosby

text: His early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed, such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon.


title: Bing Crosby

text: "Yank" magazine said that he was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive", ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. In 1948, "Music Digest" estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music in America.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in "Going My Way" (1944) and was nominated for its sequel, "The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945), opposite Ingrid Bergman, becoming the first of six actors to be nominated twice for playing the same character. He was the number one box office attraction for five consecutive years, 1944 to 1948. At his screen apex in 1946, Crosby starred in three of the year's five highest-grossing films: "The Bells of St. Mary's", "Blue Skies" and "Road to Utopia". In 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. He is one of 33 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the categories of motion pictures, radio, and audio recording. He was also known for his collaborations with his friend Bob Hope, starring in the "Road to..." films from 1940 to 1962.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby influenced the development of the post World War II recording industry. After seeing a demonstration of a German broadcast quality reel-to-reel tape recorder brought to the United States by John T. Mullin, he invested $50,000 in the California electronics company Ampex to build copies. He then persuaded ABC to allow him to tape his shows. He became the first performer to prerecord his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Through the medium of audio recording, he constructed his radio programs with the same directorial tools and craftsmanship (editing, retaking, rehearsal, time shifting) used in motion picture production, a practice that became industry standard. In addition to his work with early audio tape recording, he helped finance the development of videotape, bought television stations, bred racehorses, and co-owned the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, during which time the team won two World Series (1960 and 1971).


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby was born on May 3, 1903, in Tacoma, Washington, in a house his father built at 1112 North J Street. In 1906, his family moved to Spokane in Eastern Washington state, where he was raised. In 1913, his father built a house at 508 E. Sharp Avenue. The house sits on the campus of his alma mater, Gonzaga University. It functions today as a museum housing over 200 artifacts from his life and career, including his Oscar.


title: Bing Crosby

text: He was the fourth of seven children: brothers Laurence Earl "Larry" (1895–1975), Everett Nathaniel (1896–1966), Edward John "Ted" (1900–1973), and George Robert "Bob" (1913–1993); and two sisters, Catherine Cordelia (1904–1974) and Mary Rose (1906–1990). His parents were Harry Lowe Crosby (1870–1950), a bookkeeper, and Catherine Helen "Kate" (née Harrigan; 1873–1964). His mother was a second generation Irish-American. His father was of Scottish and English descent; an ancestor, Simon Crosby, emigrated from England to New England in the 1630s during the Puritan migration to New England. Through another line, also on his father's side, Crosby is descended from "Mayflower" passenger William Brewster ( – 1644). On November 8, 1937, after Lux Radio Theatre's adaptation of "She Loves Me Not", Joan Blondell asked Crosby how he got his nickname:


title: Bing Crosby

text: As it happens, that story was pure whimsy for dramatic effect; the Associated Press had reported as early as February 1932—as would later be confirmed by both Bing himself and his biographer Charles Thompson—that it was in fact a neighbor—Valentine Hobart, circa 1910—who had named him "Bingo from Bingville" after a comic feature in the local paper called "The Bingville Bugle" which the young Harry liked. In time, Bingo got shortened to Bing.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In 1917, Crosby took a summer job as property boy at Spokane's Auditorium, where he witnessed some of the acts of the day, including Al Jolson, who held him spellbound with ad-libbing and parodies of Hawaiian songs. He later described Jolson's delivery as "electric".


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby graduated from Gonzaga High School (today's Gonzaga Preparatory School) in 1920 and enrolled at Gonzaga University. He attended Gonzaga for three years but did not earn a degree. As a freshman, he played on the university's baseball team. The university granted him an honorary doctorate in 1937. Today, Gonzaga University houses a large collection of photographs, correspondence, and other material related to Crosby.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In 1923 Crosby was invited to join a new band composed of high-school students a few years younger than himself. Al and Miles Rinker (brothers of singer Mildred Bailey), James Heaton, Claire Pritchard and Robert Pritchard, along with drummer Crosby, formed the Musicaladers, who performed at dances both for high school students and club-goers. The group performed on Spokane radio station KHQ, but disbanded after two years. Crosby and Al Rinker obtained work at the Clemmer Theatre in Spokane (now known as the Bing Crosby Theater).


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby was initially a member of a vocal trio called The Three Harmony Aces with Al Rinker accompanying on piano from the pit, to entertain between the films. Crosby and Al continued at the Clemmer Theatre for several months often with three other men – Wee Georgie Crittenden, Frank McBride and Lloyd Grinnell – and they were billed The Clemmer Trio or The Clemmer Entertainers depending who performed.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In October 1925, Crosby and Rinker decided to seek fame in California. They traveled to Los Angeles, where Bailey introduced them to her show business contacts. The Fanchon and Marco Time Agency hired them for thirteen weeks for the revue "The Syncopation Idea" starting at the Boulevard Theater in Los Angeles and then on the Loew's circuit. They each earned $75 a week. As minor parts of "The Syncopation Idea" Crosby and Rinker started to develop as entertainers. They had a lively style that was popular with college students. After "The Syncopation Idea" closed, they worked in the Will Morrissey Music Hall Revue. They honed their skills with Morrissey. When they got a chance to present an independent act, they were spotted by a member of the Paul Whiteman organization.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Whiteman needed something different to break up his musical selections, and Crosby and Rinker filled this requirement. After less than a year in show business, they were attached to one of the biggest names. Hired for $150 a week in 1926, they debuted with Whiteman on December 6 at the Tivoli Theatre in Chicago. Their first recording, in October 1926, was "I've Got the Girl" with Don Clark's Orchestra, but the Columbia-issued record was inadvertently recorded at a slow speed, which increased the singers' pitch when played at 78 rpm. Throughout his career, Crosby often credited Bailey for getting him his first important job in the entertainment business.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Success with Whiteman was followed by disaster when they reached New York. Whiteman considered letting them go. However, the addition of pianist and aspiring songwriter Harry Barris made the difference, and The Rhythm Boys were born. The additional voice meant they could be heard more easily in large New York theaters. Crosby gained valuable experience on tour for a year with Whiteman and performing and recording with Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Eddie Lang, and Hoagy Carmichael. He matured as a performer and was in demand as a solo singer.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby became the star attraction of the Rhythm Boys. In 1928 he had his first number one hit, a jazz-influenced rendition of "Ol' Man River". In 1929, the Rhythm Boys appeared in the film "King of Jazz" with Whiteman, but Crosby's growing dissatisfaction with Whiteman led to the Rhythm Boys leaving his organization. They joined the Gus Arnheim Orchestra, performing nightly in the Coconut Grove of the Ambassador Hotel. Singing with the Arnheim Orchestra, Crosby's solos began to steal the show while the Rhythm Boys' act gradually became redundant. Harry Barris wrote several of Crosby's hits, including "At Your Command", "I Surrender Dear", and "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams". When Mack Sennett signed Crosby to a solo recording contract in 1931, a break with the Rhythm Boys became almost inevitable. Crosby married Dixie Lee in September 1930. After a threat of divorce in March 1931, he applied himself to his career.


title: Bing Crosby

text: "15 Minutes with Bing Crosby", his nationwide solo radio debut, began broadcasting on September 2, 1931. The weekly broadcast made him a hit. Before the end of the year, he with both Brunswick Records and CBS Radio. "Out of Nowhere", "Just One More Chance", "At Your Command" and "I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)" were among the best selling songs of 1931.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Ten of the top 50 songs of 1931 included Crosby with others or as a solo act. A "Battle of the Baritones" with singer Russ Columbo proved short-lived, replaced with the slogan "Bing Was King". Crosby played the lead in a series of musical comedy short films for Mack Sennett, signed with Paramount, and starred in his first full-length film 1932's "The Big Broadcast" (1932), the first of 55 films in which he received top billing. He would appear in 79 pictures. He signed a contract with Jack Kapp's new record company, Decca, in late 1934.


title: Bing Crosby

text: His first commercial sponsor on radio was Cremo Cigars and his fame spread nationwide. After a long run in New York, he went back to Hollywood to film "The Big Broadcast". His appearances, records, and radio work substantially increased his impact. The success of his first film brought him a contract with Paramount, and he began a pattern of making three films a year. He led his radio show for Woodbury Soap for two seasons while his live appearances dwindled. His records produced hits during the Depression when sales were down. Audio engineer Steve Hoffman stated,


title: Bing Crosby

text: His social life was frantic. His first son Gary was born in 1933 with twin boys following in 1934. By 1936, he replaced his former boss, Paul Whiteman, as host of the weekly NBC radio program "Kraft Music Hall", where he remained for the next ten years. "Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)", with his trademark whistling, became his theme song and signature tune.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby's vocal style helped take popular singing beyond the "belting" associated with Al Jolson and Billy Murray, who had been obligated to reach the back seats in New York theaters without the aid of a microphone. As music critic Henry Pleasants noted in "The Great American Popular Singers", something new had entered American music, a style that might be called "singing in American" with conversational ease. This new sound led to the popular epithet "crooner".


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby admired Louis Armstrong for his musical ability, and the trumpet maestro was a formative influence on Crosby's singing style. When the two met, they became friends. In 1936, Crosby exercised an option in his Paramount contract to regularly star in an out-of-house film. Signing an agreement with Columbia for a single motion picture, Crosby wanted Armstrong to appear in a screen adaptation of "The Peacock Feather" that eventually became "Pennies from Heaven". Crosby asked Harry Cohn, but Cohn had no desire to pay for the flight or to meet Armstrong's "crude, mob-linked but devoted manager, Joe Glaser". Crosby threatened to leave the film and refused to discuss the matter. Cohn gave in; Armstrong's musical scenes and comic dialogue extended his influence to the silver screen, creating more opportunities for him and other African Americans to appear in future films. Crosby also ensured behind the scenes that Armstrong received equal billing with his white co-stars. Armstrong appreciated Crosby's progressive attitudes on race, and often expressed gratitude for the role in later years.


title: Bing Crosby

text: During World War II, Crosby made live appearances before American troops who had been fighting in the European Theater. He learned how to pronounce German from written scripts and read propaganda broadcasts intended for German forces. The nickname "Der Bingle" was common among Crosby's German listeners and came to be used by his English-speaking fans. In a poll of U.S. troops at the close of World War II, Crosby topped the list as the person who had done the most for G.I. morale, ahead of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Dwight Eisenhower, and Bob Hope.


title: Bing Crosby

text: The June 18, 1945, issue of "Life" magazine stated, "America's number one star, Bing Crosby, has won more fans, made more money than any entertainer in history. Today he is a kind of national institution." "In all, 60,000,000 Crosby discs have been marketed since he made his first record in 1931. His biggest best seller is "White Christmas" 2,000,000 impressions of which have been sold in the U.S. and 250,000 in Great Britain." "Nine out of ten singers and bandleaders listen to Crosby's broadcasts each Thursday night and follow his lead. The day after he sings a song over the air – any song – some 50,000 copies of it are sold throughout the U.S. Time and again Crosby has taken some new or unknown ballad, has given it what is known in trade circles as the 'big goose' and made it a hit single-handed and overnight... Precisely what the future holds for Crosby neither his family nor his friends can conjecture. He has achieved greater popularity, made more money, attracted vaster audiences than any other entertainer in history. And his star is still in the ascendant. His contract with Decca runs until 1955. His contract with Paramount runs until 1954. Records which he made ten years ago are selling better than ever before. The nation's appetite for Crosby's voice and personality appears insatiable. To soldiers overseas and to foreigners he has become a kind of symbol of America, of the amiable, humorous citizen of a free land. Crosby, however, seldom bothers to contemplate his future. For one thing, he enjoys hearing himself sing, and if ever a day should dawn when the public wearies of him, he will complacently go right on singing—to himself."


title: Bing Crosby

text: The biggest hit song of Crosby's career was his recording of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", which he introduced on a Christmas Day radio broadcast in 1941. A copy of the recording from the radio program is owned by the estate of Bing Crosby and was loaned to "CBS Sunday Morning" for their December 25, 2011, program. The song appeared in his film "Holiday Inn" (1942). His record hit the charts on October 3, 1942, and rose to number 1 on October 31, where it stayed for 11 weeks. A holiday perennial, the song was repeatedly re-released by Decca, charting another sixteen times. It topped the charts again in 1945 and a third time in January 1947. The song remains the bestselling single of all time. His recording of "White Christmas", has sold over 50 million copies around the world. His recording was so popular that he was obliged to re-record it in 1947 using the same musicians and backup singers; the original 1942 master had become damaged due to its frequent use in pressing additional singles. In 1977, after Crosby died, the song was re-released and reached No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart. Crosby was dismissive of his role in the song's success, saying "a jackdaw with a cleft palate could have sung it successfully".


title: Bing Crosby

text: In the wake of a solid decade of headlining mainly smash hit musical comedy films in the 1930s, Crosby starred with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour in six of the seven "Road to" musical comedies between 1940 and 1962 (Lamour was replaced with Joan Collins in "The Road to Hong Kong" and limited to a lengthy cameo), cementing Crosby and Hope as an on-and-off duo, despite never declaring themselves a "team" in the sense that Laurel and Hardy or Martin and Lewis (Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis) were teams. The series consists of "Road to Singapore" (1940), "Road to Zanzibar" (1941), "Road to Morocco" (1942), "Road to Utopia" (1946), "Road to Rio" (1947), "Road to Bali" (1952), and "The Road to Hong Kong" (1962). When they appeared solo, Crosby and Hope frequently made note of the other in a comically insulting fashion. They performed together countless times on stage, radio, film, and television, and made numerous brief and not so brief appearances together in movies aside from the "Road" pictures, "Variety Girl" (1947) being an example of lengthy scenes and songs together along with billing.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In the 1949 Disney animated film "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad", Crosby provided the narration and song vocals for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" segment. In 1960, he starred in "High Time", a collegiate comedy with Fabian Forte and Tuesday Weld that predicted the emerging gap between him and the new younger generation of musicians and actors who had begun their careers after World War II. The following year, Crosby and Hope reunited for one more "Road" movie, "The Road to Hong Kong", which teamed them up with the much younger Joan Collins and Peter Sellers. Collins was used in place of their longtime partner Dorothy Lamour, whom Crosby felt was getting too old for the role, though Hope refused to do the film without her, and she instead made a lengthy and elaborate cameo appearance. Shortly before his death in 1977, he had planned another "Road" film in which he, Hope, and Lamour search for the Fountain of Youth.


title: Bing Crosby

text: He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for "Going My Way" in 1944 and was nominated for the 1945 sequel, "The Bells of St. Mary's". He received critical acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic entertainer in "The Country Girl" and received his third Academy Award nomination.


title: Bing Crosby

text: "The Fireside Theater" (1950) was his first television production. The series of 26-minute shows was filmed at Hal Roach Studios rather than performed live on the air. The "telefilms" were syndicated to individual television stations. He was a frequent guest on the musical variety shows of the 1950s and 1960s, appearing on various variety shows as well as numerous late-night talk shows and his own highly rated specials. Bob Hope memorably devoted one of his monthly NBC specials to his long intermittent partnership with Crosby titled "On the Road With Bing". Crosby was associated with ABC's "The Hollywood Palace" as the show's first and most frequent guest host and appeared annually on its Christmas edition with his wife Kathryn and his younger children, and continued after "The Hollywood Palace" was eventually canceled. In the early 1970s, he made two late appearances on the "Flip Wilson Show", singing duets with the comedian. His last TV appearance was a Christmas special, "Merrie Olde Christmas", taped in London in September 1977 and aired weeks after his death. It was on this special that he recorded a duet of "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Peace on Earth" with rock musician David Bowie. Their duet was released in 1982 as a single 45-rpm record and reached No. 3 in the UK singles charts. It has since become a staple of holiday radio and the final popular hit of Crosby's career. At the end of the 20th century, "TV Guide" listed the Crosby-Bowie duet one of the 25 most memorable musical moments of 20th-century television.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Bing Crosby Productions, affiliated with Desilu Studios and later CBS Television Studios, produced a number of television series, including Crosby's own unsuccessful ABC sitcom "The Bing Crosby Show" in the 1964–1965 season (with co-stars Beverly Garland and Frank McHugh). The company produced two ABC medical dramas, "Ben Casey" (1961–1966) and "Breaking Point" (1963–1964), the popular "Hogan's Heroes" (1965–1971) military comedy on CBS, as well as the lesser-known show "Slattery's People" (1964–1965).


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby was one of the first singers to exploit the intimacy of the microphone rather than use the deep, loud vaudeville style associated with Al Jolson. He was, by his own definition, a "phraser", a singer who placed equal emphasis on both the lyrics and the music. Paul Whiteman's hiring of Crosby, with phrasing that echoed jazz, particularly his bandmate Bix Beiderbecke's trumpet, helped bring the genre to a wider audience. In the framework of the novelty-singing style of the Rhythm Boys, he bent notes and added off-tune phrasing, an approach that was rooted in jazz. He had already been introduced to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith before his first appearance on record. Crosby and Armstrong remained warm acquaintances for decades, occasionally singing together in later years, e.g. "Now You Has Jazz" in the film "High Society" (1956). In Crosby's performances, the presence of jazz phrasing, jazz rhythm and jazz improvisation varied depending on the piece of music, but those were elements that Crosby frequently used. This can be observed particularly in his straight jazz work during the late 1920s/early 1930s, his recordings with Buddy Cole and His Trio from the mid 1950s, as well as in his numerous collaborations with such jazz musicians like for example Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Venuti, or Eddie Lang. However, while Crosby can be called a jazz singer, he was not strictly only a jazz singer as he modeled the style and techniques to a broad scope of music that he performed, ranging from Jazz to Country to even such material as operetta arias.


title: Bing Crosby

text: During the early portion of his solo career (about 1931–1934), Crosby's emotional, often pleading style of crooning was popular. But Jack Kapp, manager of Brunswick and later Decca, talked him into dropping many of his jazzier mannerisms in favor of a clear vocal style. Crosby credited Kapp for choosing hit songs, working with many other musicians, and most important, diversifying his repertoire into several styles and genres. Kapp helped Crosby have number one hits in Christmas music, Hawaiian music, and country music, and top-thirty hits in Irish music, French music, rhythm and blues, and ballads.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby elaborated on an idea of Al Jolson's: phrasing, or the art of making a song's lyric ring true. "I used to tell Sinatra over and over," said Tommy Dorsey, "there's only one singer you ought to listen to and his name is Crosby. All that matters to him is the words, and that's the only thing that ought to for you, too."


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby's was among the most popular and successful musical acts of the 20th century. "Billboard" magazine used different methodologies during his career. But his chart success remains impressive: 396 chart singles, including roughly 41 number 1 hits. Crosby had separate charting singles every year between 1931 and 1954; the annual re-release of "White Christmas" extended that streak to 1957. He had 24 separate popular singles in 1939 alone. Statistician Joel Whitburn at "Billboard" determined that Crosby was America's most successful recording act of the 1930s and again in the 1940s. In 1960 Crosby was honored as "First Citizen of Record Industry" based on having sold 200 million discs. Sources differ regarding the number of copies he sold: 300 million or even 500 million. The single "White Christmas" sold over 50 million copies according to "Guinness World Records".


title: Bing Crosby

text: For fifteen years (1934, 1937, 1940, 1943–1954), Crosby was among the top ten acts in box-office sales, and for five of those years (1944–1948) he topped the world. He sang four Academy Award winning songs – "Sweet Leilani" (1937), "White Christmas" (1942), "Swinging on a Star" (1944), "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (1951) – and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in "Going My Way" (1944).


title: Bing Crosby

text: A survey in 2000 found that with 1,077,900,000 movie tickets sold, Crosby was the third most popular actor of all time, behind Clark Gable (1,168,300,000) and John Wayne (1,114,000,000). The "International Motion Picture Almanac" lists him in a tie for second-most years at number one on the All Time Number One Stars List with Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, and Burt Reynolds. His most popular film, "White Christmas", grossed $30 million in 1954 ($ million in current value).


title: Bing Crosby

text: He received 23 gold and platinum records, according to the book "Million Selling Records". The Recording Industry Association of America did not institute its gold record certification program until 1958 when Crosby's record sales were low. Before 1958, gold records were awarded by record companies. Crosby charted 23 "Billboard" hits from 47 recorded songs with the Andrews Sisters, whose Decca record sales were second only to Crosby's throughout the 1940s. They were his most frequent collaborators on disc from 1939 to 1952, a partnership that produced four million-selling singles: "Pistol Packin' Mama", "Jingle Bells", "Don't Fence Me In", and "South America, Take it Away". They made one film appearance together in "Road to Rio" singing "You Don't Have to Know the Language", and sang together on the radio throughout the 1940s and 1950s. They appeared as guests on each other's shows and on Armed Forces Radio Service during and after World War II. The quartet's Top-10 "Billboard" hits from 1943 to 1945 include "The Vict'ry Polka", "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Town of Berlin (When the Yanks Go Marching In)", and "Is You Is or Is You Ain't (Ma' Baby?)" and helped morale of the American public.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In 1962, Crosby was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been inducted into the halls of fame for both radio and popular music. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame and in 2008 the Western Music Hall of Fame.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby's popularity around the world was such that in an interview with Dorothy Masuka, the best-selling African recording artist in Africa, she stated "Only Bing Crosby the famous American crooner sold more records than me in Africa." His great popularity throughout Africa led other African singers to emulate him, including Dolly Rathebe, Masuka, and Míriam Makeba, known locally as "The Bing Crosby of Africa" though she is female.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Presenter Mike Douglas commented in a 1975 interview, "During my days in the Navy in World War II, I remember walking the streets of Calcutta, India, on the coast; it was a lonely night, so far from my home and from my new wife, Gen. I needed something to lift my spirits. As I passed a Hindu sitting on the corner of a street, I heard something surprisingly familiar. I came back to see the man playing one of those old Vitrolas, like those of RCA with the horn speaker. The man was listening to Bing Crosby sing, "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive". I stopped and smiled in grateful acknowledgment. The Hindu nodded and smiled back. The whole world knew and loved Bing Crosby." His popularity in India led many Hindu singers to imitate and emulate him, notably Kishore Kumar, considered the "Bing Crosby of India".


title: Bing Crosby

text: Throughout Europe and Russia, Crosby was also known as "Der Bingle", a pseudonym coined in 1944 by Bob Musel, an American journalist based in London, after Crosby had recorded three 15-minute programs with Jack Russin for broadcast to Germany from ABSIE.


title: Bing Crosby

text: According to Shoshana Klebanoff, Crosby became one of the richest men in the history of show business. He had investments in real estate, mines, oil wells, cattle ranches, race horses, music publishing, baseball teams, and television. He made a fortune from the Minute Maid Orange Juice Corporation, in which he was a principal stockholder.


title: Bing Crosby

text: During the Golden Age of Radio, performers had to create their shows live, sometimes even redoing the program a second time for the West Coast time zone. Crosby had to do two live radio shows on the same day, three hours apart, for the East and West Coasts. Crosby's radio career took a significant turn in 1945, when he clashed with NBC over his insistence that he be allowed to pre-record his radio shows. (The live production of radio shows was also reinforced by the musicians' union and ASCAP, which wanted to ensure continued work for their members.) In "On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio", John Dunning wrote about German engineers having developed a tape recorder with a near-professional broadcast quality standard:


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby's insistence eventually factored into the further development of magnetic tape sound recording and the radio industry's widespread adoption of it. He used his clout, both professionally and financially, for innovations in audio. But NBC and CBS refused to broadcast prerecorded radio programs. Crosby left the network and remained off the air for seven months, creating a legal battle with his sponsor Kraft that was settled out of court. He returned to broadcasting for the last 13 weeks of the 1945–1946 season.


title: Bing Crosby

text: The Mutual Network, on the other hand, pre-recorded some of its programs as early as 1938 for "The Shadow" with Orson Welles. ABC was formed from the sale of the NBC Blue Network in 1943 after a federal antitrust suit and was willing to join Mutual in breaking the tradition. ABC offered Crosby $30,000 per week to produce a recorded show every Wednesday that would be sponsored by Philco. He would get an additional $40,000 from 400 independent stations for the rights to broadcast the 30-minute show, which was sent to them every Monday on three 16-inch (40-cm) lacquer discs that played ten minutes per side at rpm.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Murdo MacKenzie of Bing Crosby Enterprises had seen a demonstration of the German Magnetophon in June 1947—the same device that Jack Mullin had brought back from Radio Frankfurt with 50 reels of tape, at the end of the war. It was one of the magnetic tape recorders that BASF and AEG had built in Germany starting in 1935. The 6.5mm ferric-oxide-coated tape could record 20 minutes per reel of high-quality sound. Alexander M. Poniatoff ordered Ampex, which he founded in 1944, to manufacture an improved version of the Magnetophone.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby hired Mullin to start recording his "Philco Radio Time" show on his German-made machine in August 1947 using the same 50 reels of I.G. Farben magnetic tape that Mullin had found at a radio station at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt while working for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The advantage was editing. As Crosby wrote in his autobiography:


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby invested US$50,000 in Ampex with the intent to produce more machines. In 1948, the second season of Philco shows was recorded with the Ampex Model 200A and Scotch 111 tape from 3M. Mullin explained how one new broadcasting technique was invented on the Crosby show with these machines:


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby started the tape recorder revolution in America. In his 1950 film "Mr. Music", he is seen singing into an Ampex tape recorder that reproduced his voice better than anything else. Also quick to adopt tape recording was his friend Bob Hope. He gave one of the first Ampex Model 300 recorders to his friend, guitarist Les Paul, which led to Paul's invention of multitrack recording. His organization, the Crosby Research Foundation, held tape recording patents and developed equipment and recording techniques such as the laugh track that are still in use today.


title: Bing Crosby

text: With Frank Sinatra, Crosby was one of the principal backers for the United Western Recorders studio complex in Los Angeles.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Mullin continued to work for Crosby to develop a videotape recorder (VTR). Television production was mostly live television in its early years, but Crosby wanted the same ability to record that he had achieved in radio. "The Fireside Theater" (1950) sponsored by Procter & Gamble, was his first television production. Mullin had not yet succeeded with videotape, so Crosby filmed the series of 26-minute shows at the Hal Roach Studios, and the "telefilms" were syndicated to individual television stations.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby continued to finance the development of videotape. Bing Crosby Enterprises gave the world's first demonstration of videotape recording in Los Angeles on November 11, 1951. Developed by John T. Mullin and Wayne R. Johnson since 1950, the device aired what were described as "blurred and indistinct" images, using a modified Ampex 200 tape recorder and standard quarter-inch (6.3 mm) audio tape moving at 360 inches (9.1m) per second.


title: Bing Crosby

text: A Crosby-led group purchased station KCOP-TV, in Los Angeles, California, in 1954. NAFI Corporation and Crosby purchased television station KPTV in Portland, Oregon, for $4 million on September 1, 1959. In 1960, NAFI purchased KCOP from Crosby's group. In the early 1950s, Crosby helped establish the CBS television affiliate in his hometown of Spokane, Washington. He partnered with Ed Craney, who owned the CBS radio affiliate KXLY (AM) and built a television studio west of Crosby's alma mater, Gonzaga University. After it began broadcasting, the station was sold within a year to Northern Pacific Radio and Television Corporation.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby was a fan of thoroughbred horse racing and bought his first racehorse in 1935. In 1937, he became a founding partner of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and a member of its board of directors. Operating from the Del Mar Racetrack at Del Mar, California, the group included millionaire businessman Charles S. Howard, who owned a successful racing stable that included Seabiscuit. Charles' son, Lindsay C. Howard, became one of Crosby's closest friends; Crosby named his son Lindsay after him, and would purchase his 40-room Hillsborough, California estate from Lindsay in 1965.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby and Lindsay Howard formed Binglin Stable to race and breed thoroughbred horses at a ranch in Moorpark in Ventura County, California. They also established the Binglin Stock Farm in Argentina, where they raced horses at Hipódromo de Palermo in Palermo, Buenos Aires. A number of Argentine-bred horses were purchased and shipped to race in the United States. On August 12, 1938, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club hosted a $25,000 winner-take-all match race won by Charles S. Howard's Seabiscuit over Binglin's horse Ligaroti. In 1943, Binglin's horse Don Bingo won the Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.


title: Bing Crosby

text: The Binglin Stable partnership came to an end in 1953 as a result of a liquidation of assets by Crosby, who needed to raise enough funds to pay the hefty federal and state inheritance taxes on his deceased wife's estate. The Bing Crosby Breeders' Cup Handicap at Del Mar Racetrack is named in his honor.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby had a keen interest in sports. In the 1930s, his friend and former college classmate, Gonzaga head coach, Mike Pecarovich, appointed Crosby as an assistant football coach. From 1946 until his death, he owned a 25% share of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Although he was passionate about the team, he was too nervous to watch the deciding Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, choosing to go to Paris with Kathryn and listen to its radio broadcast. Crosby had arranged for Ampex, another of his financial investments, to record the NBC telecast on kinescope. The game was one of the most famous in baseball history, capped off by Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run that won the game for Pittsburgh. He apparently viewed the complete film just once, and then stored it in his wine cellar, where it remained undisturbed until it was discovered in December 2009. The restored broadcast was shown on MLB Network in December 2010.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby was also an avid golfer. He first took up golf at age 12 as a caddy. He was already spending much time on the golf course while touring the country in a vaudeville act or with Paul Whiteman's orchestra in the mid to late 1920s. Eventually, Crosby became accomplished at the sport, at his best reaching a two handicap. He competed in both the British and U.S. Amateur championships, was a five-time club champion at Lakeside Golf Club in Hollywood, and once made a hole-in-one on the 16th hole at Cypress Point.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In 1937, Crosby hosted the first 'Crosby Clambake', a pro-am tournament at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, California, the event's location prior to World War II. After the war, the event resumed play in 1947 on golf courses in Pebble Beach, where it has been played ever since. Now the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the tournament is a staple of the PGA Tour, having featured Hollywood stars and other celebrities.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In 1950, Crosby became the third person to win the William D. Richardson award, which is given to a non-professional golfer "who has consistently made an outstanding contribution to golf". In 1978, he and Bob Hope were voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship. He is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 1978.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby also was a keen fisherman. In the summer of 1966, he spent a week as the guest of Lord Egremont, staying in Cockermouth and fishing on the River Derwent. His trip was filmed for "The American Sportsman" on ABC, although all did not go well at first as the salmon were not running. He did make up for it at the end of the week by catching a number of sea trout.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby was married twice. His first wife was actress and nightclub singer Dixie Lee, to whom he was married from 1930 until her death from ovarian cancer in 1952. They had four sons: Gary, twins Dennis and Phillip, and Lindsay. "" (1947) is based on Lee's life. The Crosby family lived at 10500 Camarillo Street in North Hollywood for more than five years. After his wife died, Crosby had relationships with model Pat Sheehan (who married his son Dennis in 1958) and actresses Inger Stevens and Grace Kelly before marrying actress Kathryn Grant, who converted to Catholicism, in 1957. They had three children: Harry Lillis III (who played Bill in "Friday the 13th"), Mary Frances (best known for portraying Kristin Shepard on TV's "Dallas"), and Nathaniel (the 1981 U.S. Amateur champion in golf).


title: Bing Crosby

text: Particularly during the late 1930s and through the 1940s Bing Crosby's domestic life was tragically dominated by his wife's excessive drinking. His efforts to cure her with the help of specialists failed. Tired of Dixie's drinking, he even asked her for a divorce in January 1941. During the 1940s, Crosby consistently had difficulties trying to stay away from home while also trying to be there as much as possible for his children.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby had one confirmed extramarital affair between 1945 and the late 1940s, while married to his first wife Dixie. Actress Patricia Neal (who herself at the time was having an affair with the married Gary Cooper) wrote in her 1988 autobiography "As I Am" about a trip on a cruise ship to England with actress Joan Caulfield in 1948:


title: Bing Crosby

text: In the most recent Crosby biography, "Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star; the War Years, 1940-1946", Gary Giddins published excerpts from an original diary of two sisters, Violet and Mary Barsa, who, as young women, used to stalk Crosby in New York City during December 1945 and January 1946 and who detailed their observations in the diary. The document reveals that during that time Crosby was indeed taking Joan Caulfield out to dinner, visited theaters and opera houses with her and that Caulfield and a person in her company entered the Waldorf Hotel where Crosby was staying. However, the document also clearly indicates that at their meetings a third person, on most instances Caulfield's mother, was present. In 1954, Joan Caulfield admitted to a relationship with a "top film star" who was a married man with children who at the end chose his wife and children over her. Joan's sister Betty Caulfield confirmed the romantic relationship between Joan and Bing Crosby. Despite being a Catholic, Crosby was seriously considering divorce in order to marry Caulfield. Either in December 1945 or January 1946 Crosby approached Cardinal Francis Spellman with his difficulties with dealing with his wife's alcoholism and his love for Caulfield and his plan to file for divorce. According to Betty Caulfield, Spellman told Crosby: "Bing, you are Father O'Malley and under no circumstances can Father O'Malley get a divorce." Around the same time, Crosby talked to his mother about his intentions and she protested. Ultimately, Crosby chose to end the relationship and to stay with his wife. Bing and Dixie reconciled and he continued trying to help her overcome her alcohol issues.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby reportedly had an alcohol problem between the late 1920s and early 1930s, but he got a handle on his drinking in 1931.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby told Barbara Walters in a 1977 televised interview that he thought marijuana should be legalized because he figured it would make it much easier for the authorities to have a proper legal control over the market.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In December 1999 the New York Post published an article by Bill Hoffmann and Murray Weiss called "Bing Crosby's Single Life" which claimed that "recently published" FBI files revealed connections with figures in the Mafia "since his youth".  However, Crosby's FBI files had already been published in 1992 and provide no indication that Crosby had ties to the Mafia except for one major, but accidental encounter in Chicago in 1929 which is not mentioned in the files, but is told by Crosby himself in his as-told-to autobiography "Call Me Lucky". In the over 280 pages of Crosby's FBI files all but one reference to organized crime or gambling dens are content of a few of the many threats that Bing Crosby received throughout his life. The comments made by FBI investigators in the memos discredited the claims made in the letters. In all the files there is only one single reference to a person associated with the Mafia. In a memorandum dated January 16, 1959, it is said:


title: Bing Crosby

text: "The Salt Lake City Office has developed information indicating that Moe Dalitz received an invitation to join a deer hunting party at Bing Crosby's Elko, Nevada, ranch, together with the crooner, his Las Vegas dentist and several business associates."


title: Bing Crosby

text: However, Crosby had already sold his Elko ranch a year earlier, in 1958, and it is doubtful how much he was really involved in that meeting.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby and his family lived in the San Francisco area for many years. In 1963, he and his wife Kathryn moved with their 3 young children from Los Angeles to a $175,000 10-bedroom Tudor estate in Hillsborough because they did not want to raise their children in Hollywood, according to son Nathaniel. This house went up for sale by its current owners in 2021 for $13.75 million. In 1965, the Crosbys moved to a larger, 40-room French-chateau style house on nearby Jackling Drive, where Kathryn Crosby continued to reside after Bing's death. This house served as a setting for some of the family's Minute Maid orange juice television commercials.


title: Bing Crosby

text: After Crosby's death, his eldest son, Gary, wrote a highly critical memoir, "Going My Own Way" (1983), depicting his father as cruel, cold, remote, and physically and psychologically abusive.


title: Bing Crosby

text: While acknowledging that corporal punishments took place, there were reports of all of Gary's immediate siblings distancing themselves from the abuse claims, either in public or in private.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby's younger son Phillip vociferously disputed his brother Gary's claims about their father. Around the time Gary published his claims, Phillip stated to the press that "Gary is a whining, bitching crybaby, walking around with a two-by-four on his shoulder and just daring people to nudge it off." Nevertheless, Phillip did not deny that Crosby believed in corporal punishment. In an interview with "People" magazine, Phillip stated that "we never got an extra whack or a cuff we didn't deserve".


title: Bing Crosby

text: Shortly before Gary's book was actually published, Lindsay said, "I'm glad [Gary] did it. I hope it clears up a lot of the old lies and rumors." Unlike Gary, Lindsay stated that he preferred to remember "all the good things I did with my dad and forget the times that were rough". "Lindsay Crosby supported his brother (Gary) at the time of its publication but had a tempered view of its revelations. 'I never expected affection from my father so it didn’t bother me,' he once told an interviewer.'"


title: Bing Crosby

text: Dennis Crosby reportedly "said his older brother (Gary) was the most severely treated of the four boys. 'He got the first licking, and we got the second.'"


title: Bing Crosby

text: Gary's first wife of 19 years, Barbara Cosentino, of whom Gary wrote in his book, "I could confide in her about Mom and Dad and my childhood", and with whom Gary stayed friendly after the divorce, stated:


title: Bing Crosby

text: Bing's younger brother, singer and jazz bandleader Bob Crosby, recalled at the time of Gary's revelations that Bing was a "disciplinarian", as their mother and father had been. He added, "We were brought up that way."


title: Bing Crosby

text: In an interview for the same article, Gary clarified that Bing "was like a lot of fathers of that time. He was not out to be vicious, to beat children for his kicks."


title: Bing Crosby

text: The author of the most recent biography on Bing Crosby, Gary Giddins, claims that Gary Crosby's memoir is not reliable on many instances and cannot be trusted on the abuse stories.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby's will established a blind trust in which none of the sons received an inheritance until they reached the age of 65, intended by Crosby to keep them out of trouble. They were instead receiving several thousand dollars per month from a trust left in 1952 by their mother, Dixie Lee. The trust, tied to high-performing oil stocks, folded in December 1989 following the 1980s oil glut.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Lindsay Crosby died in 1989 at age 51, and Dennis Crosby died in 1991 at age 56, both by suicide from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Gary Crosby died of lung cancer in 1995 at age 62, and Phillip Crosby died of a heart attack in 2004 at age 69.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Widow Kathryn Crosby dabbled in local theater productions intermittently and appeared in television tributes to her late husband.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Nathaniel Crosby, Crosby's younger son from his second marriage, is a former high-level golfer who won the U.S. Amateur in 1981 at age 19, becoming the youngest winner in the history of that event at the time. Harry Crosby is an investment banker who occasionally makes singing appearances.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Denise Crosby, Dennis Crosby's daughter, is also an actress and is known for her role as Tasha Yar on "" and for the recurring role of the Romulan Sela after her withdrawal from the series as a regular cast member. She also appeared in the 1989 film adaptation of Stephen King's novel "Pet Sematary".


title: Bing Crosby

text: In 2006, Crosby's niece through his sister Mary Rose, Carolyn Schneider, published the laudatory book "Me and Uncle Bing".


title: Bing Crosby

text: There have been disputes between Crosby's two families beginning in the late 1990s. When Dixie died in 1952, her will provided that her share of the community property be distributed in trust to her sons. After Crosby's death in 1977, he left the residue of his estate to a marital trust for the benefit of his widow, Kathryn, and HLC Properties, Ltd., was formed for the purpose of managing his interests, including his right of publicity. In 1996, Dixie's trust sued HLC and Kathryn for declaratory relief as to the trust's entitlement to interest, dividends, royalties, and other income derived from the community property of Crosby and Dixie. In 1999, the parties settled for approximately $1.5 million. Relying on a retroactive amendment to the California Civil Code, Dixie's trust brought suit again, in 2010, alleging that Crosby's right of publicity was community property, and that Dixie's trust was entitled to a share of the revenue it produced. The trial court granted Dixie's trust's claim. The California Court of Appeal reversed, however, holding that the 1999 settlement barred the claim. In light of the court's ruling, it was unnecessary for the court to decide whether a right of publicity can be characterized as community property under California law.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Following his recovery from a life-threatening fungal infection of his right lung in January 1974, Crosby emerged from semi-retirement to start a new spate of albums and concerts. In March 20, 1977, after videotaping a concert "Bing - 50th Anniversary Gala" special at the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena for CBS to commemorate his 50th anniversary in show business, and with Bob Hope looking on, Crosby fell off the stage into an orchestra pit, rupturing a disc in his back requiring a month in the hospital. His first performance after the accident was his last American concert, on August 16, 1977, the day Elvis Presley died, at the Concord Pavilion in Concord, California. When the electric power failed during his performance, he continued singing without amplification.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In September, Crosby, his family and singer Rosemary Clooney began a concert tour of Britain that included two weeks at the London Palladium. While in the UK, Crosby recorded his final album, "Seasons", and his final TV Christmas special with guest David Bowie on September 11 (which aired a little over a month after Crosby's death). His last concert was in the Brighton Centre on October 10, four days before his death, with British entertainer Gracie Fields in attendance. The following day he made his final appearance in a recording studio and sang eight songs at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios for a radio program, which also included an interview with Alan Dell. Accompanied by the Gordon Rose Orchestra, Crosby's last recorded performance was of the song "Once in a While". Later that afternoon, he met with Chris Harding to take photographs for the "Seasons" album jacket.


title: Bing Crosby

text: On October 13, 1977, Crosby flew alone to Spain to play golf and hunt partridge. On October 14, at the La Moraleja Golf Course near Madrid, Crosby played 18 holes of golf. His partner was World Cup champion Manuel Piñero; their opponents were club president César de Zulueta and Valentín Barrios. According to Barrios, Crosby was in good spirits throughout the day, and was photographed several times during the round. At the ninth hole, construction workers building a house nearby recognized him, and when asked for a song, Crosby sang "Strangers in the Night". Crosby, who had a 13 handicap, won with his partner by one stroke. At about 6:30 pm, as Crosby and his party headed back to the clubhouse, Crosby said, "That was a great game of golf, fellas. Let's go have a Coca-Cola." These were his last words. About from the clubhouse entrance, Crosby collapsed and died instantly from a massive heart attack. At the clubhouse and later in the ambulance, house physician Dr. Laiseca tried to revive him, but was unsuccessful. At Reina Victoria Hospital he was administered the last rites of the Catholic Church and was pronounced dead. He was 74 years old.


title: Bing Crosby

text: On October 18, 1977, following a private funeral Mass at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Westwood, Crosby was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. (His tombstone incorrectly identified his year of birth as 1904 instead of 1903.) A plaque was placed at the golf course in his memory.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In his autobiography "Don't Shoot, It's Only Me!" (1990), Bob Hope wrote, "Dear old Bing, as we called him, the "Economy-sized Sinatra". And what a voice. God I miss that voice. I can't even turn on the radio around Christmas time without crying anymore."


title: Bing Crosby

text: Calypso musician Roaring Lion wrote a tribute song in 1939 titled "Bing Crosby", in which he wrote: "Bing has a way of singing with his very heart and soul / Which captivates the world / His millions of listeners never fail to rejoice / At his golden voice..."


title: Bing Crosby

text: Bing Crosby Stadium in Front Royal, Virginia, was named after Crosby in honor of his fundraising and cash contributions for its construction from 1948 to 1950.


title: Bing Crosby

text: In 2006, the former Metropolitan Theater of Performing Arts ('The Met') in Spokane, Washington, was renamed to The Bing Crosby Theater.


title: Bing Crosby

text: Crosby wrote or co-wrote lyrics to 22 songs. His composition "At Your Command" was number 1 for three weeks on the U.S. pop singles chart beginning on August 8, 1931. "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You" was his most successful composition, recorded by Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, and Mildred Bailey, among others. Songs co-written by Crosby include:


title: Bing Crosby

text: Four performances by Bing Crosby have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance".


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: Thomas Brodie-Sangster (born 16 May 1990), also credited as Thomas Sangster, is an English actor. He is known for playing Sam in "Love Actually" (2003), Simon in "Nanny McPhee" (2005), Ferb in "Phineas and Ferb" (2007–2015), Jojen Reed in "Game of Thrones" (2013–2014), Newt in the "Maze Runner" film series (2014–2018), and Benny Watts in the Netflix miniseries "The Queen's Gambit" (2020), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: Brodie-Sangster also grew in popularity for starring in critically acclaimed cult films such as "Death of a Superhero" (2011), "Bright Star" (2009), and as Paul McCartney in "Nowhere Boy" (2009). He played Jake Murray in the series "Accused" (2010–2012). He also had a cameo as an officer of the First Order in "" (2015), a role as Whitey Winn in the Netflix miniseries "Godless" (2017) and voiced John Tracy in "Thunderbirds Are Go" (2015–2020).


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: Thomas Brodie-Sangster was born on 16 May 1990 in Southwark, London, to Mark Sangster and Tasha Bertram. Brodie-Sangster's father's family is from Banchory, Scotland. He has a sister. Brodie-Sangster plays bass and guitar, and he learned to play left-handed guitar to portray the left-handed Paul McCartney in the feature film "Nowhere Boy". He also learned to play the drums for his role in "Love Actually" (2003).


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: In 2001, Brodie-Sangster's first acting role was in a BBC television film, "Station Jim". He subsequently appeared in a few more television films, including the lead roles in "Bobbie's Girl", "The Miracle of the Cards" (based on the story of Craig Shergold) and "Stig of the Dump". He won the "Golden Nymph" award at the 43rd Annual Monte Carlo Television Festival for his role in the miniseries "Entrusted". Brodie-Sangster's first major theatrical film was "Love Actually" (2003), in which he played Sam. He was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award and a Young Artist Award for his role in the film.


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: Brodie-Sangster next appeared in a television adaptation of the novel "Feather Boy" and played a younger version of James Franco's Tristan in the film version of "Tristan & Isolde". Among other things, Brodie-Sangster takes part in a (child's) sword fight in the film. Brodie-Sangster next starred in the commercially successful film "Nanny McPhee" (2005) as the eldest of seven children.


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: In 2007, he appeared in a two-part story ("Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood") in "Doctor Who" as schoolboy Tim Latimer, and guest-starred in the Big Finish "Doctor Who" audio dramas "The Mind's Eye" and "The Bride of Peladon". He also starred in the film adaptation of Valerio Massimo Manfredi's historical novel "The Last Legion", released in 2007. That same year he voiced the character of Ferb Fletcher in the Disney Channel animated series "Phineas and Ferb". He appeared in the 2008 miniseries "Pinocchio", filmed in Italy, as Lampwick.


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: In 2008, Brodie-Sangster had a role in director Jane Campion's film "Bright Star", a love story about John Keats and his lover Fanny Brawne. He also starred as Paul McCartney in "Nowhere Boy", a film directed by award-winning artist Sam Taylor-Wood, about the teenage years of John Lennon.


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: Brodie-Sangster appeared as Casey in the film "Some Dogs Bite" about a boy who wants to keep his family together. Casey takes his baby brother out of foster care and, with the help of his older brother, goes in search of their father. Brodie-Sangster appeared in the Irish film "Death of a Superhero", based on the novel by Anthony McCarten.


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: Additionally, Brodie-Sangster plays Liam in the 2011 film "The Last Furlong". In April 2011, he made a guest appearance as Adam Douglas in an episode of British detective drama "Lewis". In 2012, he starred in "The Baytown Outlaws", in which he plays a young disabled man in a wheelchair, and in Ella Jones's short film, "The Ugly Duckling", the third instalment of the "Tales" trilogy of reworked fairy tales from "More Films". From 2013 to 2014, he played the role of Jojen Reed in the HBO series "Game of Thrones". In 2015, he began providing the voice of John Tracy in ITV's remake of Gerry Anderson's puppet series "Thunderbirds Are Go" (2015–present).


title: Thomas Brodie-Sangster

text: Brodie-Sangster played Newt in the 20th Century Fox "Maze Runner" trilogy, including "The Maze Runner" (2014), "" (2015), and "" (2018). In BBC2's 6-part television adaptation of "Wolf Hall" (on BBC2 from 21 January 2015), Brodie-Sangster portrayed Rafe Sadler, the ward of Thomas Cromwell.