Kathryn Crosby, an actress and the widow of Bing Crosby, has passed away at the age of 90. A representative of the Crosby family confirmed that she died peacefully Friday night at her home in Hillsborough, California, surrounded by her family.
Born Olive Kathryn Grandstaff in West Columbia, Texas, in November 1933, Kathryn went on to have a successful acting career during the 1950s. Some of her notable film roles included Operation Mad Ball, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Anatomy of a Murder, and The Big Circus.
Throughout her career, she was often credited under the stage names Kathryn Grant and Kathryn Grandstaff.
In the 1960s, Kathryn gradually stepped back from acting and pursued a different path, becoming a registered nurse in 1963 after completing her studies at Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles.
Kathryn was 23 years old when she married Bing Crosby, who was 54 at the time, in a ceremony at a Las Vegas church in October 1957.
“We kept running into each other, and we’d plan to get married, but then he’d get a kidney stone or something dreadful,” she humorously recalled in a 2014 interview with *Smashing Interviews* magazine.
Kathryn also addressed the frequent attention given to the couple’s 30-year age gap. “When people asked about it, I suppose it happened, but I didn’t really hear it. By the time we had courted, I knew we both liked each other very much,” she shared.
In addition to her acting career and her marriage to Bing, Kathryn was deeply involved in charity work, including hosting the Crosby National Golf Tournament in North Carolina for 16 years, until 2001.
Kathryn remarried in 2000, tying the knot with Maurice William Sullivan. Sadly, Sullivan passed away in 2010 following a car accident in the Sierra Nevada mountains at the age of 85.
Kathryn Crosby is survived by her three children and several grandchildren.