Bing Dvds

[Vita Wanberg]

AAccording to the official website bingcrosby.com, Bing had seven children: Gary, twins Dennis and Philip, and Lindsay from his first marriage to Dixie Lee Crosby (who died of cancer in 1952), and Harry, Mary and Nathaniel from his second marriage, to Kathryn Grant Crosby, still with him when Bing died in 1977.

Dixie's four sons all tried out singing at various times, including as the Crosby Boys; Gary, later an actor on TV shows such as "Adam-12," had several hit singles in the early '50s. But none achieved the success of their father. Indeed, life proved difficult for them, with the website saying each "constantly struggled with alcoholism and had embarrassing scrapes with the law." Gary wrote a memoir claiming that Bing had been an excessively strict parent but, according to the website, he did so to improve sales and later recanted "large portions" of the book. Gary was hoping to revive his career by overdubbing some of Bing's recordings when he discovered he had cancer and died in 1995. By that time, both Lindsay and Dennis had committed suicide, in 1989 and 1991 respectively; Philip died in 2004 at the age of 69.

Q: I remember visiting my grandparents during holidays. Though I can't remember a specific holiday, my grandfather always had an old black-and-white movie on about giant rabbits or bunnies destroying towns and knocking down power lines and eating people. It looks like it might be from the '30s, '40s or '50s. Though this movie terrified me as a child, looking back now it seems kinda corny. I would like to know the name of the movie please and why anybody would find giant rabbits scary.

A: There do not appear to be many giant-rabbit movies. In fact, the only one I could find was "Night of the Lepus," a 1972 color feature starring Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh and others. If readers know of another film, let me know and I will discuss it in a later mailbag.

A: The first is "Fanny," a 1961 film starring Leslie Caron as the young woman. As for the other, Goddard and Chaplin were married for about a decade and made two films together, "Modern Times" (1936) and "The Great Dictator" (1940). The scene you remember is from the end of "The Great Dictator."

His zealous support and superstition wound up being a good thing for baseball fans: Found in his wine cellar was film of the deciding Game 7, in which Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a game-ending homer to beat the New York Yankees, that was thought to be lost forever.

The silver-tongued crooner, whose recording of "White Christmas" has sold millions of copies worldwide, was part owner of the baseball team from 1946 until his death in 1977. But the avid sportsman was such a nervous wreck watching the Pirates that when they played the Yankees in the World Series, he went on a European vacation with his wife, Kathryn.

It was thought that one of the greatest games ever played had survived only through radio broadcasts, grainy photographs and the written word. Then in December, while Robert Bader was combing through tapes and reels of Crosby's old TV specials, the vice president of Bing Crosby Entertainment stumbled across two gray canisters in a pile stretching to the ceiling.

Bader screened the 16-millimeter film and realized it was the complete broadcast of Game 7, with the Yankees' Mel Allen and Pirates' Bob Prince calling the action. The conditions of the wine cellar -- cool and dry -- meant that the film had survived in pristine condition.

Crosby couldn't bear to watch the game live, although he did listen by radio while in Paris, so he had hired a company to record the broadcast by kinescope. The early relative of DVR meant that he could go back and watch the 2-hour, 36-minute game later if the Pirates won.

The five reels have since been transferred to DVD, and fans will get a chance to view the game during the offseason on the MLB Network. Bob Costas is set to host the special, which will include interviews with former players and other additional programming.

The Pirates scored four runs in the first two innings off Yankees starter Bob Turley, then watched New York score a run in the fifth and four more in the sixth, when Yogi Berra's home run gave the Yankees the lead. Two more runs in the eighth made it 7-4.

Pittsburgh rebounded with five runs in the bottom half, pulling ahead on Hal Smith's three-run homer, before New York tied the game in the ninth on a heads-up baserunning play by Mickey Mantle that allowed Gil McDougald to cross the plate.

Minutes later, Mazeroski stepped into the batter's box leading off the ninth inning. With one ball and no strikes, he connected with Ralph Terry's pitch and drove the ball over the left field wall. The Pirates poured out of the dugout, the Yankees stood in disbelief, and Mazeroski rounded the bases after the first game-ending home run to win a World Series.

"It was such a unique game to begin with," said the Pirates' Dick Groat, the 1960 league MVP who will turn 80 in November but remembers the game as if it happened yesterday. "It was back and forth, back and forth. It was unbelievable."

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