American actor and noted family, the first of four sons of Bing and Dixie Crosby. He could not please his strict dad who used the weapons of humiliation and restriction, and grew up angry and hostile, a drinker and brawler.
At 15, the summer of 1948, he had his first sex, with a prostitute. He went through diet pills, uppers, downers, bennies and booze by 1953. He battled weight fluctuations for years and related that his dad weighed him once a week and that if he had gained weight, he was ordered to his father’s office for a whipping. His pants would be pulled down and he would be beaten until he bled. He later wrote that he endured the pain by imagining ways in which to kill his father.
After being drafted into the U.S. Army 1956-58, he went into a show business act as a singer. All four boys worked on a nightclub act but they were drinking and carousing and it fell apart by late 1959.
In 1961 Gary married Barbara and became a step-father to her five-year old boy; they were married 18 years. He married and divorced twice more; one son. His mother died on 1 November 1952, and his father on 14 October 1977. His reputation as a bad boy and big drinker had started when he was a youth, and in 1967 he admitted to being an alcoholic. He went through years of heavy alcoholism until having a triple heart by-pass and entering rehab.
Gary played as a supporting actor in the TV series “Adam-12,” 1968-1975 and had a regular role on “Hunter” in the ’80s.
He was the author of an autobiography “Going My Own Way,” 1983.
Diagnosed with lung cancer in June 1995, he died on 24 August 1995 in Burbank, California.
Link to Wikipedia biography