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Bing Crosby was born Harry Lillis Crosby in Tacoma, Washington in 1903, in a large working class family. He got the nickname "Bing" when he was 10. He went to college, intending to become a lawyer, but he joined a local band as a drummer, and he quit school in his last year. In 1926, he was spotted by Paul Whiteman, and was hired, along with his partner, Al Rinker. Whiteman added Harry Barris, and named them the Rhythm Boys, and they were a big hit. Crosby was the star of the act, and in 1931 he split from the group, and went solo. He was the number one recording star of the 1930s, and his distinctive style of singing was dubbed "crooning". He had done some singing in movies with the Rhythm Boys at the start of the 1930s, but he soon starting playing dramatic roles in musicals, and was a natural, likable performer, and was very successful in movies in the 1930s. In 1940 he teamed with Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope for the first of the very successful "Road" movies, Road to Singapore. When the U.S. entered WWII. he added to his huge popularity by doing much entertaining of the troops. In 1942, he sang White Christmas on his radio show and used it in his movie, Holiday Inn (it would be re-used in the partial re-make of Holiday Inn, White Christmas, in 1954). In 1944 he made his greatest movie, Going My Way (winner of the Best Actor Academy Award for this film), which was followed by The Bells Of St. Mary's (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film). In 1954, he also starred in The Country Girl (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film). In 1956 he was in High Society, the musical re-make of The Philadelphia Story. Bing Crosby was among the very best selling singers of all time, and also was among the absolute biggest box office draws at the movies! There is no other singer who had as much success as he did in the movies, or vice versa! He passed away in 1977 at the age of 74.

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Important Added Info: Note that normally, personality posters like these were not dated, because they were intended to be used for at least a couple of years. In the case of this series from Paramount (the ones with this border design), each of the posters are dated 1936 (but surely they stayed in use past that year).

Note that starting in the very early 1910s (around 1912, when studios realized that people were more likely to go to a movie if it had a star they liked in it), studios created sets of special "personality" posters, which theaters that showed their movies could hang in their lobbies. These had a big advantage over posters for specific movies, because they could be used whenever a movie with that star was shown, which meant they could be used over and over! Because studios realized this, they made these posters on a high quality paper stock, sometimes with a "linen" texture, and sometimes with elaborate border designs, and almost always with great quality color printing. They almost always measured exactly 22" x 28", the same as "half-sheets" (which were then known as "displays", except that they were taller than they were wide, and that the images almost always had a "full bleed", meaning that there were no blank borders. They almost always showed a head and shoulders image of the star, and the image on these posters is often very close to actual life-size! They almost always have the name of the star and the studio they worked for at the bottom. Even though there were many sets of these from many studios over a period of approximately 30 years (they were rarely made after the early 1940s), very few survive, likely partially due to World War II paper drives, and partially due to the fact that they were never folded and the paper they were made of sometimes aged poorly.

Note that Paramount Pictures became the leading Hollywood studio in the late 1910s, and remained at the forefront of Hollywood for the next several decades. They had a great lineup of stars, and they created many sets of personality posters to promote them. The earliest of these is likely from the late 1910s, and there are others from each succeeding decade, and there are even some that are from the late 1940s or early 1950s, which is after most of the other studios quit making these 22x28 posters. You can tell their different sets in two ways. One is that all of the posters from a set have the same border design and the stars and studio names are written in the same font and layout. The other is that you can look at the age of the star in the image (although that might possibly be deceptive, because they might have sometimes used a slightly younger version of a star!). We don't know how often the Paramount sets were made, but some major stars carried over from set to set, but with the passing years, some stars would be dropped and new stars added. These posters are extremely rare as it is likely few theaters ordered them, and fewer still saved them, and in addition, they could be easily torn, and if they were not stored carefully, they would become fragile, and it is likely many were damaged and discarded for that reason! Note that the high quality paper stock these posters were printed on does not always age very well, and can become fragile (usually resulting in chips around the edges of the poster). Because of their fragile nature and their age, we intend to send all of these personality posters in large flat packages, and never roll them into tubes (unless the buyer insists)! PLEASE DO NOT BID ON THIS POSTER, UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO PAY THE COST OF SHIPPING IT IN A LARGE FLAT PACKAGE!

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