Dixie Lee was an American actress, dancer, and singer.

Born Wilma Wyatt, she adopted the professional name "Dixie Carroll" as a singer and showgirl. Winfield Sheehan

Winfield Sheehan

Winfield Sheehan was a film company executive. He was responsible for much of Fox Film Corporation's output during the 1920s and 1930s. As studio head he won an Academy Award for Best Picture for the film Cavalcade and was nominated three more times.A native of Buffalo, New York, Sheehan served...

 of the Fox film studio changed the name to Dixie Lee, to avoid confusion with actresses Nancy Carroll

Nancy Carroll

Nancy Carroll was an American actress.-Career:She was christened Ann Veronica Lahiff in New York City. Of Irish parentage, she and her sister once performed a dancing act in a local contest of amateur talent. This led her to a stage career and then to the screen. She began her acting career in...

 and Sue Carol

Sue Carol

Sue Carol was an American actress and talent agent.While at a social function in Los Angeles in 1927, a director offered her a part in a film. She took it and began playing minor parts...

. She married Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

 at the age of 18, and had four sons with him, two of whom, Lindsay

Lindsay Crosby

Lindsay Harry Crosby was an American actor and singer.-Early life:Lindsay Crosby, son of Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee, was born in California and named for his father's closest friend and Thoroughbred horse racing partner, Lindsay Howard. He was educated with his three brothers at Bellarmine College...

 and Dennis

Dennis Crosby

Dennis Michael Crosby was an occasional American actor, the son of singer and actor Bing Crosby, and twin brother of Phillip Crosby. He was the father of actress Denise Crosby.-Life and career:...

, would eventually commit suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 as adults.

Crosby's biographer Gary Giddins describes Dixie Lee as a shy, private person with a sensible approach to life. Giddins recounts that Dixie and Bing, as young marrieds, were often invited to parties where liquor was plentiful, and Dixie drank socially to keep up with Bing. She succeeded in curbing Bing's alcohol consumption, but ironically her own alcoholism worsened. She had a brief film career, starring in a few features for Bing's home studio Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 in the 1930s; her most notable film is probably Love in Bloom (1935).

She died from ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer is a cancerous growth arising from the ovary. Symptoms are frequently very subtle early on and may include: bloating, pelvic pain, difficulty eating and frequent urination, and are easily confused with other illnesses....

 on November 1, 1952, three days before her 41st birthday. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City

Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City

Holy Cross Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery at 5835 West Slauson Avenue in Culver City, California, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles....

.

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