THE TRAGIC LIFE OF DENNIS CROSBY

Of all Bing Crosby's sons from his first marriage to Dixie Lee (1911-1952), there is the least information on the one twin - Dennis. In the new documentary on the legendary crooner, it is reported that twins Dennis and Phillip Crosby might have suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome due to their mother's alcoholism, which was common knowledge to Hollywood insiders in the 1930s and 1940s.

Sadly, Dennis ended his life. Bing Crosby's 56-year-old son Dennis turned a 12-guage shotgun on himself following a drunken night of heartbreak just two weeks after his divorce became final.

"It was drink and the disease of alcohol that caused him to do this," Dennis' ex-wife Arlene told STAR in an exclusive interview.

"Over the years, I'd urged him to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, but he had gone only a couple of times. Someone has to decide for themselves that they are going to make the effort to stop drinking."

The May 4, 1991  tragedy in a California boarding house where Dennis had been living mirrored the suicide of alcoholic younger brother Lindsay, who ended his life with a single shotgun blast to the head in 1989.

Arlene says Dennis moved to Novato, Calif, 18 months ago. She admits he walked out on her because she was "difficult to live with," but insists that her only desire had been to encourage him to stop boozing.

"I think he had his own pain about him," she says. "But you will not find anyone who would say a bad word about him. He was sweet, kind, gentle and a wonderful father. He had a wonderful sense of humor.

"But Lindsay's suicide devastated him. He was very close to him. For the last two years, he's been distraught. Everything builds up on him. His trust fund also ran out two years ago and he had been living on very little money."

According to Marin County Sheriff's Lt. William Donovan, Dennis was found late that Saturday night by his roommate. Arlene identified the roommate to STAR as Peter Murphy.

"They were old army buddies," she says. "They had been best friends since serving together in Germany."

Arlene met Dennis in 1963 when he worked for Bing Crosby Productions in Los Angeles. She was a secretary at the time. "We fell in love and married," she says. "We had been married for 27 years."

Dennis also had three daughters - who are now are 53, 47, and 43 respectively.

Arlene last saw Dennis a couple weeks before his death: "We had lunch together just one and half weeks ago, and he was saying how very glad he was that our three children were doing so well. But it was clear that, like me, he was also very sad about our divorce.

"It's very sad. I think we both felt alone, although we still saw each other and he knew that I would always be there to support him."

In addition to his three daughers with Arlene, Dennis was the father of Denise Crosby, 56, who played Security Chief Tasha Yar in the syndicated TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

On May 4, 1958, Crosby married Pat Sheehan, a Las Vegas showgirl and model who had once dated his father. She was also Miss San Francisco of 1950, Playmate of the month of October 1958, and part-time actress. Within days, Crosby was sued by another woman, Marilyn Miller Scott, over the paternity of her daughter, Denise Crosby. The sensational lawsuit lasted three years and ended with Dennis being ordered to pay Scott child support and legal fees. This and the marriage to Sheehan and other details caused deep embarrassment for both him and his famous father. Although Bing died when his granddaughter was 19, the two reportedly never met.

Crosby and Sheehan had two sons: Dennis Michael, Jr., and Patrick Anthony. In 1963, while working in Los Angeles for Bing Crosby Productions, he met Arleen Newman. On July 3, 1964, Crosby and Sheehan were divorced. Later that year, Crosby married Newman, with whom he had three daughters, including Kelly Lee Crosby and Erin Colleen Crosby. Dennis was the second of four sons born to the legendary crooner and his first wife, Dixie Lee Crosby. The quietest of the four, Dennis joined his brothers in a nightclub act during the late Fifties, often appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show.

But Dennis always had trouble coping with showbiz. "I guess I wasn't cut out to be an entertainer," he once acknowledged. "I was always painfully self-conscious out here in the spotlight with my brothers."

Bing Crosby died on October 14, 1977, at the age 74 while playing golf in Spain. On January 14, 2006, Dennis's former wife, Pat Sheehan, died at the age of 74. Their son Dennis Michael Crosby, Jr. died on January 15, 2010, and the other son, Patrick Anthony Crosby (born New Year's Eve 1960), died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, on September 19, 2011, after a lengthy illness. He was 50. Of all the Crosby sons, I think Dennis Crosby was probably the most tragic of all of them. They all deserved happiness in their life, but the shadow that Bing Crosby cast was impossible to overcome especially when you mix in depression and alcoholism...