I graduated from Senn High School in 1980. Located on Chicago’s North Side, Senn is a fairly typical inner-city public high school, except for the fact that a lot of famous and semi-famous people graduated from there. Today let’s meet one that will triple your threat: singer, dancer and actress Dixie Lee (class of 1927).

Dixie was born Wilma Winifred Wyatt, in Tennessee. She and her family moved to Chicago and after graduating from Senn Wilma changed her name to Dixie Carroll when she entered a singing contest. She won and subsequent events led her to be being spotted by a talent scout. Dixie signed a contract with Fox Studios, who changed her last name to Lee because there were already a couple of popular singers with the last name Carroll.

After having some success with movie appearances, Dixie met and married a then unknown crooner named Bing Crosby. Although it lasted for twenty years the marriage was not a happy one, due in part to Crosby’s abusive behavior and Dixie’s alcoholism. They had four sons together, two of whom committed suicide as adults, and another one, Gary, who wrote a tell all book about how awful his father was to him and his brothers. (Crosby remarried and seems to have been a better dad to his second batch of kids.)

Dixie made some movies and recordings after her first three sons were born, but soon retired from show business. She passed away from ovarian cancer in 1952.