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Bob Hope

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Bob Hope KBE, KCSG, (May 29 1903 – July 27 2003), born Leslie Townes Hope, was a famous British-American entertainer who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, on radio and television, in movies, and in performing tours for U.S. Military personnel.

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British origins

Hope was born in Eltham, London, England, the fifth of seven sons. His English father, William Henry Hope, was a stonemason from Weston-super-Mare and his Welsh mother, Avis Townes, was a light opera singer but later had to find work as a cleaning woman. The family lived in Weston-super-Mare, then Whitehall and St. George in Bristol, before moving to Cleveland, Ohio in 1907. Hope became a U.S. citizen in 1920 when he was 17.

Early career

From the age of 12, Bob Hope worked at a wide variety of odd jobs at a local board walk. When not doing this he would busk, doing dance and comedy patter to make extra money. He entered many dancing and amateur talent contests, and won prizes for his impersonation of Charlie Chaplin. He also boxed briefly and unsuccessfully under the name Packy East. Fallen silent film comedian Fatty Arbuckle saw one of his performances and in 1925 got him steady work with Hurley’s Jolly Follies. A year later Hope had formed an act called the Dancemedians with the Hilton Sisters, conjoined twins who had a tap dancing routine. After five years on the Vaudeville circuit, by his own account Hope was surprised and humbled when he and his partner Grace Louise Troxell failed a 1930 screen test for Pathé in Culver City, California. Hope returned to New York City and subsequently appeared in several Broadway musicals including Roberta, Say When, the 1936 Ziegfeld Follies and Red, Hot and Blue with Ethel Merman. His performances were generally well-received and critics noted his keen sense of comedic timing.

Films

Bob Hope receiving an (honorary) Oscar
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Bob Hope receiving an (honorary) Oscar

Hope returned to Hollywood during the mid-1930s but at first was relegated to indifferently produced B-pictures and several one-reel comedies for Warner Brothers; however his movie career soon accelerated. In the 1938 film The Big Broadcast of 1938, during a duet with Shirley Ross, Hope introduced the bittersweet song later to become his trademark, Thanks for the Memory, which became a major hit and was praised by critics. The sentimental and fluid nature of the music allowed Hope's writers (whom he is said to have depended upon heavily throughout his career) to later invent endless variations of the song to fit specific circumstances, such as bidding farewell to troops whilst on tour. According to Hope, early during his film career a director advised him that movie acting was done mostly with the eyes, resulting in the exaggerated and rolling eye movements which characterized many of his onscreen performances.

Hope's regular appearances in Hollywood films and on radio made him one of the best known entertainers in North America and at the height of his career he was also making a large income from live performances. For example, during an eight-week tour in 1940 he reportedly generated $100,000 in receipts, a record at the time (this is the equivalent of $1.4 million dollars in 2006 money).

As a movie star he was best known for My Favorite Brunette and the highly profitable Road To movies in which he starred with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour (whom he had first seen performing as a nightclub singer in New York and subsequently invited to work with him on his USO tours). Lamour is said to have shown up for filming fully prepared with her lines, only to be baffled by completely new material which had been written by Hope's own staff of writers without the studio's permission. Hope and Lamour were lifelong friends and she is the actress most associated with his film career along with others such as Lucille Ball, Jane Russell, and Katharine Hepburn.

He never won any Oscars for his performances but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored him with several special awards and he served as host of the Academy Awards ceremony many times beginning in the 1950s and through the 1980s. While hosting one of these presentations he famously quipped that Oscar season was, "as it's known at my house, Passover."

Broadcasting

Hope first appeared on television in 1932 during a test transmission from an experimental CBS studio in New York. His career in broadcasting spanned sixty-four years and included a long association with NBC. Hope made his network radio debut in 1937 on NBC. His first regular series for NBC Radio was the Woodbury Soap Hour. A year later The Pepsodent Radio Show Starring Bob Hope began, and would run through 1953. Hope did many specials for the NBC television network in the following decades and these were often sponsored by Texaco. Hope's Christmas specials were popular favorites and wontedly featured a performance of "Silver Bells" (from his 1951 film The Lemon Drop Kid) done as a duet with an often much younger female guest star (such as Olivia Newton-John or Brooke Shields). His final television special was in 1996 with Tony Danza helping Hope present a retrospective about presidents of the United States.

USO

Bob Hope, Lackland Air Force Base, 1990
Bob Hope and golf club, Lackland Air Force Base, 1990
Photo: [www.af.mil]
Hope performed his first United Service Organizations (USO) show on May 6 1941, at March Field, California. He continued to travel and entertain troops for the rest of World War II and later during the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War. When overseas he almost always performed in Army fatigues as a show of support for his audience. Hope's USO career lasted half a century, during which he headlined approximately sixty tours.

A 1997 act of Congress signed by President Clinton named Hope an “Honorary Veteran”. He remarked, “I've been given many awards in my lifetime — but to be numbered among the men and women I admire most — is the greatest honor I have ever received."

However, there were also critical voices relating to the entertainer's patriotic activities. In his biography, Bob Hope: The Road Well-Traveled (1999), Lawrence J. Quirk writes that Hope was making sacrifices to entertain U.S. servicemen, whom he called "my boys". According to the author, the government always paid for Hope's trips, and by Vietnam, his routines had grown thin and became synonymous with the "war machine."

Interest in sports

Hope had a widely reported passion for sports. He boxed professionally during his youth, was a pool hustler, enjoyed watching football and was at times a part owner of the Cleveland Indians and Los Angeles Rams. Hope, who was good friends with San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos attended numerous Charger games and was even honored by the team during a halftime of a home game at Qualcomm Stadium. Hope was also famous for his interest in golf. He played in a few PGA tour events and the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic is named for him. Hope played golf with nearly every President of the United States from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush and, as seen in the accompanying photo, often used a golf club as an on-stage prop. He appeared in an episode of The Simpsons, "Lisa The Beauty Queen" as himself, on stage at Fort Springfield. His opening lines were "You know, that Mayor Quimby is some golfer. His golf balls spend more time underwater than Greg Louganis."

In 1978, he and Bing Crosby were voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. Both men are also members of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Marriages and personal life

According to biographer Arthur Marx, son of Hope's long-time professional rival Groucho Marx, Hope's first wife was his vaudeville partner Grace Louise Troxell whom he married on January 25 1933. When the marriage record was unearthed some years later Hope denied that the marriage had any substance and said they had quickly divorced. There were rumours that he fathered a daughter with Troxell and that he continued to send generous checks to her despite a reputation for frugality.#redirect [[Template:Fact]]

Hope married his second wife Dolores DeFina on or about February 19 1934 (no record of the marriage is known to exist). A devoutly Roman Catholic Bronx-born nightclub singer of Irish and Italian ancestry, she was known professionally as Dolores Reade and had met Hope two months earlier at The Vogue, a Manhattan nightclub where she was performing. DeFina and Hope remained together until Hope's death sixty-nine years later, the longest marriage in Hollywood history to date. They adopted four children, all from the same orphanage in Evanston, Illinois.

Hope reportedly had many discreet affairs (mostly with young actresses including, allegedly, Marilyn Monroe). According to biographer Lawrence J. Quirk, the entertainer committed "countless" infidelities and neglected his children. His reputation for frugality was widely documented.[link] [link] [link] [link] [link].

Although Hope was frequently criticized, most fans agree the accusations have no real merit and were only caused by jealousy of his immense wealth or resentment of his Republican political beliefs.

Later life

Hope lived so long that he suffered premature obituaries on two separate occasions. In 1998 a prepared obituary by The Associated Press was inadvertently released on the Internet prompting Hope's death to be announced in the US House of Representatives. In 2003 he was among several famous figures whose pre-written obituaries were published on CNN's web site due to a lapse in password protection.

Hope celebrated his 100th birthday on May 29 2003 (Irving Berlin and George Burns were two other notable entertainment centenarians). To mark this event, the intersection of Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles, California was named Bob Hope Square and his centennial was declared Bob Hope Day in 35 US states. Hope spent the day privately in his Toluca Lake home where he had lived since 1937. Even at 100 years of age and with failing health, Hope is said to have maintained his self-deprecating sense of humor, quipping "I'm so old, they've canceled my blood type." He was reported to be worth in excess of one billion dollars, much of which had been made through timely investments in Southern California real estate. According to one of Hope's daughters, when asked on his deathbed where he wanted to be buried, he told his wife, "Surprise me." He died two months later of pneumonia at 9:28 p.m. July 27 2003 at his home in Toluca Lake, north of Hollywood. He had entertained 11 US presidents.

After the comedian's death, Roger Cardinal Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, confirmed that Hope had converted to Roman Catholicism some years before he died and added that he had died a Catholic in good standing. Observers have remarked that it is "certain" his devoutly Catholic wife Dolores influenced him.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. has a wing dedicated to a miracle in Hope, France which was funded by Dolores and Bob Hope in memory of his mother [link].

Bob Hope is interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Professional awards

Bob Hope's Star for Television on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
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Bob Hope's Star for Television on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Academy Awards

Stars on the

  • Motion picture star at 6541 Hollywood Blvd.
  • Radio star at 6141 Hollywood Blvd.
  • TV star at 6758 Hollywood Blvd.
  • Live theatre special plaque at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.

Honors

Medals

Titles and designations

Memorials and commemorations

The Spirit of Bob Hope is a USAF C-17 Globemaster III that was named after the performer.
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The Spirit of Bob Hope is a USAF C-17 Globemaster III that was named after the performer.

Filmography

Early
  • 1934: Going Spanish; Paree, Paree
  • 1935: The Old Grey Mayor; Double Exposure; Calling All Tars; Soup for Nuts; Watch the Birdie
  • 1936: Shop Talk
  • 1938: Don't Hook Now
  • 1940: Screen Snapshots Series 19, No. 6

Films 1938 to 1959

1960s

1970s to 1990s

Listen to

External links

 

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