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Biography
English 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, Hope worked at a wide variety of jobs before boxing briefly and unsuccessfully under the name Packy Easte. He then entered amateur talent contests, winning prizes by impersonating Charlie Chaplin. 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
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.
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 he had a show bearing his name, sponsored by Pepsodent toothpaste. 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 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."
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 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."
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.[citation needed]
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) and his reputation for frugality was widely documented.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Later life
Hope lived so long that he suffered premature obituaries on two separate occasions. In 1998 his death was erroneously reported by Associated Press and subsequently announced in the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 PM July 27, 2003 at his home in Toluca Lake, north of Hollywood. He had entertained 11 U.S. 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 [6].
Bob Hope is interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Professional awards
In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
Academy Awards
2 Honorary Oscars
2 Special Awards
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
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
Congressional Gold Medal (June 8, 1962)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (awarded by Lyndon B. Johnson, January 20, 1969)
Titles and designations
Honorary mayor of Palm Springs, California (1950s)
Hasty Pudding Man of the Year (first awardee, 1967)
Board of Governors of the National Space Institute, forerunner of the present-day National Space Society, a nonprofit educational space advocacy organization founded by Dr. Wernher von Braun (1974)
Honorary Veteran of the United States Armed Forces, a tribute from the United States Congress given in recognition of the entertainment he provided U.S. troops during war and peacekeeping missions (October 29, 1997)
Honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) In recognition of his contributions to film, to song, and to the entertainment of troops in the past. (1998). He had previously been made an Honorary Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1976.
Knighthood from the Knights of Malta and the Order of St. Sylvester from the Vatican
Silver Buffalo Award (highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America)
The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.
Memorials and commemorations
Spirt of Bob Hope USAF C-17 Globemaster III
The PGA Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, which was an existing tournament (The Desert Classic) renamed in recognition of the comedian's lifelong passion for the game, 1966
Bob Hope Drive, streets in both Burbank, California and Rancho Mirage, California. The Rancho Mirage street is the location of Eisenhower Medical Center which Hope and his wife were instrumental in creating.
The Spirit of Bob Hope, a United States Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft (1997) [7]
Bob Hope Square (naming of the intesection at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles to commemorate Hope's 100th birthday, May 29, 2003)
Bob Hope Airport: Hope had joked with his family that he wanted an airport named for him after hearing in 1979 that Orange County officials had renamed their airport after John Wayne. On November 3, 2003 the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority voted unanimously to rename the facility and on November 18, 2003 the Glendale, and Burbank city councils voted unanimously to approve it. Pasadena followed on December 10. The FAA three-letter designation BUR did not change. A rededication ceremony took place on December 17, the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered flight.
Bob Hope Theatre, a renovated Fox Theatre movie house in Stockton, California (2004)
USNS Bob Hope (T-AKR-300), one of the few naval vessels to be named for a living person
Asteroid 2829 Bobhope
Filmography
Early shorts
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
1938: The Big Broadcast of 1938; College Swing; Give Me a Sailor; Thanks for the Memory
1939: Never Say Die; Rhythm Romance; The Cat and the Canary
1940: Road to Singapore; The Ghost Breakers
1941: Road to Zanzibar; Caught in the Draft; Nothing But The Truth; Louisiana Purchase
1942: My Favorite Blonde; Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 4 (short); Road to Morocco; Star Spangled Rhythm
1943: Strictly G.I. (short); Combat America (documentary); They Got Me Covered; Show Business at War (short); Let's Face It
1944: The Princess and the Pirate
1945: The All-Star Bond Rally (short); Story of G.I. Joe (voice-over); Hollywood Victory Caravan (short)
1946: Road to Utopia; Monsieur Beaucaire
1947: My Favorite Brunette; Variety Girl; March of Time, Volume 14, No. 1: Is Everybody Listening? (documentary); Where There's Life; Road to Rio
1948: The Paleface; Sorrowful Jones; The Great Lover
1950: Screen Actors (short); Fancy Pants; Cassino to Korea (documentary)
1951: You Can Change the World (short); The Lemon Drop Kid; My Favorite Spy
1952: The Greatest Show on Earth (cameo); Son of Paleface; Screen Snapshots: Memorial to Al Jolson (short); Road to Bali
1953: Off Limits; Scared Stiff (cameo); Here Come the Girls
1954: Casanova's Big Night; Screen Snapshots: Hollywood's Invisible Man (short)
1955: Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Beauty (short); The Seven Little Foys
1956: Showdown at Ulcer Gulch (short); That Certain Feeling; The Iron Petticoat
1957: The Heart of Show Business (short; narrator); Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Star Night (short); Beau James
1959: Alias Jesse James; The Five Pennies (cameo)
1960s
The Facts of Life; Bachelor in Paradise; The Road to Hong Kong; Critic's Choice; Call Me Bwana; A Global Affair; I'll Take Sweden; The Oscar; Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!; Not with My Wife, You Don't! (cameo); Eight on the Lam; Rowan & Martin at the Movies (short); The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell; How to Commit Marriage
1970s to 1990s
Cancel My Reservation; The Muppet Movie (cameo); Spies Like Us (cameo); A Century of Cinema (documentary); Radio Star: The AFN Story (documentary); Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's (documentary), Rosanne television show (cameo as "Thief who resembles Bob Hope" )
