Iconic Gagmeister Bob Hope Dies
29 minutes ago
By Joal Ryan
Bob Hope, the British-born all-American comic whose jaunty ski-slope profile and sure-fire wisecracks became enduring symbols of optimism from good times to war times, died Sunday afternoon at his home in Toluca Lake, California, less than two months after his 100th birthday.
Hope succumbed to pneumonia, publicist Ward Grant said Monday. He died surrounded by his family, including wife Dolores and daughter Linda.
Beset by failing sight and hearing in recent years, Hope still cut an active figure at an advanced age.
His last TV special for NBC, his network home for 60 years, came in 1996. The day after his 95th birthday in 1998, he could be found in Toluca Lake serving as grand marshal for a parade in his adopted hometown.
His health had been declining in recent years. Aside from losing his sight and hearing, he spent time in a the hospital in 2001 battling a pneumonia. A wave to well-wishers from a balcony, during a stay for gastrointestinal bleeding in 1998, essentially counts as his final public appearance.
In May, he marked his 100th birthday with a quiet dinner at home with family.
"He's thrilled about [turning 100]," Linda Hope told reporters in a telephone press conference shortly before her dad's centenary celebration. "This has been a goal of his for the last number of years. He's determined to be a 100...He rallies [thinking about it]. He's just absolutely amazing."
Amazing is a term that fairly sums up Hope's centennial run: 50-plus movies; 280-plus TV specials; 60 years' worth of overseas shows for U.S. troops; 18 Academy Award-hosting gigs; four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one each for TV, radio, film and live theater); one signature song ("Thanks for the Memories"); an eponymous golf tournament (the Bob Hope (news) Classic) and enough jokes to fill 88,000 pages (as donated to the Library of Congress (news - web sites) in 1998).
"He enjoyed making people laugh, and he enjoyed personal encounters with people and bringing smiles to their faces," Linda Hope said earlier this year.
Like the Road... movies that showcased his famous friendship with crooner Bing Crosby (news), Hope was forever on the move. He traveled the globe entertaining U.S. troops through wars (World War II), police actions (Korea, Vietnam) and New World Order missions (Persian Gulf).
When asked about retirement, Hope would resort to his bag of quips: Pack it in? "Never...I'd rather wear out than rust out."
Unlike comic contemporaries (Milton Berle (news), Jack Benny (news), Henny Youngman) who found fame in one, maybe two, mediums, Hope was an all-purpose all-star--vaudeville, Broadway, radio, film, television.
In the end, few of his movies (see: Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number) may have endured and his annual Christmas TV specials may have run their course, but Hope's reputation as a national instution of comedy was secure.
The Billy Crystal (news) of his day (always the Oscar host, never the Oscar winner), Hope stocked his mantel with five honorary Academy Awards (news - web sites), plus a compliment of Golden Globes, Emmys, People's Choice Awards, a Peabody Award, the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement and the Medal of Freedom, among others. He was dubbed an honorary knight of the British Empire.
Indeed, the Guinness Book of Records lists Hope as the world's most honored entertainer.
Born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, England, on May 29, 1903, he moved to Ohio with his family in 1907, the year he also became a U.S. citizen.
The funnyman's career unofficially launched in 1908 when the boy who would be Bob peformed a Charlie Chaplin (news) imitation in front of a Cleveland firehouse.
He broke into vaudeville at age 18 as a dancer. Seguing into comedy, Hope made his Broadway debut with partner George Byrne in the 1927 show, Sidewalks of New York.
The year that would change his life was 1933: He got his first major critical notices (in the Broadway musical, Roberta) and he got his girl (the former Dolores Reade, a singer).
Hope and Reade wed on February 19, 1934, a union that despite rumors of Bob's philandering would endure parts of seven decades. Dolores was at Bob's bedside when he died Sunday.
In 1937, Hope embarked on another longstanding relationship, inking a deal with NBC for a radio show. The original contract was for 26 weeks. The Peacock and Hope wouldn't part for another 60 years.
His movie career took off in the late 1930s. In all he would star in more than 50 films, including The Lemon Drop Kid (1951) (which introduced the yuletide staple, "Silver Bells"), Sorrowful Jones (1949) and The Seven Little Foys (1955).
With Crosby and resident femme fatale (news - web sites) Dorothy Lamour, he made seven Road... movies. The flicks may have featured exotic locales in their titles--from Road to Singapore (1940) to The Road to Hong Kong (1962)--but they were pure Hollywood, from the cheesy Paramount backlots to the incessent, inside-the-industry jokes traded by Hope and Crosby.
Like many stars who hit it big during the Depression era, Hope found it difficult to bridge the generation gap of the 1960s.
His movie career seemed more out-of-step than ever (I'll Take Sweden, please). His TV specials--especially the annual rah-rah college football tributes--increasingly played like quaint Family Circus comic strips in a Brave New Doonesbury World.
But his older audiences never left Hope and Hope never left them.
He also never left the American soldier. His first show for troops stationed overseas came in 1941. When World War II ended, Hope's mission didn't. Nearly every Christmas from 1948 onward found him delivering GIs a taste of home--from bathing beauties to smart-aleck one-liners.
"I think the shows that had the most meaning for him, were the USO shows," Linda Hope said. "That probably is the thing Dad is going to be best remembered for--his commitment to his men and women in uniform."
