Bob Hope is a TV legend that many people have grown up with. He is one of the best comedians of our time because his jokes are always funny and he has a great personality.
This article talks about Bob Hope's life and his work in movies and on TV.
"I'm so old that they got rid of my blood type," joked Bob Hope when he turned 100 in July 2003. In fact, Bob Hope has been around for most of the 20th century. He became a legend to so many people by making movies, TV shows, radio shows, and, of course, going to visit the troops overseas.
Bob Hope was born on May 29, 1903, in Eltham, England. When he was four years old, his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio ("I left England when I was four years old and realised I couldn't be king"). In 1915, he got his first small break in show business when he won a Charlie Chaplin impersonation contest.
In the early 1920s, he started working in vaudeville, and in the early 1930s, he was on Broadway. In 1938's "The Big Broadcast," his first movie, he sang a duet with Shirley Ross called "Thanks for the Memory." That song would come to be known as "Bob Hope's song."
During his career, Bob Hope was in more than 75 movies, but he only won two honorary Oscars. He even made a joke about not having won an Oscar: "At our house, Oscar night is called Passover!" He didn't win a lot of Oscars, but he enjoyed bringing his own style of humour to the award show. He presented or co-presented the Oscars a record 18 times up until 1977, which is when he died.
The "road" movies he made with Bing Crosby in the 1940s are still his most well-known movies. He also starred with Jane Russell in "The Paleface," which many people think is his best movie. Today, you can buy many of his old movies on DVD or watch them regularly on cable TV.
Hope got into TV later in his career because he wasn't sure that the still-new medium would do well. Hope once made a joke about how movies end up on TV when they die. But TV was what really made Bob Hope a star and a name that everyone in the United States knew.
Easter Sunday, April 1, 1950, was a day to remember. On that day, Bob Hope made his first real appearance on TV. Aside from Hope, the "Star Spangled Revue" also had Dinah Shore and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who were popular entertainers and stars at the time.
The formula for the show worked right away, and Bob Hope's TV shows kept doing well for the next 40 years. Bob Hope's favourite network was NBC, and he was in a lot of Christmas and other holiday specials on that network. In 1996, he did a show with Tony Danza that was his last TV special. Today, these shows are rightly thought of as classics, or shows that have been watched by many generations.
Bob Hope may be best known for the times he visited the troops, which almost certainly did more to boost morale than any visit by the president. Bob Hope's first show like this was in May 1941, when he and a few friends went to March Field in California to entertain the airmen.
As they say, the rest is history. Bob Hope was soon called "G.I. Bob" by the troops, and for the next 60 years, he performed all over the world. He has performed for troops and done radio shows from Europe, the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. He almost always showed up in army fatigues to show his support for the troops.
Bob Hope has been honoured by the U.S. Congress five times and made an honorary veteran and honorary mayor of Palm Springs. He also has several theatres, a battleship, and an airport named after him. The Bob Hope Classic, a major golf tournament, honours his love of the game.
But the most important thing he has given us is a lot of fun over the years. And, of course, he has a sharp sense of humour. His one-liners and quotes are almost as well-known as his TV shows and movies. As he said once, which was right, "I've always been where I needed to be at the right time. I led myself there, of course."
~Ben Anton, 2007
