French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, presented by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 309. Photo: Paramount, 1953. Bob Hope in Son of Paleface (Frank Tashlin, 1952).
American postcard by W.J. Gray, L.A.
American postcard "created and protected by Godfrey Herbert, the world explorer, 1941". Photo: Paramount. Bob Hope in Caught in the Draft (David Butler, 1941).
A rapid-fire delivery of jokes that were often self-deprecating
Leslie Townes 'Bob' Hope was born in 1903 in Eltham, a district in southeast London (now part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich), Great Britain. He was the fifth of seven sons of William Henry Hope, a stonemason, and Avis née Townes, a light opera singer who later worked as a cleaner. In 1907, his family moved to Cleveland in the US state of Ohio. In 1915, Hope won a Charlie Chaplin impersonation contest.
After high school, he took dance lessons with King Rastus Brown and Johnny Root. He turned out to be a natural. Hope had a brief career as a boxer in 1919, fighting under the name Packy East. The following year, Hope became a US citizen. After deciding on a show business career at eighteen, he gave dance performances with his then-girlfriend Mildred Rosequist in Cleveland and the surrounding areas.
Then he performed with a pal named Lloyd Durbin. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Comedian Fatty Arbuckle, headlining a touring revue, caught Hope and Durbin's comedy/dancing act and helped the boys get better bookings. Following the accidental death of Durbin, Hope found another partner, George Byrne, with whom he developed a blackface act. After several career reversals, Hope and Byrne were about to pack it in when they were hired to emcee Marshall Walker's Whiz Bang review in New Castle, PA. As the more loquacious member of the team, Hope went out on-stage as a single and got excellent response for his seemingly ad-libbed wisecracks."
A short time later, he found his way to theatres in New York. In 1927, he made his debut on Broadway in the musical 'The Sidewalks of New York'. With material from legendary gagster Al Boasberg, Hope appeared as a single in 'The Antics of 1931', which led to a better theatrical gig with 'Ballyhoo of 1932' in which he was encouraged to ad-lib to his heart's content. He was praised for his comedic timing, specialising in one-liners and rapid-fire delivery of jokes that were often self-deprecating.
Hope broke through in 1933 as the joking Huckleberry Haines, the second lead in the Jerome Kern musical, 'Roberta'. During this show, he met the singer Dolores Reade, whom he married in 1934. That year, Hope signed a contract with Educational Pictures of New York for six short films. The first was a comedy, Going Spanish (Al Christie, 1934). He was not happy with it, and told newspaper gossip columnist Walter Winchell, "When they catch [bank robber] Dillinger, they're going to make him sit through it twice." Although Educational Pictures dropped his contract, he soon signed with Warner Brothers, making films during the day and performing in Broadway shows in the evenings.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1326. Photo: Paramount.
Dutch postcard, no. 249. Photo: Paramount Pictures / M.P.E.A. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour in Road to Morocco (David Butler, 1942).
Everything from in-jokes about Bob and Bing's private lives to talking camels
Due to the success of his satirical radio monologues, Paramount gave Bob Hope a role in the film The Big Broadcast of 1938 (Mitchell Leisen, 1938) starring W.C. Fields, which was an instant success. In this film, he sang 'Thanks for the Memory', which would become his anthem.
With The Cat and the Canary (Elliott Nugent, 1939), he solidified his screen persona as the would-be great lover opposite Paulette Goddard and a "brave coward" who hides his insecurities with constant wisecracking.
In 1940, Bob Hope was teamed with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour for Road to Singapore (Victor Schertzinger, 1940). It led to long queues for cinemas. It was followed by Road to Zanzibar (Victor Schertzinger, 1941), ... Morocco (David Butler, 1942), ... Utopia (Hal Walker, 1946), ... Rio (Norman Z. MacLeod, 1947), ... Bali (Hal Walker, 1948) and ... Hong Kong (Norman Panama, 1952).
The series featured everything from in-jokes about Bob and Bing's private lives to talking camels. Dorothy Lamour sometimes arrived for filming prepared with her lines, only to be baffled by completely rewritten scripts or ad-lib dialogue between Hope and Crosby. Opposite Lamour, Hope also had a hit with My favorite Brunette (Elliott Nugent, 1947). Hope performed for the first time for US soldiers in 1941. He continued to entertain soldiers throughout the rest of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and even as late as 1991 during the Gulf War.
During his performances for these soldiers, he was very involved and almost always wore army clothes as a sign of support and admiration for his audience. In cinema, Hope played other comic roles in Caught in the Draft (David Butler, 1941), Let's Face It (Sidney Lanfield, 1943) with Betty Hutton, the Western spoof The Paleface (Norman Z. McLeod, 1948) with Jane Russell, the musical Fancy Pants (George Marshall, 1950) with Lucille Ball, and My Favorite Spy (George Marshall, 1951) with Hedy Lamarr.
American postcard by Western Publishing & Novelty Co., Los Angeles, Calif., no. 816. Caption: Residence of Bob Hope, North Hollywood, California. Star of NBC and motion pictures. Sent by mail in 1948.
Spanish postcard by JDP, Valencia, no. 1149.
Packing a relatively maudlin script with humanity and humour
In 1944, Bob Hope's radio programme was the highest-rated in the US and in 1950 he made his debut on television. He started hosting regular TV specials in 1954 and hosted the Academy Awards nineteen times from 1939 through 1977.
Hal Erickson: "With his film box-office receipts flagging in the early '50s (audiences didn't quite buy the idea of a 50-year-old man playing a 30-ish girl chaser), Hope took the advice of writer/directors Norman Panama and Melvin Frank and attempted a dramatic film role as Eddie Foy Sr. in The Seven Little Foys (Melville Shavelson, 1955). He succeeded in both pulling off the character and in packing a relatively maudlin script with humanity and humour. Hope's last "straight" film part was as New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker in Beau James (Melville Shavelson, 1957), in which he again acquitted himself quite nicely."
Hope played lead roles in more than 50 films and appeared in supporting roles in 15 others. His last film was Spies Like US (John Landis, 1985), a spoof of the "road" pictures with Crosby and Hope. The film features a cameo by Hope as his golf-playing self. The comedian amassed a fortune, which he invested in real estate. Forbes magazine once estimated his wealth at more than $500 million. Hope received many awards including five honorary Oscars for his outstanding humanitarian achievements in 1940, 1944, 1952, 1959 and 1965. However, the Academy Award for "Best Actor" was never awarded to him.
Hope retired from public life in 1998 and celebrated his centenary on 29 May 2003, He spent the day at his home in Toluca Lake, where he had lived since 1937. Even at that age, his sense of humour did not let him down when he said "I'm so old they abolished my blood type". He died of pneumonia two months later. Hope was briefly married to vaudeville partner Grace Louise Troxell, from 1933 to 1934. His lifelong partner was Dolores Reade who had been one of Hope's co-stars on Broadway in 'Roberta'. The couple adopted four children: Linda (in 1939), Tony (1940), Kelly (1946), and Eleanora, known as Nora (1946).
Biographer Richard Zoglin, quoted at Wikipedia: "Bob and Dolores always claimed that they married in February 1934 in Erie, Pennsylvania. But at that time, he was secretly married to his vaudeville partner Louise Troxell, after three years together on and off. I found divorce papers for Bob and Louise dated November 1934, so either Bob Hope was a bigamist, or he lied about marrying Dolores in February of that year. He had actually married Louise in January 1933 in Erie when they were travelling on the vaudeville circuit. When he claimed he had married Dolores in Erie he was miles away in New York, on Broadway. More intriguing, there is no record anywhere of his marriage to Dolores, if it happened. And there are no wedding photos, either. But he never forgot Louise and quietly sent her money in her later years."
Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Bob Hope in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (George Marshall, 1966).
West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 252. Photo: Paramount.
American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CA, Personality no. 16. Photo: Douglas Kirkland / 1978 Contact. Caption: Bob Hope - Sardonic, fast talking TV and Screen genius Bob Hope is not only Mr. Show Business but is probably the all-time world master of a great humor form, the topical one-liner"/ May, 1976.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.
No comments:
Post a Comment