'Laugh boss' Hope dies
2003-07-28 21:13
Los Angeles - US showman Bob Hope, who died Sunday at the age of 100, will be remembered as much as a champion of US troops as for his role as an entertainment institution during his extraordinary 75-year career.
Hope died of pneumonia late on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles with his wife Dolores - his partner for 69 years - and close relatives at his side, his publicist announced Monday.
His razor-sharp wit and mastery of the lightning-fast one-liner made him not only him one of America's best-loved artists, but also an unlikely hero for the 10 million US troops he entertained over half a century.
'Laugh boss'
The British-born comedian, actor, singer, dancer and writer, named entertainer of the century by pollsters and Hollywood's chamber of commerce, was one of the few performers to become a star on vaudeville, Broadway, radio, movies and finally on television, which he made his own.
"I was destined to be an actor," he said in an autobiography he co-authored with his daughter, Linda, titled "Bob Hope, My Life In Jokes."
"The day I was born I stood up and took a bow. When the doctor slapped me, I thought it was applause," he said of the origins of his extraordinary showbusiness longevity.
The "laugh boss" notched up a string of show business records in his seven-decade-long career, including a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most honoured entertainer in history.
2 000 plaudits
He boasted about 2 000 plaudits, including the US Congressional Medal of Honour and a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II as well as 54 honorary doctorates.
In addition, the millionaire showman's unprecedented 60-year pact with the NBC broadcasting network also earned him a Guinness listing for hosting the longest-running contract with a single media organisation.
The quintessential US showman was born in the London suburb of Eltham to a stonemason father and housewife mother on May 29, 1903, and immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio with his family when he was just four.
As a six-year-old, the boy born Leslie Townes Hope got his first taste of applause when he did Charlie Chaplin impressions for local firemen.
After failing to graduate from high school, Hope began touring as a dancer with his girlfriend in 1921 and took second billing to Siamese twins and trained seals as he made a name for himself as a showman.
Bob 'looked better'
After changing his first name to Bob, because he thought it looked better on a theatre marquee, he made his Broadway debut in 1933 and quickly went on to win parts on radio shows and in 1935's "Ziegfeld Follies."
In December 1933, he met the singer Dolores Reade in a New York nightclub and married her in February 1934, forming a union that endured in a business not known for marital longevity.
"If you don't think that's making history in Hollywood, you don't get around much," the father and grandfather of four quipped in his autobiography.
In 1937, Hope launched his Hollywood career with "The Big Broadcast of 1938" which featured "Thanks for the Memory", a song which became his signature tune.
The same year, he signed a contract for a variety show with NBC radio while he honed his movie career in which he made 55 films which would peak with his seven comic "Road to..." films with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour that began with "The Road to Singapore" in 1940.
In many of his films, Hope played the scared-stiff bumbler who wisecracked while juggling beautiful women and outrageous situations.
Troops
But it is his legacy as the tireless official entertainer of generations of US troops during war and peacetime, both at home and abroad, that is likely to be his most enduring legacy.
That love affair began in May 1941 when he reluctantly agreed to broadcast his weekly radio show live from an air force base in California in a move that would transform his career and forged a lifelong bond with servicemen.
Hope travelled 10m kilometers to entertain US troops on six continents between World War II and his final Gulf War tour in 1990, aged 87.
A staunch US patriot, a stance that would draw fire from anti-war activists in the 1960s, he travelled with his troupe from the South Pacific to Beirut, Korea and Vietnam, to joke, croon and soft-shoe shuffle for troops.
During a career that formed part of the history of 20th century America, Hope was befriended by 11 US presidents and is the only entertainer to have a US warship and an air force plane named after him.
Encyclopaedia of jokes
An encyclopaedia of jokes, all of them clean, he meticulously filed away about seven million gags, while his keen business acumen helped him amass a huge fortune, estimated at $500m.
And he was cracking them to the end. Just before his 100th birthday in May, he was said by an aide to have quipped: "I'm so old that they've cancelled my blood type."
Of all his honours, he most cherished his status as an honorary military veteran granted by ex-president Bill Clinton in 1997.