Bob Hope Biography

Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003), born Leslie Townes Hope, was a famous British-born American entertainer who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, on radio and television, in movies, and in performing tours for U.S. Military personnel.

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 1908. The family came to America as passengers on board the SS Philadelphia. They were inspected at Ellis Island on 30 March 1908. Hope became a U.S. citizen in 1920 at the age of seventeen.

Note: The London Borough of Greenwich was part of Kent until 1941, when there was an administrative shake up.

From the age of 12, Bob Hope worked at a wide variety of odd jobs at a local board walk. When not doing this he would busk, doing dance and comedy patter to make extra money. He entered many dancing and amateur talent contests, and won prizes for his impersonation of Charlie Chaplin. He also boxed briefly and unsuccessfully under the name Packy East. 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 George Byrne ( who would also live to see his own 100th birthday ) and 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. He changed his name to "Bob", reportedly because people in the US were calling him "Hopelessly". His given name as stated above is Leslie, although in the 1920's he sometimes used the name "Lester Hope".

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 The Pepsodent Radio Show Starring Bob Hope began, and would run through 1953. Hope did many specials for the NBC television network in the following decades and these were often sponsored by Chrysler and Hope served as a spokesman for the firm for may years. Hope's Christmas specials were popular favorites and often 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.

He also made a guest appearance on the NBC show "The Golden Girls" in the late 1980's.

Bob Hope appeared as Huck Haines in the musical "Roberta" in 1958 at The Muny Theater in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri.

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, who was good friends with San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos attended numerous Charger games and was even honored by the team during a halftime of a home game at Qualcomm Stadium. 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."

In 1978, he and Bing Crosby were voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. Both men are also members of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

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.

Hope married his second wife, Dolores DeFina, on or about February 19, 1934 (no record of the marriage is known to exist). A devout Roman Catholic, the Bronx-born nightclub singer of Irish and Italian ancestry 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, one of the longest-lasting high profile marriages in Hollywood history. They adopted four children, all from the same orphanage in Evanston, Illinois.

Hope reportedly had many discreet affairs (mostly with young actresses, allegedly including Marilyn Monroe). According to biographer Lawrence J. Quirk, the entertainer committed "countless" infidelities and neglected his children. His reputation for frugality was widely documented.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5].

Hope lived so long that he suffered premature obituaries on two separate occasions. In 1998 a prepared obituary by The Associated Press was inadvertently released on the Internet, prompting Hope's death to be announced in the US 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, joining a small group of notable centenarians in the field of entertainment (including Irving Berlin, Hal Roach, Senor Wences, and George Burns.) 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 US 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 p.m. July 27, 2003 at his home in Toluca Lake, north of Hollywood. He had entertained 11 U.S. presidents.

After the comedian's death, Cardinal Roger 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.