Speaker Bob Hope, I think, by almost any measure, was the most popular entertainer of the 20th century because he was the one entertainer who was number one or close to it in every single major field of popular entertainment, starting in vaudeville, on Broadway, in radio, motion pictures, television and, of course, live personal appearances, which he continued to do for his entire life well into his 80s. And no other entertainer really could match that level of success and that longevity that Bob Hope had.
Speaker All right, stop. No, no, no, thank you, that was great after all that waiting for an opening we need. That’s right.
Speaker There’s another quote where you said he may very well have been seen by more people than anyone else in history. I thought that was a great quote.
Speaker You know, I don’t know how I can defend that, actually. But let me when I saw that a variety once made that statement.
Speaker And if you think about it, Bob Hope may well have been seen by more people than anyone else in the history of the world. I mean, he toured all over the world for many decades in this country. Yeah, I think Bob Hope may have been seen by more people in person than any other human being in history. He entertained all over the world. He entertained in this country personal appearances just constantly for decades. And although many other actors and entertainers were seen on screen and on television, Bob took it to the people. He went all over the world in the country for up to five more than five decades.
Speaker Probably say that a little better.
Speaker Try it one more time. I can do it shorter, maybe just kind of pick up the ending of the first part was great.
Speaker Many entertainers, of course, were seen by millions of people on screen, on television, but Bob Hope by continuing to do personal appearances throughout his life into his 80s, I really think you could argue that no one was seen by more people in history than Bob Hope.
Speaker Yeah, I think that’s great because.
Speaker So, Richard, let’s talk about Bob is a man of contradiction.
Speaker Bob Hope was an entertainer of huge contradictions. He was for decades the most popular entertainer in America, and yet by the end of his his life, he was largely forgotten or dismissed by much of a generation. He was thought of as an old fashioned entertainer by his in his waning years. And yet he was one of the great innovators in show business history. He was a man who brought the nation together in times of crisis during World War Two. He was a symbol of the American spirit. And yet in the nineteen sixties, he became a symbol of the divisions in the country in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker And there was one more thing, the other one was, wait a minute, inscrutable, oh.
Speaker And Bob Hope was an entertainer who was known to millions of people who saw him on screen and felt they knew him intimately. And yet in person, Bob, even his closest friends, didn’t feel they knew him that well. He was an inscrutable personality, a little bit closed off and difficult to get to know. So these are the contradictions that that’s great.
Speaker Let’s do it again. But I think largely that’s fine. OK, maybe not just in your days. Mm hmm. Did people sort of forget about it? I think maybe too, to today’s generation, many young young know who he is, what I’m going for as many people today as they should.
Speaker Yeah, OK. OK.
Speaker Bob Hope was a man of huge contradictions. He was arguably the most popular entertainer for decades in America. And yet today he’s largely forgotten. His achievements are not recognized. He was a man who drew the nation together in times of crisis. He was a symbol of the American spirit during World War Two. And yet he became a symbol of the divisions in America during the nineteen sixties. He was thought of in his later years as an old fashioned entertainer, kind of outmoded. And yet he was one of the great innovators in show business history. And he was a man who people on screen, his fans, millions of fans, felt they knew him intimately. He was such an engaging personality. And yet in person, in real life, even his best friends didn’t feel they knew him very well. He was a difficult man to get to know, to break through. He was a little bit closed off and inscrutable.
Speaker I think that’s. Is there some last thing you don’t need to go through the whole thing again unless you want something at the end of the talks about his comedy specifically is what I’m going for. The notion is maybe making a connection between people today don’t really know what he did in his day. He was really right some prior to that.
Speaker Most people, if they know Bob Hope today, remember him in his later years when he was on the downhill slide of his of his career, what they don’t realize is that Bob Hope in his heyday, was one of the funniest human beings in America. He his movies stand up today.
Speaker The TV specials.
Speaker Yeah. Yeah. But all right. Yeah, right. Mm hmm.
Speaker Bob Hope in his waning years was kind of thought of as an old fashioned entertainer and most people today, if they remember Bob Hope, remember him as being a little bit stodgy, old fashioned comedian. However, if they go back and look at the early movies, Bob Hope in his heyday was one of the funniest people alive. His movies stand up. He was one of the greatest comic screen actors I think we’ve ever seen.
Speaker And as a stand up comedian. Yeah, let me go to Bob Hope.
Speaker In his heyday, Bob Hope was one of the funniest human beings on Earth. He was basically the inventor of stand up comedy in the form we know it today. And if you go back and look at his old movies, he was one of the funniest comic actors that the movies ever produced.
Speaker I think that’s good. OK. Thank you. That’s great.
Speaker So if you would take us to his early years fairly briefly, I don’t want to spend any length with anything, but if you can get us from birth through taking up dance, OK, that would be great. Oh, cutting reform school.
Speaker OK. And you stop me if I’m Gillmore. Bob was born in England.
Speaker He was one of seven boys in the family, the his father was a stonemason who wasn’t making a very good living. He was sort of an alcoholic. He moved the family around a lot in England until around when Bob was four. His father went off to America to look for work, settled in Cleveland, brought the family over when Bob was about four and a half. And he grew up in Cleveland. He grew up in a tough immigrant neighborhood. And it was it was a struggle. The family needed money. All the boys went to work when they were old enough. Bob started working from age 12. So newspapers worked in a drugstore, had lots of odd jobs, never finished high school. In fact, he spent his last couple of years in a in a in school, in a reform school.
Speaker Bob was let me just say that again. Why does it take from the top? OK, the very beginning. I’m less interested in the father. Oh, OK. All right. All right.
Speaker Bob was born in England, his father was a stonemason. The family moved around quite a bit until when Bob was around four and a half. The family moved to America. They settled in Cleveland and grew up. Bob spent his growing up years in a fairly tough immigrant neighborhood was a struggle. The family didn’t have much money.
Speaker The mother is the family didn’t have much money. His mother worked. Most of the boys went to work as soon as they were 12 or 13. Bob had a series of odd jobs, sold newspapers, worked in a drugstore, a bakery. And he was did not finish high school. He was in reform school, actually, let me say that. Bob didn’t finish high school. In fact, he spent a couple of years in reform school, this he never talked about during his life, but in fact, he was for some small time offense, probably shoplifting. He was sent to reform school for about six or eight months. He left reform school and was actually sent back for breaking parole. And he never went back to school. So he did not have much of an education. He wanted to get into show business early. He started dancing. He would dance with it in various amateur shows in Cleveland, around town with various partners.
Speaker I mean, yeah, Bob wanted to get back to the reforms. Yeah, OK.
Speaker Bob didn’t finish high school. In fact, he was sent to reform school when he was 15 years old for some small time offense. Not exactly clear what, but probably shoplifting. And he spent a year and a half to two years in reform school. And that was the end of his formal education.
Speaker He continued to.
Speaker He wanted to get into show business, he started dancing, dancing around town, was popular in amateur shows. He had various partners. His girlfriend, Mildred, was his first partner. They appeared in various amateur shows around. Let me get get that he danced with various partners. His first girlfriend, Mildred, was one of his first partners. They did amateur shows around town, got paid a little bit of money. Bob wanted to get into vaudeville. In fact, he wanted to take his girlfriend on the road and try out a vaudeville act. But his girlfriend’s mother didn’t want that. He he he wanted to take his girlfriend out on the road in a vaudeville act. Mildred’s mother said no. She thought Bob was interested in a little more than just dancing. So Bob found another partner and after playing some engagements in Cleveland, actually Fatty Arbuckle, the old silent film star, helped them get a job in a traveling what they called a tab show, which was like a variety show that traveled around the small circuit of the he got a job in a tab show, which was a variety show that traveled around small towns in the Midwest. It was it was not top level vaudeville. It was one of the sort of start up vaudeville kind of circuits.
Speaker Um, yeah.
Speaker For those that don’t know. Yeah. Define what was this. OK, what was God given to Bob Hope in his career?
Speaker Vaudeville was the main popular entertainment vehicle of the said it differently.
Speaker Vaudeville was the main form of popular entertainment in America from the late nineteen hundreds through the nineteen twenties and thirties, it was a series of acts, usually eight or 10 acts.
Speaker There was a headliner and all sorts of supporting acts, and it might be singers, dancers, jugglers, magicians, animal acts. And they would travel from town to town in various bills. And Bob Hope worked his way up in the vaudeville circuit. There was.
Speaker Said late, nineteen hundreds mentholated.
Speaker Oh, did I? Oh, then let me say that again. Yeah, you’re right. OK, vaudeville was the major form of American popular entertainment, starting in the late eighteen hundreds into the nineteen twenties and thirties. It was traveling live shows that had a series of acts, usually one headliner and a variety of supporting acts. And it was a variety that were jugglers, magicians, singers, dancers, animal acts. Bob started out as a team up with a partner, a dancing team. They would do a song and dance act with a little comedy mixed in. He had a various he. Bob had a series of partners and worked his way up the bill, too, they were fairly well known. Hope and Burn George, burn his partner, me. When Bob Hope teamed up with a man named George Byrne, not George Burns, they had a song and dance act with a little comedy mixed in. They traveled around small time vaudeville, small towns in the Midwest, but worked their way up the bill and they got to New York. They got to be fairly well known. But Bob eventually decided he wanted to be on his own.
Speaker They broke up the act and Bob started working as an emcee in vaudeville, now as an emcee in vaudeville. Bob really developed a new comedy style comedians in vaudeville. There were plenty of comedians in vaudeville, but they were they had very set acts. They often played ethnic characters where they worked with a partner. Think of Burns and Allen. Bob, as an emcee had to do something different. He had to introduce the acts and he had to be spontaneous every night, introducing the act, commenting on what was happening that night, maybe stretching the show or cutting it. And that made him forced him to establish a comedy. And that forced him to what’s the word I’m looking for? As an M.C. in vaudeville, Bob had to be spontaneous every night, introducing the act, cutting the show if it needed to, stretching it where it needed to, and that prompted him to develop a much more spontaneous, conversational, improvisational kind of comedy. And that’s kind of what we think of as stand up comedy today. He really was the inventor of what we today think of as stand up comedy.
Speaker He went, OK. Bob Bob spent quite a few years in vaudeville. He was no overnight sensation. He spent eight or nine years, made his way to the Palace Theater in New York, which was the top of the vaudeville circuit. But it was only after almost a decade in vaudeville that he finally made his way to Broadway in nineteen thirty two. He appeared he had his first major role in a Broadway show, and for the next five years he appeared in a different show every year, including some very prominent. For the next five years, he appeared on Broadway in five different Broadway shows, musicals by Jerome Kern, The Gershwins. Actually, it wasn’t the Gershwins, it was IRA. In five years, he appeared in five different Broadway shows by some of America’s top composers, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter. His big hit was Roberta in nineteen thirty three. Where the song Smoke Gets In Your Eyes comes from. That song was sung to Bob Hope on the stage in nineteen thirty seven. He was in the. Bob’s last Broadway show was Red Hot and Blue by Cole Porter, he costarred with Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante. Bob and Ethel sang the introduced the song It’s De Lovely, and they were recorded. It was the one one time we can hear Bob Hope sing on Broadway. And I assume you’ll get out if you don’t have it. I’ll get you the tape of that. Is there more on Broadway? You want to want me to.
Speaker Let’s talk. Why, Bill, I think, is great.
Speaker Um, could you maybe start off and say he made the transition to Broadway and in no time it’s OK, Heather, go ahead. And maybe the process, how Broadway was. And then the last thing you have a great line in your book is so you get close with it, that would be great, which is, uh, red hot and blue. Brought down the curtain on. Yeah. Yeah. So.
Speaker In nineteen thirty two, Bob finally made the transition from vaudeville to Broadway. He appeared in his first Broadway show and a prominent role. And the next year in nineteen thirty three, he was one of the lead roles in Roberta. Broadway was a much more robust kind of area of American entertainment at that time. Some of the top composers like Jerome Kern and Cole Porter were creating new musicals almost every year. Bob was in five different shows in five years and his last show was Red Hot and Blue with Music by Cole Porter, where Bob costarred with Ethel Merman and they introduced the standard. It’s De Lovely. And that was the last show that Bob did that really brought down the curtain on his Broadway career. Hollywood was waiting.
Speaker OK, yes, perfect.
Speaker Her hands on the page to her.
Speaker Oh, sorry. Let’s just go back for one year.
Speaker Talk to us about how, uh, Leslie Townes Hope. Um, Bob.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker Bob was born. Leslie Townes Hope. You know what, by the way, should I’ve said that at the beginning.
Speaker Yes, maybe so. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can we can do that. Yeah.
Speaker Bob was born Leslie Townes hope he changed it fairly early when he was when Bob was born, Leslie Townes hope he changed it to Lester fairly early, I think, because it sounded less feminine. He kept Lester for his early years of vaudeville. Then one day and one of his engagements in the Midwest, he decided to just change the name to Bob. And when people asked him why, he said it just sounded more. Hiya, fellas. So he suddenly became Bob Hope.
Speaker I’m trying to think of there’s more on that, but there was a yeah, no, I think that’s OK. Yeah, OK. Yeah I that’s just fine. Thank you.
Speaker We did that, so, OK, take a little side trip here for a moment to talk to us about how he met and courted Dolores in this. Oh, yes. Yes. And however much you want to share that, you think about Louise and.
Speaker I’ll give you the stuff and as much as you want to use, sure. Bob was appearing in Roberta in nineteen thirty three when one of his friends in the show, George Murphy, asked him to go to a nightclub and see this new singer, Delores Reed, that went in. Bob loved her and they met. And that was Dolores, the woman that he was soon to marry.
Speaker Let me let me do that a little better.
Speaker Well, yeah, I know I didn’t quite do that. Right. Right. In nineteen thirty three, Bob was appearing in Roberta, a friend of his in the show, George Murphy, asked him one night to go out to a nightclub to see this new singer, Delores Reed. He went to the club, met Delores, and they started dating very soon after they were married just a few months later. It at least very soon after they were married. At least that’s Bob’s story. In fact, there was a little complication with the marriage in that, Bob, unbeknownst to. Well, I don’t know if. In fact, there was a little complication. Yeah, but I like where you’re going with it. Yeah, yeah. In nineteen thirty three, Bob was in Roberta the musical on Broadway when one of his friends in the show, George Murphy, one night asked him to go to a nightclub with him to hear a new singer named Delores Reed. Dolores. You want to do that again. Just again it was nineteen thirty three. Bob was in appearing in the musical. Roberta is nineteen thirty three. Bob was appearing in the musical Roberta when one of his friends in the show, George Murphy, asked him to go to a nightclub to hear a new singer, Delores Reid. Bob went met Dolores, started dating Dolores, and just a few months later, in February, nineteen thirty four, they were married. At least that’s Bob’s story. In fact, there was a little complication. Bob was actually already married a little over a year earlier. He had married his vaudeville partner, Louise Troxel, in a kind of little known ceremony in Erie, Pennsylvania. Only later did people discover this, and Bob never talked about it in his public life. People discovered this only later, Bob never talked about it, but in fact, he was still married in in nineteen thirty four.
Speaker Bob never talked about it.
Speaker He was still married to Louise when I put this, he. Bob had married his vaudeville partner, Louise Troxell, a year earlier, in fact, the divorce didn’t come through until the fall of nineteen thirty four. So Bob could not have been married in February of nineteen thirty four. And it probably they and this is a little tricky to say.
Speaker How do you. Yeah, how should I. The complication is that he was yeah, he was already married. Isn’t all that OK?
Speaker OK, so the divorce didn’t come through till later and in fact no one knows exactly. So there was no marriage license.
Speaker You kind of get to that. You took us up to the point where he got married. Yeah. Bob story.
Speaker Yeah, that’s Bob’s story. In fact, Bob was already married about a year earlier. He had married his vaudeville partner, Louise Troxel, and the divorce didn’t come through until later. So no one knows exactly when Bob Hope really was married. There is no marriage license and. Um, and what, uh.
Speaker Um, I think the interesting thing is that, um, Bob told this story, but now you’re, as the author said, what really happened? So so I can we’re I think we’re OK. Uh, he got me. At least that’s the story that told, I’m told, but.
Speaker In fact, Bob was already married, he married his vaudeville partner about a year earlier, in fact, in fact, Bob was already married about a year earlier. He had married his vaudeville partner, Louise Troxel, and the divorce did not come through until quite a bit later. So no one knows exactly when Bob Hope was really married. There is no marriage license, but at some point they got married and yeah, well, if you could say that.
Speaker But at some point we have to assume he and Dolores got married and it proved to be one of the. Yeah. Something that that can be OK.
Speaker Can I start with. But at some point. Yeah. But at some point, he and Dolores got together. Got married, I guess.
Speaker All right.
Speaker Can I say we have to assume that married Ari? But at some point, we have to assume Bob and Dolores got married and stayed together for sixty nine years, one of the longest running marriages in Hollywood.
Speaker In Hollywood, in Hollywood, yeah.
Speaker But at some point, he and Delores, we assume, got married, stayed together for sixty nine years, one of the longest marriages in Hollywood history.
Speaker Perfect. Thank you. That’s great.
Speaker Um, so, uh, take us now through as much as you care to of how he left New York, got on the train, came to Hollywood and what was he going there to do, make that transition for the movies?
Speaker While Bob was in New York, he was very snobbish about Hollywood. He thought he was a New York sophisticate. And Hollywood was. Hollywood was.
Speaker Uh.
Speaker What was the word I used? Well, anyway, let me say it again, um. When Bob was in New York, he was very snobbish about Hollywood. He thought he was a New York sophisticate and said he had no interest in movies, although he did audition, do a couple of screen tests in the early nineteen thirties and didn’t get any jobs out of it. He made a few short films in nineteen thirty three, thirty four comedy shorts, but.
Speaker Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, OK.
Speaker Bob, was I start again? Yeah.
Speaker In when Bob was in New York, he was very snobbish about Hollywood, he was a Broadway actor, a sophisticate. He wasn’t interested in the movies. He did do a couple of screen tests early in the thirties, weren’t successful. But finally, about nineteen thirty seven, the Hollywood studios were getting interested in Bob Hope and he got offered a contract by Paramount Pictures and he couldn’t turn that down. So he went out on the super chief, took the train across the country with Dolores to appear in the big broadcast of nineteen thirty eight. He thought it was going to be his one movie and he was going to go back to Broadway. In fact, it launched a film career that lasted for five decades.
Speaker Five decades. 40S, 50s, 60s, 70s, no. Actually, it was only a few decades, but.
Speaker So why don’t we why don’t we pick it up at. He thought it was only going to be this one, they go back. Yeah, OK. Yeah, the time does. Yeah, OK. He went after what you wrote was kind of interesting. Yeah, tell me, um. No, sir. That’s later. OK, if you want to take it, just keep going. Uh, take us through the big broadcast. Yeah. Who was in it? Tell us the story of thanks for the memory. And I love what you wrote. We said that’s the moment of the story. OK.
Speaker He went out to Hollywood to make the big broadcast of nineteen thirty eight. This was a movie that Bob was only billed fourth or fifth in the cast. That star was W.C. Fields north. Martha Raye was in it, and Bob played a radio broadcaster in the film. And it was not really much of a film.
Speaker But the highlight of the film was a new song that was written expressly for Bob and his co-star, Shirley Ross. The song was Thanks for the Memory. And this was where Bob.
Speaker The song was Thanks for the memory I wanted to say something about.
Speaker In the big broadcast, what happens to what do I jump in on?
Speaker Should I go back to the highlight of the.
Speaker The highlight of the film was a song was written expressly for Bob and his co-star, Shirley Ross. Thanks for the memory. It was a wonderful song. It was the standout moment of the show. It was an emotional song. And it was the moment that made Bob Hope a star. Let me to do it again a little better. But that’s you don’t need any more about that. You didn’t want more about the. The highlight of the film was a song that was written expressly for Bob and his co-star, Shirley Ross. The song was Thanks for the Memory, and it was the moment that made Bob Hope his star.
Speaker OK, tell us. Yeah, what is it about that performance?
Speaker The director, Michal Lisen, decided to shoot the song live rather than prerecorded, and the song was such an emotional. The song was yeah, yeah, yeah, let me think.
Speaker If you watch Bob singing, Thanks for the memory, you see a man who’s not a great singer but who acts the song, it’s a song that charts the emotional journey of a couple from marriage to divorce and back to loving each other again.
Speaker Know that. Clean that up, but that’s the direction.
Speaker If you watch Bob singing, thanks to the memory, you see a man who wasn’t a great singer, but a man who could act a song, a song that charts the emotional journey of a couple who have been divorced and are getting back together again. It’s a beautiful song, one of the most beautiful production numbers. I think that. Yeah. It’s a beautiful song, and Bob performs it perfectly. It was the moment that made Bob Hope a star.
Speaker Um.
Speaker You wrote that hope brought a new kind of character and attitude. So if you could read that and go on to explain what you meant.
Speaker Bob Hope really brought a new kind of attitude and style to movie comedy, if you think of the movies from the nineteen thirties, they were very high style, sophisticated comedies in art deco settings. Bob was a regular guy using wisecracks when the. Bob was a regular guy, wisecracking. He had this scaredy cat character. Let me do that again. Yeah. Bob created a new kind of character, the wisecracking scaredy cat Bob created a new kind of character, the wisecracking fraidy cat he.
Speaker Yeah, I want to keep keep the thought going, but I mean, that’s right, yeah.
Speaker Bob created a new kind of character. He was the wisecracking scaredy cat for the movies, I think. Yeah, in the movies, Bob created a new kind of character. He was a wisecracking scaredy cat. He was a character that was much more relatable than the old style 30s comedies where you had art deco settings, and that doesn’t I kind of been through that.
Speaker I think, yeah, what what do you want me to emphasize, what you want me to emphasize in the right place?
Speaker You wrote that hope brought a new kind of character and attitude. OK, OK, explain.
Speaker Bob, Bob brought Bob brought a new kind of character and attitude to the movies, he created a character that was kind of a wisecracking scaredy cat. He was a regular guy. He was a guy that everybody could relate to on screen. And this was a much more casual, spontaneous kind of comedy than people had gotten used to in the 1930s. It was more improvisational and it was more relatable for the audience.
Speaker Yeah. OK, that’s good. And did he continue that character to the movies? And from your point of view, maybe up to the mid 40s, what are Bob Hope’s most important movies? Yeah.
Speaker Bob created a kind of wisecracking coward character, and he created that character, Bob created a wise critic, Bob created a new character, kind of a wisecracking coward, and he used that character. He carried it through all sorts of films, service, comedies, buddy comedies that that.
Speaker I’m not used to being so I’m used to being, you know, I’m used to it, I’m used to just, you know, if I make a you know, it’s in an interview, I can stumble. But I realize this is going on. You’re going to use this, OK?
Speaker Bob created a new kind of character. He was a wisecracking coward, and that character was carried consistently through almost every film he did costume dramas, buddy comedies, service comedies. And the audience got to relate to Bob in that way.
Speaker And what else did you what was the next point I wanted to see? Oh, yeah. What are the important movies of that early period? Yeah.
Speaker Bob Kerrey, that Bob created a new character, a kind of wisecracking coward, and he carried it through consistently through movies throughout the 1940s, caught in the draft. Let me start with let me go back to Captain Canary. Yeah. Bob created a new kind of character, kind of wisecracking coward, the first movie that he really showed up that. Sorry, the first movie that Bob really.
Speaker The movie that was really the breakthrough for Bob Hope was in nineteen thirty nine, The Cat in the Canary. This was a kind of comedy horror film. Bob played a kind of wisecracking coward character and that character caught on and that became Bob’s signature. He carried it on to almost all of his movies in the nineteen forties caught in the draft. The road pictures, serial care.
Speaker You want me to just let you know what you liked about that? Yeah, yeah. Um. Maybe just start with the films. Yeah.
Speaker Bob Kerrey, that character throughout his movies in the 1940s, caught in the draft road picture in what would a couple of the others I want to mention guy right there. Well, I mentioned the cat and the canary. Yeah, OK.
Speaker Bob Kerrey, that character, through almost every movie he made in the forties, caught the draft, also Beaucaire the pale face. It was a wonderful character because it was so relatable. He was the everyman. He was afraid, but he could talk his way through anything. And it was a wonderful way of graduating himself with the audience.
Speaker That’s great. How did he he sort of conceived of himself as a great lover.
Speaker Yes, yes. Oh, yeah, that was another aspect.
Speaker He created a great character, a comedy, he created a great character, a kind of wisecracking coward, he was a guy who went after the women. But once he got close to let me do that again. He created a great character, kind of wisecracking coward. He was a ladies man, but the minute he got close to the ladies, he ran away. He was it was wonderful, relatable character, because he was making fun of himself. He was he was playing the everyman. He was making fun of himself. And it was a character that the entire audience could sort of relate to was not intimidating.
Speaker Yeah, I think it’s great to say yeah, you’re saying the minute he got close to the ladies.
Speaker Yeah, yeah. You mean the minute there was any danger? Yeah. You know, because it sounds weird.
Speaker Yeah. Yeah. OK, well, let me, uh, he he was like a puppy chasing us. Yeah.
Speaker You know, he was a he was a what’s the let’s not lecher. But um. What did I um. A wolf will be the area, yeah, who would be yeah, I did romance them, but then. Yeah.
Speaker But it was also how they looked at him.
Speaker Why didn’t the women, wouldn’t you know, he he thought he was more than that. Yeah. Of women.
Speaker But yeah, I mean, he was he was sort of puffed up and, uh.
Speaker Yeah, um.
Speaker I think we’ve got the coward part. So let’s kind of pick it up another aspect. Yeah. Of that character.
Speaker Yeah. Uh.
Speaker OK, another aspect of his character, he was a would be Lothario, he was running after women all the time, but like a little puppy going after a car the minute he got close to them, he’d run away. This was a wonderfully engaging character that everybody could relate to. And it was self-deprecating and it was lots of fun.
Speaker Perfect. OK, that’s great, that’s great. Um.
Speaker All right, so let’s talk about then maybe see another place.
Speaker Where he can see that kid was radio, so kind of get us into.
Speaker Yeah, OK.
Speaker Well, I’m not yeah, can I just start with I mean, you know, Bob had done quite a bit of radio in New York. He appeared on several shows, most of them short lived, and he didn’t really establish a definite personality. It wasn’t until nineteen thirty eight when he moved out to Los Angeles that Pepsodent hired him to host a new show that they were sponsoring. That was the Bob Hope show. Bob was a newcomer in radio. Most of the big stars and radio had been around for years. Jack Benny Burns and Alan Bergen and McCarthy. Bob was the newcomer. He was a youngster comparatively. Pepsodent thought he would draw drawing and he was a he was comparatively a youngster. Pepsodent wanted to draw new, younger audience to radio. Bob started out in radio, although he didn’t have the history that his colleagues in radio had. He didn’t have a character to play Bob Hope and Bob didn’t have.
Speaker Bob didn’t have a character to play, Jack Benny was the cheapskate Bergen and McCarthy had their routine. Bob didn’t have anything like that to build on. So he went out and hired writers, more writers than almost any show in radio. And he told them for us to stand out, it’s going to be on the jokes. We’re going to rise or fall on the jokes. So I want you to read the papers and get me things that are happening in the news. Let’s make jokes out of that. And this was something, believe it or not, that was new in radio. The idea of a radio comedian talking about the outside world, the real world, what was happening, not just part of his little radio circle, the way Bob, not just part of his little circle of radio friends, the way Jack Benny had his little crew, Bob Hope was talking about what was happening in the real world, the news, politics, world affairs, maybe sports or his own activities, his golf game, his friends in Hollywood. And this was something brand new. This was a topical monologue every week by Radio Star. No one else was doing that. And that was the template for basically all of the late night TV hosts we know of from Johnny Carson down to Jimmy Fallon. They all do those opening monologues. There are basically versions of the monologues that Bob Hope innovated in. Nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker OK, OK. How fast the success and talk a little bit about don’t need the rest of the cast. But as I explained, Jerry. OK.
Speaker When Bob went on radio, he gathered around a little group of regulars, one of them was Jerry Colonna, this wonderful comedian with a siren voice and a giant bug eyes, and he was his second banana.
Speaker He had a bandleader. He usually had girl singers on every week. But the main part of the show was that opening monologue, Bob’s opening monologue. The show was almost an instant hit, it was in the top five after one season by nineteen forty one, he was the number one show on radio surpassing all of the comedians who had been on the air for years.
Speaker He was the number one show for most of the World War two years and stayed in the top 10 for most of the nineteen forties.
Speaker Yeah, that’s the right idea.
Speaker Maybe he would put up with it was almost instantaneous, it was Bob’s radio show was an almost instantaneous hit. He was in the top five after the first season. He was the number one show in radio in nineteen forty one and continued through the World War two years and stayed in the top ten, certainly through the entire nineteen forties. No other radio star lasted as long as Bob Hope. That’s not true. I take that back.
Speaker I take that back. We’ll take that up. OK. Let’s talk a little bit more why we’re writers so important. And how did they like writing for him? Yeah, in those days?
Speaker Bob knew that he didn’t have a character to play off of, so he told his writers, this show is going to rise or fall on the jokes. He depended on writers. And he was the first comedian to acknowledge that he had writers. He made jokes about the writers in his show. He was not shy about admitting that he depended on writers.
Speaker Bob, what about him being he was sort of twenty four, seven and that these writers. Yeah, yeah, all that stuff. But talk a little bit about the demands of the writers.
Speaker Bob worked very closely with his writers and he drove them like a taskmaster, he would call them at all hours, day or night with ideas for jokes. He expected them to be on call all the time. Bob Hope was working twenty four seven, and he expected the same thing from his writers.
Speaker That’s. It could be funny without it, right? Yeah.
Speaker Bob was known as a comedian who used writers, of course, but what people?
Speaker Bob acknowledged his writers depended on his writers, but in fact, Bob was very funny without the writers, several of his writers would say Bob was funnier in person than he ever was in his monologues. He was just had a natural wit, easygoing.
Speaker You know, maybe get us into the ad.
Speaker Yeah, yeah.
Speaker Bob was naturally funny. A lot of his writers said he was funnier in person than he ever was in his monologues, and you could see it on the air, on radio and in TV when they made flubs on the air. Bob would have spontaneous reactions that couldn’t have been scripted. So he was a funny guy, even though he used writers and admitted it, he was funny without them.
Speaker How did the audiences respond to those crackups and the ad libbing on the air, whether it was radio or.
Speaker The ad libbing often got bigger laughs than the scripted material. Because it was great and it really ingratiated Bob to the audience, they knew that he was a comedian who used writers, but they could see that when things went off script, Bob was a funny man then to.
Speaker So let’s talk about Winsted.
Speaker Bob, and being meet and work together for the first time and then kind of take us through just a little bit, get us to the road pictures, OK? Yeah.
Speaker Bob and Bing met in New York in nineteen to Bing Crosby. OK, yeah.
Speaker Bob met Bing Crosby in nineteen thirty two when they appeared together on stage at the Capitol Theater in New York, Bing was a big star at the time. He was a big recording star. He was in movies. Bob was much less well known. So Bob was really the emcee for the show. But he and being really hit it off and they decided just to have a little fun on stage, they would kind of play around with some vaudeville bits and do some jokes and have some shtick. And it really worked. The audience loved it and Bob and Bing loved working with each other. Now they split up because Bing went back to Hollywood. Bob continued on Broadway, but five years later when Bob went to California.
Speaker Five years later, when Bob went to Los Angeles and began making movies, he met up with Bing again on the Paramount lot. They got friendly, they appeared again on stage together at benefits. And one of the benefits, a couple of Paramount executives were in the audience and they saw the two of them working together on stage, doing a lot of the same bits they had done in the capital theater in New York. And they said, hey, we had to put these two guys together in a movie. And that’s how the road pictures came to be.
Speaker A little bit about your perspective on the road pictures. Don’t need the history so much unless you’d like to give some, but why do you think they work so well?
Speaker Um, what kind of things happened on the set? To me, those this movie so fresh and different.
Speaker The road pictures, I think, are the highlight of Bob Hope’s movie career. They were wonderful and wonderful example of.
Speaker The road pictures were a wonderful example of almost perfect chemistry between two performers, Hope and Crosby.
Speaker They played off against each other so well, they developed a couple of characters that were consistent through all the road pictures. Crosby was the schemer. Hope was the patsy. And their interplay between each other sounded so natural, so spontaneous, almost ad libbed, even though it wasn’t that they were just enormously ingratiating. There was nothing like this before in Hollywood.
Speaker The old brother acts like the Marx Brothers had a kind of plotted sort of, you know, the previous sort of vaudeville teams who were popular in movies were much more scripted and much more a product of vaudeville. When Bob and Bing got together, they brought something new, a much more spontaneous, natural, conversational kind of comedy.
Speaker It almost looked to ad libbed, even though it almost never was.
Speaker Do they have writers on set?
Speaker Writers were always on the set. Bob, and being there would be a script for the road picture, but both Bob and Bing would go back every night and have their own writers kind of punch up the script with extra jokes. They would try them out in rehearsals. The ones that worked, they would throw into the into the movie.
Speaker And so because the because the script was kind of constantly evolving, it looked very spontaneous and ad libbed, even though they had worked out the jokes in advance.
Speaker Yeah, can I say it is that yeah, I think it’s yeah, I like where you started before you can get connected about whatever it was you said about that. It was the high point of his movie career or favorite. And then real picture. Yeah, uh, and then just kind of take us through what made them so.
Speaker Different from what I mean, I think connect the two.
Speaker Yeah, I like having your opinion as to what you think. OK, that’s the height of movie.
Speaker I think the road pictures were really the highlight of Bob Hope’s movie career. He and Crosby had a chemistry that really was never matched again in movies. They were spontaneous. They worked out.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker OK. Yeah, we just think the way I’m going to, um, move this.
Speaker I think that the road pictures, I think, were really the highlight of Bob Hope’s movie career. He and Crosby has had a chemistry that really no one else could match. They had a conversational relationship, now they had a yeah, um.
Speaker Hope and Crosby had a relationship like no one else in movies, they were spontaneous together, they sounded like they were ad libbing when they were actually not.
Speaker That’s not quite dead either.
Speaker I think guide me, guide me and know I think we’ve got it, so it’s just yeah, um, actually, I mean, I think I, I thought I did it, I think.
Speaker So let’s let’s transition a bit to World War Two. Um, you wrote that hope was the nation’s designated mood lifter, sort of repeat that is somewhere in your answer and then elaborate.
Speaker In the years leading up to World War Two, when America was really ambivalent about whether to get into this European war overseas, Bob Hope started taking his radio show to military bases around the state of California. He really became identified with the military. And at a time when the country was really divided over whether they wanted to go to war or not, I think Bob Hope was, yeah, the designated mood lifter, I forgot that was going to say that.
Speaker OK, I like where you’re going, but OK.
Speaker At a time when the nation was really divided over whether to go to war or not or not, in the years leading up to World War Two, Bob Hope began taking his radio show to military bases around the state of California. He not only introduced the country to the whole idea of the military mindset, I think, which helped prepare the nation for war.
Speaker But once the war got going, Bob was the kind of designated mood lifter. He made jokes about the war, about the military, about the barracks, about overseas.
Speaker Yeah, you know, um, yeah, it’s great.
Speaker Well, let me let me talk, since we’re going to talk about, I mean, the war, what he did during the war in World War Two, Bob had already begun taking his radio show to military bases domestically. Once the war started and it was safe to go overseas. Bob was one of the first of the stars to start entertaining the troops overseas.
Speaker He talked to the troops, he identified with the troops, he.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker I was like, yeah, maybe I do I. The war started. It was the first. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker Well OK, you know, I mean well here’s the deal. I mean, if you want to I do want to talk. Let me let me talk about we’ll get in the designated mood lifter at some point, but, um. Once the war started, Bob was one of the first entertainers to go overseas. There were other entertainers, retainers. When the war started, Bob was among many entertainers who went overseas to entertain the troops, but none were more intrepid than Bob Hope. He went everywhere. He and no one connected with the troops the way Bob did. He spoke their language. They trusted him. They loved hearing his jokes when they were holed up in foxholes in. Yeah. Let me let me kind of rephrase that a little. Many entertainers went overseas to entertain the troops during World War Two, but none were more intrepid than Bob Hope. He connected with the troops. He went to dangerous places. He took risks. When General Patton and the US troops took over Sicily in nineteen forty three, Bob was there three days later. They were still getting bombed by German fighter jets. And Bob, there were there were close calls. Bob had air raid alerts. You know, let me know when General Patton took over. When the allies went into Sicily in nineteen forty three under General Patton, Bob Hope was there three days later, they were still getting bombed by German fighter jets that were air raids, close calls. Bob said it was the scariest time he had ever spent on on the road.
Speaker Bob, send it with him. OK.
Speaker Where would you like. Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Speaker Let’s just yeah, um.
Speaker So he’s he’s. He started doing the army camps in California. What did he learn about that that brought excited about more of these? What did it mean to him to go out there and entertain the troops?
Speaker Even before the US had gotten into World War Two, Bob started entertaining, taking his radio show even before the US got into World War Two, Bob started taking his radio show to military bases around the state of California.
Speaker He loved those audiences because they loved him. He connected with the troops, he spoke their language. He would send his writers in advance to get sort of inside story of what was going on at the camp, who the officers were, what the problems were, and he would make jokes about them in his monologue. And that forged an amazing connection with the troops, people felt that he understood them and Bob learned from that. He learned that everywhere he went, he wanted to connect with the local audience. He would send his writers in advance to do the advance work, to find out what the jokes were, what the local issues were.
Speaker But Bob loved entertaining the military because they loved him and Bob really found a mission. In entertaining the troops, he was doing his job, his patriotic work for the country, but he also was getting a great satisfaction as an entertainer because no audiences are better than the military audiences they love.
Speaker Bob. I wouldn’t want to drink a little bit the.
Speaker Oh, what’s that do, just all kinds of things. OK. It’s good with focus. And nerves and all good things. Hmm.
Speaker Do you want me to just kind of walk through World War Two and a little more casual?
Speaker You know, I would do that, but I think you were. You were going what? OK, well, really good. What are you looking for?
Speaker Let’s say maybe start with entertaining and entertaining the troops. Bob found his life’s mission. Yeah. And then bring that all together and maybe take us through the rest of the world. That maybe he wasn’t in the studio again. He was always doing the.
Speaker Right. Right. Went to the Pacific. Well, that’s right. I’ve got to say that during World War two, he was always. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker Even before World War Two started, Bob began taking his radio show to military camps around the state of California. He loved those audiences because they loved him. And once the war started, Bob decided that this was his mission. He was going to entertain our military men and he did. Almost every show during World War Two was done from one remote location or another, entertaining the troops overseas and domestically. He felt that he had found his patriotic mission.
Speaker Many entertainers went overseas to entertain the troops, but none were as intrepid as Bob Hope and none connected with the troops the way Bob Hope did.
Speaker They felt they knew him. He understood what they were going through. He made jokes about the barracks and the lack of women and the privations of army life, and they loved him for it.
Speaker Bob was also. Bob, also, you know.
Speaker At a time when Bob was just traveling with a tiny little troupe of entertainers, no big entourage, he was able to go to places where entertainers had never gone before. He was close to the combat zone. He was in Sicily just days after the allied troops took over Sicily. He was subjected to air raids, close calls. He went to the Far East. He went to the.
Speaker He went to the European theater, he went to the Pacific theater by the end of the war, Bob Hope was a hero.
Speaker Um, do you want more or more to go? Um. By the end of it, I think hero like my soon to be I.
Speaker Yeah, um.
Speaker But you kind of I like where you’re going. He was insistent for the invasion of the Pacific. This he was in. Yeah, he was in Africa. I can I can see if this was I. I can start. Yeah.
Speaker Um. Once the war started.
Speaker Once the war started, Bob began going overseas to entertain the troops, his first trip was up to Alaska, where the American troops were defending the Aleutian Islands against possible attack from the Japanese. Once it was safe, he went over to Europe, the European theater in North Africa. He went to the Pacific theater.
Speaker He had close calls. He was in Sicily just days after General Patton retook the island from from the Germans. He was in the Pacific Pacific Islands where Japanese soldiers had just abandoned the post. He would, you know.
Speaker Yeah, that doesn’t come from the soldiers. And not only did Bob relate to them, but kind of brought a slice of home. Yeah, that was very different. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker And the.
Speaker Bob was very important for American Bob was very important for American morale in 19 in the world. Yeah. That was very important for American morale in the 40s, Bob was very yeah, Bob was very important for American morale during World War Two for the troops. He brought a slice of home, a friendly face from home, a radio star that they knew face to face where they were in in the foxholes waiting to go to war. Back home, Bob was the designated mood lifter. He made jokes about the war, about the rationing, about all the privations at home. So I think that Bob was the.
Speaker So I think Bob was an important morale lifter for the nation in World War Two, and I don’t think his yeah, yeah, you set up very nice things, uh, for the troops, for the audience at home as a result by the end of the war. What you were sort of going for in terms of you became a real national figure, national treasure. Yeah, yeah. Would you like.
Speaker Um.
Speaker During World War Two, Bob was the designated morale lifter, he went everywhere to entertain the troops and by the end of the war, he was a national hero. I mean, do you want more than that?
Speaker Do you want to give it to them without when you say he brought America to the troops, I say including girls. I mean that we don’t know that. Or does it matter? I don’t know that.
Speaker OK, well, we’ll see. Well, I can, but I like just the definitive he became. Yes. All right. Let me give it one more take and we’ll try to.
Speaker I think Bob Hope was very important to American morale during World War Two. He brought the war back home to America. He no. Bob was. I think Bob Hope is very important to American morale during the. I think Bob Hope I think Bob Hope was very important to American morale during World War Two. He was.
Speaker This is why I don’t want to be an actor. Yeah, yeah. So by the end of the war. Yeah, OK. Should I. Should I go back to the or just do you just want that sentence? Oh, OK, you just are looking OK.
Speaker By the end of the war, Bob Hope was an American hero. OK, that’s what you want. You got it.
Speaker OK. Um, can you take us through? The Alaska flight where he almost killed.
Speaker Bob’s first trip overseas during World War Two was actually to Alaska.
Speaker Do we call Alaska overseas? No, this wasn’t it.
Speaker It really was, but it’s a little confusing. OK.
Speaker Bob’s first big tour during World War Two was to Alaska. Where he entertaining out of the way tiny towns, igloos.
Speaker Bob’s first trip over Bob’s first tour doing World War Two was to Alaska, where U.S. troops were defending the Aleutian Islands from a possible Japanese attack. He traveled all over the state and one night he was supposed to get from a small base to Anchorage. He was trying to get for.
Speaker One night, Bob’s troop was supposed to fly to Anchorage. The weather was getting bad, but Bob wanted to fly there because there were supposed to throw a party for them. The minute the flight took off, they got enveloped in fog, one engine conked out, the radio conked out, so they were flying blind. It was a very dangerous situation. The captain of that flight later said it was the worst flight he ever took.
Speaker Yeah, so I started to, um, what happened the.
Speaker Shortly after they took off, the radio went out the one engine. Yeah, I said that enough. I want to go back there, but. The captain, that flight who became an Air Force pilot with decades of experience, said that was the most dangerous flight he had ever been on. They had no radio connection with the Air Force base that they were trying to. They were headed to Anchorage. They didn’t know where they were. The airport turned on the lights to try to guide them in, and luckily they found the lights just in the nick of time and the pilot guided the plane to a safe landing. Bob got off the flight and he went up to the pilot and later on he gave him a gift. What was it? What was the gift? A watch, OK. The airport turned on the lights trying to guide the plane to safety. Luckily, they caught sight of the lights. The pilot guided the plane to a safe landing. Later on, Bob sent the pilot a watch and he said, thank you for my life. Can I let me just say that again. Sure. The pilot managed to guide the plane to a safe landing at the Anchorage airport, they got off the plane and a little bit later, Bob sent both of the pilots a watch with the inscription. Thank you for my life. OK, that’s.
Speaker All right. Now, so he’s entertaining the troops during World War Two.
Speaker What the tradition had not yet started, uh, for every Christmas I talk about where that tradition started and what that meant to people going forward.
Speaker After World War Two, Bob basically thought his mission was over, he had entertained the troops during the war. Now we were in peacetime. So he didn’t begin touring troupe, the. He didn’t begin touring to entertain the troops again until nineteen forty eight. When the Berlin Airlift was taking place, President Truman asked him if he would go over and entertain the airmen in Berlin at Christmas time. This was the first time. Let me let me say that a little smoother. After entertaining the troops in World War Two, once peace time came, Bob thought his mission was over. But in nineteen forty eight, President Truman asked if he would go over and entertain the airmen who were taking part in the Berlin Airlift at Christmas time, Bob did.
Speaker And that was the first of what became a tradition of going overseas at Christmas to entertain the troops wherever they were somewhere else.
Speaker He went over the subject. Yeah. And how did he feel about. Yeah.
Speaker Actually, you know, it didn’t become an annual thing until nineteen fifty four, so let me let me set, you know.
Speaker After where did he go?
Speaker Oh, yeah. OK.
Speaker Bob entertained for the Berlin Airlift in nineteen forty eight after Berlin, he went to Alaska in nineteen forty nine at Christmas time and in nineteen fifty he entertained the troops in the Korean War. But the annual tradition of Christmas shows really didn’t begin until nineteen fifty four. At the end of the year, he decided to go up to Greenland to entertain the airmen at a strategic air command base at New Year’s that he did. Bob did two shows for the men of the Strategic Air Command up in Greenland around New Year’s time, NBC had the bright idea to film the shows and air it a few weeks later as a special well. That special was the highest rated Bob Hope special of the season.
Speaker Suddenly, Bob and NBC realized they had a good thing going, and that began the annual tradition of Bob going overseas, entertain the troops wherever they were around the world every year at Christmas.
Speaker That’s. OK, we have some home movies like about thirty five minutes of. Of him in Korea. Love, if you could talk just a little bit, if you have something you can say about why Korea was so special. Yeah, um, he was there with Columbia. He was there with Marilyn Maxwell. Also one of his writers was Larry Gelbart. And that’s got some of that, uh, inspiration for from later on.
Speaker Actually, there’s a little and I’ll see if I can talk about. Yeah, yeah. In nineteen fifty, Bob took a troop and went over to entertain our fighting men who are in the. Korean War in 1950, Bob took a troop and went over to entertain the troops during the Korean War.
Speaker General MacArthur, now General MacArthur, had said he didn’t want any entertainers overseas, General MacArthur had said he didn’t want entertainers during the war, but Bob Hope overruled. General MacArthur brought a troop over there and this renewed Bob’s interest in entertaining the troops.
Speaker One of his you want me to say one?
Speaker Among his writers that Bob brought with him was Larry Gelbart, who used his experiences in watching Bob entertain the troops in Korea for his four mash.
Speaker Let me say that again. Do you want experience? Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. One of Bob’s writers on his trip to Korea was Larry Gelbart. And it was Gilbert’s experiences in Korea that led to the creation of his hit series MASH.
Speaker OK, I think that’s great. Um, all right, so let’s talk now.
Speaker Let’s go back in time to talk about, um, the fact that the.
Speaker Set up its own production company, why that was so important and why it remains as important today.
Speaker In the nineteen forties, Bob decided that though every one of his movies were a hit, he wasn’t making enough money, he was paying a lot in taxes and he was.
Speaker Yet let me let me start again.
Speaker In the 1940s, in the 1940s, almost every movie Bob Hope made was a hit, but Bob decided he wasn’t making enough money from the films. He was paying a lot in taxes, and his lawyer gave him the idea. Bob, if you set up your own production company, take a share of the profits, you’ll be able to keep more of it. So Bob decided he wanted to set up his own production company and be a producer of his own films.
Speaker This was something almost unheard of in Hollywood, and the studio turned him down. They said no.
Speaker Bob essentially went on strike against the studio Paramount Pictures and wouldn’t make a movie for over a year until finally Paramount caved in and allowed him to set up his own production company. And that production company is really the model for almost every star production company that you see today. Every Hollywood star basically sets up a production company and has a share in profits in his own films. They’re all pretty much patterned after the production company, The Bob Hope, set up in nineteen forty five.
Speaker OK, that’s great, um, so let’s move on from there.
Speaker It showed you had some sort of entrepreneurial business. Let’s talk about Bob, the entrepreneur, Bob the businessman, Bob the investor, what kinds of things he invested in.
Speaker Bob wasn’t just a great movie star, he was a great businessman, he was a great entrepreneur of his own stardom. He invested his money wisely. Well. Bob wasn’t just a great movie star. He was a great entrepreneur of his own stardom. He set up his own production company, made lots of money from his movies, and he invested his money.
Speaker He invested particularly in real estate in the late 40s and 50s. He started buying up real estate in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere in California. And this was land that he bought cheap and that appreciated wildly. So he became eventually one of the richest stars in Hollywood. In fact, Fortune magazine in the nineteen sixties called him the wealthiest of any Californian. He was, yeah. Do you want me to jump ahead to the 60s or. I don’t need to. Yeah.
Speaker Yes. Kind of stay there. Yeah. Talk about all the kinds of things invested and then get to the point you became the. Is it all right.
Speaker Bob Cleveland. Oh, that’s right, right, right, right, and the oil. OK, well, um.
Speaker Bob set up his own production company. He made a lot of money from his films and he was a great entrepreneur and businessman. He got into the oil business with Bing Crosby. He bought the Cleveland Indians and he started buying real estate. He bought up tons of real estate, very cheap. That appreciated very rapidly in the San Fernando Valley and other parts of California. And in a few short years, he was one of the richest men in Hollywood.
Speaker I think that’s great.
Speaker Um, so let’s talk now about how, um, he was one of the first major radio stars to make the transition.
Speaker In the late nineteen forties, radio was starting to be threatened by television.
Speaker Bob was one of the first radio stars to make the jump into television. He was also the only major movie star to really start doing television on a regular basis. The studios hated television. They were afraid of television.
Speaker They didn’t want their stars to do television because they thought television exposure would damage their value on the big screen. But Bob didn’t care. He was voracious about his exposure. He wanted to be anywhere the audience was. He saw the audience moving into television and he wanted to be there. In April nineteen fifty, he did his first special for NBC on Easter Sunday. It was the highest rated special in TV history up to that point. That launched a relationship with NBC that lasted for more than 50 years. He began doing specials for NBC. He never did a regular series, and this is one of Bob’s great strokes of genius. He realized that television could burn you out very quickly. Television burnt out most of the major comedy stars, if you think about it, from the early 50s, they didn’t last very long.
Speaker Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, they had their few years of heyday and then they faded pretty fast. Bob was the only one that lasted. He lasted partly because he never did a weekly series, he parceled out his exposure carefully, he would do five or six or eight specials a year, and this kept him one of the most popular.
Speaker This kept him the most popular star on NBC for almost five decades.
Speaker How did he do on that first show?
Speaker When Bob did his first show for NBC special on Easter Sunday, nineteen fifty television was brand new. No one knew quite what to do with the medium. Bob brought some of his writers from his radio show over to write sketches. Bob was very nervous, technical problems. Everything went wrong. Bob didn’t like his own performance. He knew he didn’t understand the medium yet.
Speaker And yet the show is the most popular special that TV had yet seen. And it launched Bob on a TV career with NBC that lasted for five decades.
Speaker A little bit about Bob Hope on live.
Speaker Of course, in the early 50s, all television was done live.
Speaker Well, not all.
Speaker Of course, in the early nineteen fifties, all the TV variety shows were done live, and this made them like Broadway shows almost you had to rehearse and do it once and it had to work or not work.
Speaker Well, obviously there were flubs occasionally, but Bob was a good enough performer that he was very good about going with the flow ad libbing. When the flubs happened, he was, uh, what else, live television rise to the occasion.
Speaker Did he increase his popularity in the.
Speaker It was a little tough at the beginning for Bob Hope on that first show, he thought he didn’t like his own performance. He was still getting used to the medium. But as the years went on in the early 50s, he very quickly acclimated. Bob was really good. He could do the scripted jokes. He could do the sketches. And when there were flubs or mishaps on the set, Bob could ad lib. He was fast and he made it really fun. And the audience, I think he helped the audience get acclimated to television.
Speaker They could see that it was a. What is it?
Speaker Every week it was a high wire act, you were doing live television, Bob could do the scripted monologues, he could do the sketches.
Speaker And when things went wrong, Bob could ad lib and the audience loved it.
Speaker That’s great. OK, um.
Speaker Is there anything you can say about him? Doing television in nineteen forty seven KTLA.
Speaker Uh.
Speaker Bob, who was a pioneer in so many ways in show business, was also a pioneer in television in nineteen forty seven when the first Los Angeles TV station went on the air, Bob Hope was the first star you saw. He was the host of a variety show on KTLA in Los Angeles.
Speaker Comfortable and comfortable, you know, in the NEWSROOM.
Speaker Yeah, I’ve seen the picture. Uh, what was the line? He said.
Speaker This is Bob, first commercial television hope.
Speaker Bob was the host of the very first commercial television broadcast in Los Angeles in nineteen forty seven. It was a very awkward looking show. It looks like prehistory right now if you look at it. But and Bob was not comfortable with the camera, but he knew that this was where the audience was going, that this was the coming thing. And Bob, being a pioneer in so many ways, jumped into television at the very outset.
Speaker As long as you’re on the TV track here, um. Take us through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. Um, OK, sort of the rise, but then when you saw the decline start to happen, what he shows were like in the later days, from your perspective.
Speaker And I should also talk about the monologues, the topical monologues, the little.
Speaker Maybe even say, just as on radio, he also did. Yeah.
Speaker Well, where should I start, should I?
Speaker I would say just kind of continue along his career. OK, you have him kind of being spontaneous. The audience is loving him. So what happened from segment 50s on?
Speaker Bob, continue to do specials for NBC through the 50s, 60s, 70s, I think it reached its peak in the late 50s, early 60s, when his topical monologues really were as good as they ever got.
Speaker He would comment on everything, the Cold War, the Kennedys and. People tuned in to Bob Hope to sort of get a get a gauge of what was going on in the world, Bob really established the topical monologue. The the TV specials continue, I think, yeah, um, well, I don’t know what to say, but what do you but what we see today would be OK, Trumper.
Speaker Bob, continue to do specials to the nineteen fifties, sixties and seventies, I think he reached its peak in the late 50s and early 60s. His topical monologues really reflected what was going on in the world. He was cut. He was making jokes about the.
Speaker Bob’s topical monologues were really the highlight of his specials. And I think he established the idea that a comedian could make jokes about the news that became the template for all of the topical monologues that the late night comics do today, down from Johnny Carson down through.
Speaker Jimmy Fallon, and let me say that when better to Jon Stewart, yeah, right. Um.
Speaker The highlight of Bob’s shows were always the topical monologues at the beginning of the show, you can kind of follow the nineteen fifty The History of America. Through Bob Hope’s monologues, he joked about the Kennedys. He joked about the Cold War and when. He really established the topical monologue, the template for the kind of monologues that we see every night in late night television from Johnny Carson down through Conan O’Brien and Jon Stewart.
Speaker So sort of all those people, including Bob, sort of found humor in their politicians, their presidents respectful. But also how would you describe.
Speaker Bob, make joke, Bob made topical jokes about everything that was happening in the country, in the world, all the presidents, but he was very careful to remain nonpartisan. He would joke about Democrats, Republicans. He didn’t want to alienate any part of his audience. He didn’t want to betray any kind of political viewpoint. And I think that is the template that most of the late night comedians followed for many years. Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, David Letterman, the.
Speaker Yeah, um, yeah, so let’s talk about what happened after the service from your point of view.
Speaker By the 1970s, Bob was starting to look a little old fashioned, I think the energy level dropped. I think it was using the cue cards more. He got a little lazy and he also looked a little out of touch as the generation gap is the generation. He also started to look a little out of touch as the sixties happened. The the counterculture. Yeah. Bob started to look a little out of touch. He started making jokes about hippies. He was clearly the older generation. And I think he started to lose touch with much of the younger generation. They saw him as a kind of old fashioned, outmoded entertainer. I think Bob’s energy level, too, was starting to drop as he aged. You could see him depending on the cue cards more. And the specials began to get stronger and he started to go downhill, and I’d say by the nineteen eighties he was.
Speaker Pretty much out of touch, did he stick around too long?
Speaker Bob loved entertaining, he loved doing TV specials, and he just couldn’t leave it. I think he probably stayed around too long. He was getting old. He was depending on the cue cards more. The jokes were getting a little more out of touch. And I think he probably should have retired a little before he did. I think NBC believed it, too. But Bob Hope was such an institution, nobody could fire Bob Hope. So it was a very delicate dance in those last few years, he was getting to the point where he really could barely read the cue cards for the monologue, they started to construct shows that wouldn’t feature him so prominently just to keep him on the air because NBC didn’t want to fire Bob Hope. Finally, they worked out a mutual arrangement where Bob did announce his retirement after the age of 90. And he kind of. Slid away.
Speaker Talk about the turn in the 60s with Vietnam. Yeah. The counterculture and what was happening in the country in the mid 60s, in fact, about.
Speaker Should I should I start with Vietnam or should I? We’re going to go come back to that. Yeah. OK. Bob went to Vietnam for the first time in nineteen sixty four, he thought it was just another another trouble spot on the globe that he would. Yeah. Let me just say it again. Bob went to Vietnam for the first time in nineteen sixty four. He thought it was just one trouble spot on the globe. He would be there for one Christmas and go somewhere else the next year. Little did he know that would be nine years in a row that he would be in Vietnam. The entire culture was changing in the nineteen sixties, there was obviously a big split in the country. The anti-war movement grew. Bob never really understood the anti-war movement. He had grown up in World War Two. He was an American hero during World War Two. He didn’t understand that there could be a war that the US got into, that the entire country didn’t enthusiastically back. So he couldn’t understand the anti-war movement, he badmouthed the protesters. He also kind of crossed the line from being a patriot to a partisan. He got very friendly with Nixon. Nixon used Bob Hope would bring Bob Hope into the White House and give him briefings on why he was bombing North Vietnam, expecting Bob would then go out into the country and help spread the message, which Bob did. And that alienated Bob from a large part of the younger generation, Bob was the voice of the establishment. These were the anti-establishment years, people rebelling against that. They were questioning the military industrial complex. Bob was the face of that. He was the establishment.
Speaker An irony in that, because when he was younger, he was so brash and against the right.
Speaker Yeah, in World War Two, really, Bob was kind of.
Speaker In his early career, Bob was really a rebel. He was brash, he would say things that the network censors didn’t want him to say. Suddenly, in the nineteen sixties, he’s the older generation. Comedians in the nineteen sixties were rebels Lenny Bruce and that generation, they were anti-establishment.
Speaker Bob Hope was the establishment. They didn’t remember when Bob Hope was one of the young, brash upstarts.
Speaker Um. Let’s talk about. You touched on it earlier.
Speaker Let’s talk about the difference between the. Public. Yeah. Or lack thereof? I would be. Let me talk about Bob and his fans. You know.
Speaker Bob was an amazingly engaging public personality. His fans loved him. They felt they knew him intimately and Bob loved his fans. You know, he answered almost every one of his fan mail. He had assistants who would type it up for him. But you could see him answering fan mail with personal anecdotes. So he was reading his family and he had a relationship with his fans that I think was different from any other Hollywood star. So his fans felt they knew him intimately. The irony is that in real life, Bob Hope, the real life person, was known by very few. Even his best friends felt they didn’t really understand him. He was kind of inscrutable personality. He was rather private and closed off. He was not introspective. He was not a person who would you could ever imagine going to his therapist or a shrink. Bob was even his best friends, felt they didn’t really know him.
Speaker Uh, so so, uh, Bob Hope was kind of, uh. A character he created that he played all the time. Yeah.
Speaker Bob was such a great public personality, such an engaging public personality, and he played it twenty four seven. He was always on and it was difficult to get to know even his best friends didn’t feel they really knew him. He had that kind of British reserve. He was born in England. And I think also he became such a public personality that he kind of lost the sense of what was inside of him. He was not an introspective person. He was a person who was always on the stage, whether he was really on the stage or not.
Speaker He was always performing with that. Um, what kind of a father was he?
Speaker Bob and Dolores had four kids, Bob, I think, was a fairly good father, he was affectionate with the kids. Yeah, adopted I yes. Yes. Bob and Dolores adopted four children. Bob was a pretty good father, I would say he was just an absent father and he wasn’t the kind of father who would be extremely close to his kids. He wasn’t the kind of father that they could go to with their problems. I think Delores served most of that function. Bob was away most of the time, but his kids were very fond of him. They wished they knew him better.
Speaker Yeah, I want to go back.
Speaker Just remember you wrote about your book with the letters, the point you’re making about human letters. There was the story you write about in your book about the seven year old girl in Wisconsin. Yeah. Can you tell that story?
Speaker Well, I can. Tell it, I don’t it’s sort of. You know, rather than read I mean, I read well. Does that work?
Speaker I mean, I don’t know, Edek to a photograph that would be nice.
Speaker Well, let me see if it works, I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I know what it is.
Speaker I mean, because just to say that he wrote a kid who had.
Speaker Yeah, let’s just take a break, we’ll work on our.
Speaker OK, yes, go ahead. So should I start with that? What do we say? You wrote that Hope is a celebrity who loved his talk about. Bob Hope really is down for that.
Speaker Bob Hope was a star who loved being famous. A lot of stars today complain about fame, the loss of privacy, the press who hound them. Bob Hope loved being out there. He loved his fans. He was amazing in that he responded to so many of his fan letters with personal replies. And there was one letter, a little kid who he had appeared with at some benefit who had cystic fibrosis.
Speaker A year later, he got a letter that that child had died, OK, not true. And died a year later.
Speaker Back when was this back in the 1960s, Bob appeared with a little girl with cystic fibrosis at some sort of benefit. A year later, he got a letter that the child was dying and they asked Bob if he would write her a letter. So I found the letter and it was so wonderful. He says, Dear Kelly, remember me?
Speaker I had my picture taken with you last year in West Allis. I just heard that you were in the hospital. And so I wanted to send you a little letter to tell you I’m hoping that you’re coming out all right and that you’re putting on a good fight so you can get out of there very soon. I was in Madison, Wisconsin, the other night for a big show at the new auditorium. I did enjoy it and certainly wish I’d had a chance to see you. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’m thinking about you, hoping you will get better and get out and enjoy the beautiful Wisconsin country, a lot of people are praying for you.
Speaker I am, to my best regards, Bob Hope. Now, what a wonderful letter any star might respond with with a letter to a kid with cystic fibrosis. But the little personal touches, the self-deprecating. Remember me? I think that’s just a sign of how close Bob felt to his fans and also how they felt close to him.
Speaker OK, that’s good. All right. Yeah, that’s lovely story. Lovely story. So let’s go back about, um.
Speaker There’s something about the. Because I want to lead us into the womanizing next time some something about. The image that, um, Bob wanted to present of his family life. But there was more of that and kind of get us into it in whatever way you choose. And however, to deal with.
Speaker Bob had kind of an ideal Hollywood family life, wife of sixty nine years, four adopted children, in fact, Bob was not quite the all-American husband and father that he liked to portray. Bob was pretty well known as one of the worst womanizers in Hollywood.
Speaker Should I say that without laughing? Yes. Yeah. And his worst. Yeah, biggest one of the. I would say to the outside world that he appeared to have some kind of bright bright.
Speaker For the outside world, Bob Hope appeared to have the perfect family life, wife of sixty nine years, four adopted children. In fact, the story wasn’t quite so simple. Bob was one of the biggest womanizers in Hollywood. It was fairly well known. He was playing around with a lot of women over the years, and it was amazingly kept out of the press entirely. His entourage was very protective of Bob, and it was an era when the press wasn’t nearly as intrusive as it is today.
Speaker It was kind of accepted that Bob played around all of his writers and most everybody around him knew that it was happening. But the general public never really knew until much later.
Speaker Was there anyone in particular that you would point out and what was the impact for Bob?
Speaker Well, let’s see.
Speaker Bob had a series of girlfriends over the years, some lasted a few years, some were very quick encounters. One actress he was known to have had an affair with was Marilyn Maxwell, who he appeared with in movies and was on TV with him for several years. But mostly he didn’t date the big Hollywood stars. He mostly just had little brief affairs with some of the lesser showgirls and other entertainers that he worked with.
Speaker Maybe you could just mentioned, Max, what that also she was on tour with. OK. Uh, to entertain the troops. And is there any judgment you make about this or is there any sort of is it just part of his story or is there something that. This indicates about him or tells us about him.
Speaker Let me I know, let me and let me say it a different way, which I sometimes do, OK? To the outside world, Bob had an almost perfect marriage and family life. He was married to Delores for sixty nine years and had four adopted children.
Speaker In fact, most of those sixty nine years, Bob was not a faithful husband. He did play around a lot. It was pretty well known. I think it was accepted. It was almost accepted that a Hollywood star had the prerogative to sort of sleep around.
Speaker Bob had a series of girlfriends. Some lasted a few years. Some were very short term. Probably the Best-Known was an actress, Marilyn Maxwell, who he appeared in with in movies with. Probably the best known.
Speaker Others may think.
Speaker I’ve had a series of girlfriends over the years. Some were long term, some were short term. Probably the Best-Known was the actress Marilyn Maxwell. He was in a couple of movies with her and he toured with her for several years and appeared on TV.
Speaker I think that it. I don’t know.
Speaker What do you say that I think it was an era when that sort of thing was accepted among Hollywood stars and people turned the other way? The press never reported on this. The press was much less intrusive than it is today. And I think there was an unspoken agreement that there were certain areas of a star’s life, personal life that were off limits. So Bob was able to get away with it. Was he a bad guy? You know, once you’ve got.
Speaker I don’t know what I think.
Speaker OK, look, I think it’s part of Bob Hope that you have to accept he was a guy who loved women. He had a wife. You know what? Here’s what I will say. Bob Hope played around, I think Bob was Mary. I was married for sixty nine years to Delores, I think it was probably unfaithful in almost every one of those years.
Speaker But in some ways, I think that he actually if you can put the philandering aside, he actually had a very good marriage. He was very close to divorce. He depended on Dolores. Dolores could tell him the truth. Dolores was a good rock of stability for him. And so if you can say that you can have a good marriage despite the infidelity, I think Bob Hope had a good marriage.
Speaker How did she deal with it?
Speaker Dolores would never talk about Bob’s unfaithfulness, even to friends. I am fairly sure she knew what was going on. I think she reached an accommodation. This is what she had to put up with to be Mrs. Bob Hope. And she was a great soul mate for Bob. He trusted her. He listened to her and I think they had a good marriage. If you can set the infidelity aside.
Speaker OK, thank you. What did golf mean, what golf represented?
Speaker Bob started playing golf in the vaudeville years, and he loved the game. It was great recreation for him, exercise for him, and it was also a way of connecting with the rich and powerful. Every time when he was touring, when he would go to a city, he would hook up with the local business leaders and meet him on the golf course. So it was a great way of networking. And he made friends on the golf course that he used for the rest of his life. He was it was the way of becoming part of the sort of movers and shakers around the world. He played golf with presidents. He played golf with corporate leaders. And these were the people that he made connections with through the golf course.
Speaker Great. Um. Let’s talk about Bob in the Oscars.
Speaker Yes, talk about how he came to do it, how many times he did it, and what does it tell us about him or why should why is that important?
Speaker Bob.
Speaker Bob hosted his first Oscar show in 1940. This was before the Oscars were even on the radio. It was still kind of a private industry dinner. He, Bob, continue to host the Oscars through the nineteen forties occasionally, let’s say.
Speaker Yeah, OK, Bob, was it 40 or 39? I think it was with it is in 40. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell you.
Speaker Yeah. Bob hosted his first Oscar show in 1940, and this was the show that Gone With the Wind won the best picture, and this was before the Oscars were even broadcast on radio. He continued to do the show during the 40s every year or two.
Speaker He continued, He didn’t do it every year. I’m just trying to make the point that he just did a lot more than. Yeah. Well, that’s where you start. Bob, Bob hosted the Oscars more than anybody in the.
Speaker Um.
Speaker Bob hosted the Oscars show a total of 19 times, he was the host to co-host of the Oscars so far more than anyone ever has or ever will. He began in 1940. That was the first show he hosted. He continued to do it during the nineteen forties when it was broadcast on radio, and then in nineteen fifty three, when the academy decided for the first time to telecast the show, Bob Hope was the natural choice choice.
Speaker Why, because he had done the show before, you know, what did he do when yeah.
Speaker When the academy decided to telecast the Oscar show in nineteen fifty three for the first time, Bob was the natural choice. He made jokes about Hollywood. He was America’s window into Hollywood.
Speaker He. You know what, let me I want to make that point, but let me.
Speaker Let me first sort of say that he did it, you know, in fact, I think I want to say the 19 time he OK, let’s just go back. I’m sure Bob did his first Oscar show in nineteen forty. He continued to do it during the nineteen forties when it was broadcast on radio and in nineteen fifty three when the Oscars were telecast for the first time, Bob was the natural choice. He continued to do the Oscars through the fifties and sixties. He in the end was the Oscar host or co-host 19 times, far more than anyone else. Bob was by far the best host of the Oscars. He was Bob’s topical monologue. Bob’s monologues during the Oscars were kind of America’s window into Hollywood, that exotic community of film stars where people have fancy homes. And, you know, I have a Wavves.
Speaker He used to do this on when I did my talks, and I’ve I’ve, um, it’s been a while since I did, um.
Speaker Bob was America’s window into Hollywood, this glamorous land of fancy homes and glamorous stars. He was.
Speaker He would. Yeah, let me meet. Let me get back to it.
Speaker Bob was America’s window into Hollywood, this land of fancy homes and glamorous stars where people were glamorous and gracious on the outside but backbiting and jealous of each other on the inside. He made jokes about Hollywood, about the film stars, and it was a way of bringing America. It was a way of introducing America to Hollywood. And I think that our image of Hollywood in a large degree stems from Bob Hope’s jokes about them every year on the Oscars. He was our window into this exotic, glamorous land called Hollywood.
Speaker He said to himself that he never wanted to.
Speaker Bob’s running joke, of course, was that he never won an Oscar. His famous line was welcome to the Academy Awards or as it’s known in my house, Passover.
Speaker He’ll probably use that.
Speaker In fact, I don’t know Bob Hope ever really deserved an Academy Award, but it was a great joke, was a great running joke, and he was self-deprecating. He was part of Hollywood, but he could stand back and make fun of it. He was glamorous and dignified and the perfect Oscar host.
Speaker That’s good.
Speaker Did he come, in your estimation, is there one movie or two movies, maybe his performance was good enough that he won an Oscar, and was he disappointed that he didn’t?
Speaker In the nineteen fifties, Bob’s films started to fade a little bit in popularity, and yet he became more adventurous. He tried to stretch himself as an actor. In nineteen fifty five, he played Eddie Foy, the vaudeville performer in the Seven Little Foys. It was a nice kind of sentimental comedy, and Bob actually did some acting. He sort of thought he might have gotten an Academy Award nomination for that, but he didn’t. He also played he also played Mayor Jimmy Walker in the movie. Gentlemen, gentlemen, both James Bond. James, I’m sorry. He also played Mayor Jimmy Walker in the movie Beau James, he stretched himself as an actor in the nineteen fifties, but I don’t think he ever reached a point where he would have gotten an Oscar nomination. It was more of a running joke for him than actually a serious, I think, concern. Comedians rarely get Oscar nominations. Bob had some good roles, but ironically, I think the best acting he did was not in the showy or parts where he was consciously trying to sort of stretch himself and strive for possibly an Oscar nomination. But was the the smaller comedies, the Road pictures back in the 40s that are never recognized by Academy Award nominations? He was a wonderful comic actor, but he was not what we call Oscar material.
Speaker Did you ever wonder, like I was ever given an honorary Bob used to make jokes about never winning, winning an.
Speaker Let me grab a little one. That’s a good question. Will it, Amies? Is that what you said?
Speaker Uh.
Speaker You know, I’m I’m sure his show, his show is one thing, I’m not sure if he himself one, I don’t think he won and and importantly, an Emmy loser that if he did that.
Speaker Bob used to make jokes about never winning an Oscar, but the irony is that he won five honorary Oscars more than anybody else for various public service and things like that.
Speaker That’s good. Yeah, OK, that’s fine. It strikes me that. In many ways, Hulk is the quintessential immigrant experience. Comes from nowhere. Big success. You talk a bit about that from your point of view.
Speaker Bob, of course, was born in England and he immigrated when he was four and a half, and I think his success was the classic immigrant success story, Bob learned he had to work hard for everything he got. You know, success didn’t come overnight to him. He worked for many years in vaudeville before he made it. He had to work for his family when they were struggling. And I think it was the classic immigrant success story. And I think it it it kind of made him somewhat humble and appreciate his success. He didn’t feel entitled to anything. He knew he had to work for everything. He also loved this country. And I think it motivated his patriotic work to entertain the troops during World War Two. And later, he was as passionate about America as anyone native born. He was an immigrant who really appreciated this country. In the later years, that got to be somewhat of a detriment or at least to part of the younger generation that saw him as as patriotism, it’s no longer fashionable, but for Bob Hope, it never went out of fashion.
Speaker Yeah, that’s great. Did you ever naturalise yes.
Speaker Three questions. Yes, go ahead. Uh.
Speaker Early on in, uh, this family circumstance and the number of kids he was with, he seemed to learn at a very early age that he kind of to act out, to stand out.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker And he learned to kind of crave and cultivate attention. And he talked about that sort of a basis for his character and his sort of love performing and how that developed.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker Bob was one of seven sons, and I think one way to get attention in that family was to act out. Bob was an entertainer from as a little kid. He used to do Chaplin impressions, Charlie.
Speaker Bob was an entertainer from early years when he was a little kid who used to do imitations of Charlie Chaplin. He would sing and dance on the street for money.
Speaker And I think that he grew up in a family, a large family. He didn’t want to just be ignored. He had to.
Speaker To stand out in a family of seven kids, Bob had to learn to entertain. He made himself the center of attention. He entertained, he sang and danced. He did impressions of Charlie Chaplin. And I think he wanted to stand out and he saw entertainment as the way to make a mark.
Speaker That’s. There’s a line just proposed to be entertainer for birth, there’s a line he used the doctors hands him over to his mother and says, congratulations, you just gave birth to an Abraham.
Speaker Well, that’s a Bob Hope joke, I don’t think.
Speaker One of the most interesting things in the book for me was the fact that he hired a writer himself as early as his vaudeville days. Yeah, talk about that. And just in the context of how important his writers were to him for every medium and how he saw early on how important I was to somebody else writing material for him in the leg up on everybody else, on the vaudeville, in television. Yeah, that was super interesting. Then he went out out of his own pocket right here. Right. Right.
Speaker Uh.
Speaker In his early vaudeville days, Bob was really trying to stand out and he realized he didn’t want to be just another vaudeville comedian, he really wanted to stand out. And he went out and hired a writer out of his own pocket and a very good writer, well-known writer who had written for the Marx Brothers and to come up with routines and bits for him. This was probably a risk for him and a gamble that this would be worthwhile. He had to pay for the writer out of his own pocket, but it was his way of it. He was very focused on his success and he did what it took to make it in vaudeville.
Speaker It took him a long time and he tried everything. He would follow the fads. He would go against the fads if he had to. He worked with Siamese twins.
Speaker He worked, you know.
Speaker I don’t know where I’m going with that, but, you know, but but he says with the ongoing presence of an importance of writers. Yeah. To Yeah. Radio.
Speaker Yeah. Let me start with that. Yeah. Yeah. Bob learned the importance of writers very early, even in vaudeville, when he could barely afford it. He hired a writer to help him develop routines to help him stand out. So when he got into radio, he knew that he needed writers, he hired more writers than anyone else in radio. So Bob very early on learned that it was this was a collaborative medium, that he needed writers to to make his comedy as good as it could be. So Bob was not Bob did what it took to succeed, he he followed the fads if he needed to, he he went in his own direction when he wanted to. He spent money on riders. He knew what it took to succeed.
Speaker And he was willing to to take to take the chances. Yeah. You know, to to achieve it. I think we sort of got. Yeah.
Speaker OK, do you put the topical monologue in a little more context? Just for someone of my generation, the topic. Yeah. Is the only monologue, so I can barely imagine what a monologue. Yeah, well that yeah. Maybe Will Rogers did. That’s true. That’s true. I would hope that there was something about Hope’s sort of rapid fire delivery. Yeah. Yeah. So those two things.
Speaker Well I can put it in the context of comedians in vaudeville and how he was different I think. There were comedians in vaudeville before Bob Hope, but they did kind of package routines that they took from town to town, they never changed. Bob was the first comedian to start talking about what was happening in the world, what was happening in the news. And this was a new kind of monologue and really the basis for all of stand up comedy today.
Speaker I think I think what you’re looking for, though, is I’m trying to explain that the old. Comedians to do a monologue about where you play a funny Irish guy or something or your life, your wife.
Speaker Yeah. That he was talking about other things. Right. Right.
Speaker Um.
Speaker The old style vaudeville comedians had set routines, they’d make jokes about their wife or they’d have ethnic jokes. Bob was the first one to talk about the real world, talk about what was happening in the news and this topical monologue. We take it for granted today, but Bob Hope really invented it. Will Rogers did topical material before Bob Hope, Bob Will Rogers was a very popular comedian in vaudeville and in movies, and he talked about what was happening in the news. But who is a folksy guy who told stories?
Speaker Ilaria twirling Oklahoman. Bob took the topical material and added the vaudeville rhythms, the fast paced jokester kind of rhythms that he had developed in vaudeville, and that combining those two things made him, I think, the prototype for today’s topical comedian.
Speaker Following up on that, another thing we’ve learned about planes, especially in the early days of Bob’s comedy, that it wasn’t necessarily that the material was so funny, but how he delivered it was funny.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker If you listen to a lot of Bob Hope’s old monologues, not only do they sort of date because he was talking about topical things, news of the day, but a lot of times the jokes are not that funny. But Bob delivered them so well. You laughed anyway. You know, one of his writers, Larry Gelbart, told me about once he was in the audience in England and Bob Hope was doing a monologue. He was with a girl and Bob made a joke about a motel. He asked the girl, Do you even know what a motel is? This is back in the early 50s. She said, no. He said, why are you laughing? She said, because he’s so funny. It was just Bob had the rhythms, when you listen to Bob, you knew when the punch line came and even if the punch line wasn’t that funny, you knew it was time for you to laugh. He really had conditioned the audience to laugh every 20 seconds or whatever it was. He had the rhythm. He delivered a joke masterfully. No one ever delivered a line better than Bob Hope.
Speaker That’s great. There was a bottle look to yeah. Bob.
Speaker People talk about timing, Bob, who had the people talk about timing, Bob Hope had the greatest timing of any stand up comedian.
Speaker He knew exactly how long to pause after the joke or how to build it in the least amount of words possible. He told his writers to cut out all the excess verbiage. He knew exactly the rhythm. He want to get the maximum joke.
Speaker I the maximum laugh is what I meant to say.
Speaker Timing was very important to Bob Hope, he wanted his jokes cut to the absolute minimum. He knew exactly the rhythm he wanted. He knew exactly how long to pause after the punch line. He wanted to build the joke to the maximum laugh, and he was a master at it.
Speaker How’s that when his writers were creating his character, some of the top stories in your book about how they took the pop that they knew cheapo, the womanizer, um, the braggarts, they embellished his real qualities that they saw. But really, the character that they created was him just.
Speaker Yeah. Yeah. Did you talk about that? Right. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker In the early days of radio, Bob’s writers started to develop a kind of character for him. It was the cowardly guy and the womanizer and various characters characteristics that they were creating for Bob, but they were actually basing them on what Bob was really like in real life. Let me let me say it a little better. In the early days of radio, Bob’s writers had to create a kind of character for him, and so they came up with various things like he was a coward, he was a woman. He would always make jokes about the pretty women on his show. And Bob felt that this was a character. But the writers knew that they were basing this on Bob’s real life personality.
Speaker I don’t know what else I’m exaggerating. Yeah, yeah, exaggerated.
Speaker Is that kind of you want me to do it?
Speaker Yeah, I think so. I it was just sort of interesting. Yeah. Funny that he’s the character. What else did you feel closer to him than the coward? The woman. What else. The kind of the braggart.
Speaker The braggart. Yeah. Yes. Brash. Cowardly.
Speaker Yeah. And maybe connected to um.
Speaker Someone like Jack Benny, who’s really the leading comedian at that time, who wasn’t really cheap, you know.
Speaker Oh, cheapness was another aspect of that. Yeah, but but, you know, I don’t know if it’s useful to connect it to Benny, but because I’m not sure about Benny, I don’t know how cheap he really was. But let me put in the cheap. Let me do it again and. Early on in radio, Bob’s riders felt they had to kind of create a character for him, so they did. And it was a kind of cowardly braggart type of character. He was cheap. He chased after women.
Speaker And Bob felt this was a good character. He got a lot of laughs. Of course, the writers were basing it on the Real-Life Bob Hope. They were using characteristics of its real life and building a comic character out of it in exaggerated form.
Speaker OK, that’s good.
Speaker And the other thing was that he seems sort of in those early days to want to cultivate the widest possible audience. So in a way, he was kind of vanilla. He didn’t want to offend anybody. He wanted to bring everybody in. And that’s why he was so relatable.
Speaker Mm hmm. Well.
Speaker You sort of touched on it. Yeah, I’m not sure what else I said. Yeah, um.
Speaker And so therefore, it is. I think we’d be OK. OK, yeah, OK. Anything else, anything based on material we saw the other day?
Speaker They want to set up that well, you have and see, I was gonna say maybe set up the fact that you took his camera with him in the early days. But if you haven’t seen it. Yeah. Now we have to. Is the production company still viable today, are they still producing?
Speaker No, they were up till he passed away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker I have a couple of things I think and I know we talked about before and you actually repeated it.
Speaker I still don’t think we have the brave coward defined. Yeah. Your answer still went yet that he was after the lady but when he got used to her he got closer. When there was any danger from the from the outside, he backed away. Well, I think the girl when the girl lead you in altitude over over the hill, you get killed. I’ll see you later, you know. I mean, you know what I’m saying?
Speaker Well, but I was referring to I think he was a guy when he he he ogled the girls.
Speaker But when a girl was too far, too aggressive, then that’s still I’m like, I don’t know what to do with it.
Speaker Yeah. Right. Yeah. And what are you saying.
Speaker Like I’ll I’ll follow you into battle. You could get killed in battle. Yeah. I’ll go first. I’ll follow you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean there’s like seven jokes like that in almost every single film and it’s very Woody Allen ish. But that’s the other thing I haven’t talked at all about who he influenced.
Speaker Uh, yeah. Well I could, I could talk about the cowardly braggart character and related to Woody Allen, if you want. I mean.
Speaker Yeah. And mentioned that Woody acknowledges that.
Speaker Um, but but what about the girls? You see, I’m just saying, you know, he ogled the girls and yet when you know, when one turned on him or, you know, he’d turn and run something different than the than the guy who was after the girl.
Speaker And then when there’s somebody and he even does it not with girls, he says to. Yeah, but that’s part of the that’s part of the coward character. You know, you wouldn’t have done that to me. I mean, he’s just sort of weakly.
Speaker Yeah, maybe it’s not categorize at all, but, uh, a braggart, but a coward is just you know, he talked a big game, but he but he he always, um, he’d run from danger and the chips were down. Yeah. Well, let me see if I can say it any better.
Speaker He’d always rescue someone at the end. I mean he would always overcome it but.
Speaker I mean, should we just he developed a character in movies that was should I do that again for you and try to.
Speaker I mean, I’m not sure it gets us too much further, but I can think that let’s let’s listen to what that was it. But I also was looking for a bridge, too. Oh, yeah.
Speaker Which I think. So maybe that’s a maybe the question is, because, you know, Richard, some of this we got with Leonard. Well, that’s true. That’s true about the characters. But let’s talk about this in terms of.
Speaker Other filmmakers, film stars or even stand ups today.
Speaker Do you see Bob Hope in any of these people? Do you see, uh, that he influenced some of these?
Speaker The character that Bob created in his 1940s movies, The Braggart, The Coward, the The Woman Chaser, but scared of them at the same time, I think the most obvious influence he had was on Woody Allen. In Woody Allen’s early movies, Woody will acknowledge he was patterning his character. After Bob Hope, you can hear the same rhythms in the voice. His relationship with Diane Keaton, Woody’s relationship with Diane Keaton in movies like Sleeper and so forth were very much like Hope and Crosby and Woody will acknowledge that. I think that Bob’s other major influence was on all of the topical comedians who were on late night television, from Johnny Carson to Conan O’Brien. Just the idea of every night coming on the air and talking about what’s in the news. That was what Bob Hope sort of innovated back in the 1940s on radio.
Speaker So how should hope be remembered?
Speaker OK, in fact, we may get into some.
Speaker How should he be remembered?
Speaker I think Bob Hope should be remembered as one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century, but also one of the most important, because he was a pioneer in so many different ways in in terms of a businessman, a man who marketed himself a brander. Bob, the whole idea of the brand extension, I think you could say in Hollywood, let me start the. Bob really invented the idea of branding in Hollywood. He wasn’t just a film star or a TV star, he was he wrote books, memoirs, he wrote a newspaper column. He had a golf tournament. There was a comic book based on Bob Hope. He was in every medium. He recognized the importance of his brand. I think he was the first Hollywood star to do that. He was a pioneering businessman in Hollywood, he set up his own production company that was the model for every star production company that came after. And also, he was the most important. Probably the most important legacy of Bob Hope was his public service work. He was really the model, I think, for public service in Hollywood, his work for the troops, his voluminous work for charity. Every star did charity work, but nobody as much as Bob Hope. I think Bob Hope, what he said to his fellow Hollywood stars was, you’re famous. You have an obligation to use your fame in some way to do more than just sign autographs and buy a fancy home in Malibu. You have an obligation to use your fame to give back to do good in some sense, to work for causes, to have a role on the public stage. And I think all of the contemporary stars who are activist in politics from George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, I think they owe a debt to Bob Hope. They may not know it, but he made it safe for stars to be taken seriously on the public stage. So I think that’s the most important legacy of Bob Hope.
Speaker What kind of charities did he work for? Can you mention some specific?
Speaker Um, us, yeah, the, um, so he was there was cerebral palsy, and he just the notion that he did tons of benefits.
Speaker Yeah. And raised a lot.
Speaker Yeah. Yeah. Let me. Yeah. Let me put up um.
Speaker In addition to his work for the USO, Bob did work for dozens of charities, cerebral palsy and so on, he was always on call for anyone who needed help with a new hospital. An old friend who had a cause he wanted. Bob would fly anywhere for a benefit. He did so many benefits. He loved appearing before all sorts of audiences.
Speaker He was doing it for charity. It was good for his recognition, his fame. But Bob knew that he was a star who could give back. He knew that he wanted to use his celebrity to do good. And even though some of the causes became unfashionable in later years, if if his work for the troops began to seem unfashionable for Bob Hope, it was a sincere effort to a mission that he felt important. And I think the the important lesson is not the specific causes that he worked for, but the idea that a Hollywood star should use his celebrity to give back. And Bob Hope was the role model.
Speaker Have is there any evidence, evidence, or have you run across folks that could speak to Bob’s ability to be introspective a.
Speaker And the way I put it is.
Speaker I think Bob Hope was one of the least introspective people in Hollywood. There was almost no one you could less likely imagine walking into a shrink’s office than Bob Hope. He was a happy guy. He was honestly a happy person. He was.
Speaker Where Bob Hope was a happy person, he enjoyed his fame, not every star today you can say the same thing about people, complain about fame, complain about the loss of privacy, the way the press hounds them. Bob Hope didn’t care. Bob Hope honestly loved what he was doing. He loved meeting with fans. He loved being famous. He loved being on the public stage. And he never thought deeply about it, at least by any evidence that we have. I don’t think even his closest friends kind of got a sense of a deep introspection about his life and his work. He went along. He was happy. He did the job. He loved the fans. He met the fans and he enjoyed himself.
Speaker And that’s somehow inspiring. I mean, there are for someone to achieve that kind of success and be that satisfied with its success is, I think, an inspiring thing. So I love talking about Bob Hope because I think he was an inspiring character.
Speaker That’s a good life. Unexampled. Yeah, I know.
Speaker I mean, you know, let me just see if I can elaborate. I think Bob Hope came from a generation where you didn’t go to the therapist to sort of work out your problems with your with your parents or whatever, he was not an introspective person, but he was a happy person. He was someone who achieved a lot in his life and it satisfied him. And just to see someone who sets a goal, achieves that goal and is happy and doing it is an inspiring thing.
Speaker Hmm, you know, that’s that’s good.
Speaker Just we may not want to use this on camera, but just the kind of a fun fact. Is there any indication that he and or divorced were incapable of having children? That’s why they adopted or what was.
Speaker Well, that you’re not going to use this, but, um.
Speaker Uh.
Speaker According to the family, was Dolores, who couldn’t have children, so they adopted.
Speaker I’m not so sure, Bob, who is a pretty well known womanizer. There’s never a hint of any other child out of wedlock. I’m not so sure it wasn’t. Bob was the one who couldn’t have children that. But that’s a question that will remain a mystery. Probably no one knows for sure.
Speaker I have heard a story some years ago.
Speaker That one or two of the kids that they adopted actually were were kids that he had fathered with some other woman and they just passed them through the orphanage, but I had no idea. Well, you not.
Speaker Well, wait a minute, it was Dick Cavett that tells the story. Yeah, he’s he’s heard a rumor that that, yeah, one or two of the kids was actually the mother was one of his. Paramour’s sort of arranged it and and this was arranged, but if that’s I don’t I don’t know if I believe that we can’t talk. Oh, I think it was Tony. I think it was Tony because he has the nose. It looks like Bob Hope.
Speaker Yeah, OK. Although that may be a joke to note.
Speaker Cavett actually asked me that. He personally said, have you heard this story? I heard this story. And I said, no, I never heard that story.
Speaker And I don’t think I can prove it to make you that. If you got a hold. No, I stand no good.
Speaker Are you going to roll the motion? I just do that. Just give me a kiss. You make you.
Speaker All right, let me just frame this self promotion, yeah, and cross promotion. Well, let me go.
Speaker We’ll talk about yeah, Bob was able to be successful in virtually every medium he tried. And I think it’s because he brought that same engaging personality.
Speaker So it just felt like the same. Bob Hope you always knew from radio, from World War Two tours. Now he’s in television. So it worked in every medium. But also Bob was brilliant at cross promotion when he went on TV, he promote his movies. When he was on radio, he would promote his movies or his books. He was a cross media phenomenon and he learned how to brand himself and to promote himself. He was an entrepreneur of his own stardom.
Speaker It was good, yeah, it’s good that combines the kind of got. Yeah, can’t believe he actually drove a Chrysler and he drove a Chrysler.
Speaker And you know what? If you’re still rolling. Yeah. Um. Bob was an unpretentious star, he was one of the wealthiest men in Hollywood, but he drove the cars that his sponsors gave him, the Chryslers or the Chevrolets. He lived in Toluca Lake in a neighborhood that was a fairly middle class, not not a really uppity Beverly Beverly Hills neighborhood. I think Bob used to go to the in and out burger to get a burger. He was he was a man of the people in a way. And I think that among stars, he was one of the most grounded of Hollywood stars. I don’t think he was a pretentious Hollywood star.
Speaker Let’s take it again. Yeah. Interesting thoughts in.
Speaker Even though Bob was one of the most popular and one of the richest stars in Hollywood, he was amazingly grounded. He was unpretentious. He lived in a fairly ordinary neighborhood in Toluca Lake. He would go out for burgers on his own or go shopping at the grocery store. He was not an uppity Beverly Hills Hollywood star.
Speaker I made another point, what was it you said, man of the people you use that. Yeah, built into it? Yeah, well, I drove a car.
Speaker Yeah. Oh, driving the car, you know. Bob was an unpretentious star, he lived in a fairly ordinary neighborhood in Toluca Lake. He drove not Mercedes or Cadillacs. He drove the cars that his sponsors made, the Chevrolets and Chryslers. He would go into the burger place, local burger place or the grocery store himself. I think he really was a man of the people. He appreciated his fans and he wanted to be close to them.
Speaker You know, it is some of the stuff in Palm Springs with Dinah Shore, but not particularly in the Gulf.
Speaker Now, there was the whole Palm Springs thing, but yeah, they’ve known for treating his his entourage, his people, his staff, his writers.
Speaker Well. OK, Bob was not easy to work for. He was a tough taskmaster. He could call his writers at any hour of the day or night. He was working 24/7 and he expected his staff to be working 24/7. So a lot of some of the writers found him difficult to work with, but most of them loved working with him. It was so much fun working for Bob Hope. He was honestly a lot of fun. He made jokes even when they had to work late at night. He made it into an enjoyable experience.
Speaker Bob was almost every writer that I talked to who worked for Bob Hope had a good time doing it, even though they could get exasperated. Bob was very demanding. Bob had an ego, Bob could call it any hour of the day or night. Still, working for Bob Hope was a special experience and they had lots of fun.
Speaker Um, were there any other stories you came across that were like. Emblematic of that letter to the little girl in was.
Speaker And the other thing is, we’re emotional. OK, well, let’s go into World War two, I can talk about.
Speaker Sure.
Speaker When Bob Hope entertained the troops in World War Two, he was intrepid, he went everywhere. When he was touring England in nineteen forty three, he would trek to out of the way Post’s Air Force bases.
Speaker And there was one time when he was entertaining a group of. One time he was entertaining out in England and was it in the in the Moors that was it. There was one time when Bob was entertaining servicemen in the Moors of England and there was a small unit that he couldn’t he couldn’t get to. They found out that Bob Hope was going to bypass them.
Speaker So they marched all the way a few miles to try to catch his show at the nearest base that Bob was going to appear on when they got there. The show had already started and the place was full. It was indoors and there was no room for them. So they had to turn around and start marching back. When Bob finished his show, someone told him what had happened, he got his entertainers into a jeep, they drove and caught up with the troop marching back to their home base, and he did a special show for them.
Speaker That was how determined he was, how dedicated he was during World War Two. And that’s the kind of thing that people never forgot. That’s how he made fans for life.
Speaker That’s a great story and that’s a great story. Yeah, anything else like that in his life?
Speaker His charitable activities for.
Speaker Not that jumps out at me, the do you do any of his charitable work anonymously? This is a guy who thrives on being the.
Speaker Well, you know what? Let’s talk about him being cheap. OK. OK.
Speaker Bob Hope was known for being cheap and he was kind of tight with money when it came to budgets for his TV shows and he wanted to order pizza rather than go out for an expensive dinner. But he was also very generous with friends and relatives, people in need. He gave away lots of money that he never publicized to just friends who needed it, people down on their luck, old vaudeville partners who were out of work, family members who were in trouble. So Bob was very generous. It was a kind of dichotomy.
Speaker It was interesting when it came to his business and the bottom line, he could complain to a staff person over a cab ride. It cost you that much to get to the airport. But he was also very generous. So when you say that Bob Hope was cheap, there’s two sides to that story.
Speaker He has a best friend, and if so, who was?
Speaker Bob Hope really didn’t have any really close friends, I would say the Bob Hope didn’t really have a close best friend. If he did have one, I would say it was Dolores. Dolores was his rock of stability. He could talk to her, she could talk to him honestly. And for a person surrounded by, in some cases a lot of sycophants or people who were protecting him, he needed that that grounding that Dolores gave him.
Speaker But, you know, I talked to a lot of people who were friends with Bob Hope, but they none of them really felt they knew him that well. And while when I would ask who was Bob Hope’s best friend, they were kind of stumped. I think that he did not have what we would think of as a best friend. He knew a lot of people. He had, you know, friendships with lots of people. He was friends with big industrial titans, presidents, little people to old vaudeville partners. He kept he kept close to him. He gave them work in later years. His writers he was close to. But in terms of the kind of what we think of as a best friend, no, I’m not sure Bob Hope had one.
Speaker Was loyalty important to him? Uh.
Speaker Bob wanted his riders to be loyal to him when one of them, Sherwood Schwartz, had to leave and go work for another show. Bob was a little pissed off.
Speaker But.
Speaker Bob wanted his riders to be loyal to him, but I think his riders in most cases were loyal to Bob Hope. A lot of them stayed with him for many years. It was good work. And even though it was sometimes difficult with Bob Hope, they really loved working for him. Most of them. So I think there was a loyalty on both sides. Bob could get a little peevish when one of these riders left for another job, but he got over it. I think he understood the business.
Speaker Um hmm, of fellow performers.
Speaker Who do you think were his favorites would be really love performing with either the movies or.
Speaker Television or radio, I tell you. I think Bob’s famous I think Bob’s favorite performers were the great old vaudeville stars that he was friends with. Let me let me start that again. I think Bob’s favorite performers were the people he knew from the vaudeville years, George Burns, Jack Benny. But another performer that he truly loved, particularly in the later years, was Lucille Ball, because he recognized how good she was. He was in four movies with her, did TV specials with her.
Speaker And it was an interesting match because Lucille was a different kind of performer from Bob Hope. Bob didn’t like to rehearse. Bob was very instinctive as a performer. Lucille Ball worked very hard, was a perfectionist, rehearsed a lot. This sometimes annoyed Bob on the set. He would sometimes complain, but he worked with her time and again. He knew that Lucille Ball was a great comic performer. So I think that was probably his favorite performer to work with.
Speaker And I notice if we’re talking here in this area, our audience is going to want to know about being I’m saying, oh, you didn’t mention.
Speaker Oh, gosh.
Speaker Well, yeah.
Speaker Bing and Bob were a great team on stage and on screen, they loved working together, they were not that close in real life. They were very different people. Bob was gregarious, love being a star, loved the Hollywood scene. Bing was more reclusive. He didn’t so much like Hollywood. He didn’t so much enjoy his fame being like to go off and go go fishing, hunting. Bob never did that. Bob didn’t hardly take vacations. And I think they they kind of got on each other’s nerves some time. Bob was not close with being in a personal way. The families never got together.
Speaker But as performers, they were terrific together and they, you know, they did love working with each other and they loved the relationship.
Speaker I can see that to those of us who watch and love those movies. And this is really unique chemistry between.
Speaker There was a real chemistry between Bob and being on stage, I think personally they were not so close.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker There was a maybe just yeah, there was a real there was a real chemistry between Bob and Bing, they loved working together, but they were not that close personally. They were very different people. Bob was very gregarious, loved the Hollywood scene, loved being famous, loved dealing with his fans. Bing was much more standoffish, a little bit cold and reclusive. He moved his family to Northern California halfway through his career. And so I think there was a clash, a little bit of a clash there. But gosh, there was never a team that worked together better than Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
