Bob Hope

Lester Townes Hope, known professionally as Bob Hope, was a British-born American comedian, actor, entertainer, and producer whose career spanned nearly eight decades across vaudeville, Broadway, radio, film, television, and USO tours. Born on May 29, 1903, in Eltham, in the County of London, he was the fifth of seven sons of William Henry Hope, a stonemason from Somerset, and Avis Hope, a Welsh light opera singer. The family emigrated to the United States aboard the SS Philadelphia, passing through Ellis Island on March 30, 1908, and settled near Cleveland, Ohio.

From the age of twelve, Hope earned money performing comedy, singing, and dancing on the street, and in 1915 won a prize for his impersonation of Charlie Chaplin. He briefly pursued boxing in 1919 under the name Packy East, recording three wins and one loss, before turning fully to show business in the early 1920s. His entry into professional entertainment came through the vaudeville circuit, where he performed as a comedian and dancer. Silent film comedian Fatty Arbuckle saw Hope and his partner Lloyd Durbin perform in 1925 and arranged work for them with a touring troupe called Hurley's Jolly Follies. Hope subsequently formed an act called the Dancemedians with George Byrne and the Hilton Sisters, conjoined twins who performed tap dancing on the vaudeville circuit. In 1929, he informally adopted the first name Bob, and in December 1920 he and his brothers had become United States citizens when their British parents were naturalized.

Hope's Broadway career began in 1927 with a minor walk-on role in The Sidewalks of New York, followed by another small part in the 1928 production Ups-a-Daisy. His verified Broadway credit includes the 1930 musical Smiles. He returned to Broadway in 1933 to star as Huckleberry Haines in Roberta, the musical by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. Additional Broadway work followed in Say When, the 1936 Ziegfeld Follies alongside Fanny Brice, and Red, Hot and Blue with Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante. During this period he also worked simultaneously in short films, signing first with Educational Pictures of New York, then with the Vitaphone short-subject studio in Brooklyn, where he made musical and comedy shorts during the day while performing in Broadway productions in the evenings.

Hope's film career began in earnest when Paramount Pictures signed him for The Big Broadcast of 1938, which also starred W. C. Fields. That film introduced the song "Thanks for the Memory," performed as a duet with Shirley Ross, which became his lifelong signature tune. He went on to appear in more than seventy short and feature films, starring in fifty-four of them. Among his most successful were the seven Road to films made with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour between 1940 and 1962, including Road to Singapore, Road to Zanzibar, Road to Morocco, Road to Utopia, Road to Rio, Road to Bali, and The Road to Hong Kong. Hope and Crosby had previously worked together on the vaudeville stage in 1932, a familiarity that contributed to their relaxed on-screen chemistry.

Hope began his radio career in 1934, primarily with NBC, and transitioned to television when that medium grew in popularity during the 1950s, hosting regular television specials beginning in 1954. He hosted the Academy Awards ceremony nineteen times between 1939 and 1977, a record. He was widely recognized for his comedic timing, his use of one-liners, and a rapid-fire, often self-deprecating delivery style. He also authored fourteen books.

Between 1941 and 1991, Hope conducted fifty-seven tours for the United Service Organizations, entertaining military personnel around the world. In 1997, Congress passed legislation designating him an honorary veteran of the Armed Forces. Hope retired from public life in 1999 and died on July 27, 2003, fifty-nine days after reaching his one hundredth birthday.