76 Facts About Bob Hope

Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope was an English-born American comedian, actor, entertainer and producer with a career that spanned nearly 80 years and achievements in vaudeville, network radio, television, and USO Tours.

Bob Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, starring in 54.

Bob Hope appeared in many stage productions and television roles and wrote 14 books.

Bob Hope was praised for his comedic timing, specializing in one-liners and rapid-fire delivery of jokes that were often self-deprecating.

Bob Hope was born in the Eltham district of southeast London.

Bob Hope arrived in the United States with his family at the age of four, and grew up near Cleveland, Ohio.

Bob Hope became a boxer in the 1910s but moved into show business in the early 1920s, initially as a comedian and dancer on the vaudeville circuit before acting on Broadway.

Bob Hope began appearing on radio and in films starting in 1934.

Bob Hope retired from public life in 1999 and died in 2003, at 100.

Leslie Townes Bob Hope was born on May 29,1903, in Eltham, County of London, in a terraced house at 44 Craigton Road in Well Hall, where there is a British Film Institute 'Centenary of British Cinema' commemorative plaque in his memory.

Bob Hope was the fifth of seven sons of William Henry Hope, a stonemason from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, and Welsh mother Avis, a light opera singer from Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, who later worked as a cleaner.

From age 12, Bob Hope earned pocket money by singing, dancing, and performing comedy on the street.

Bob Hope entered numerous dancing and amateur talent contests as Lester Hope, and won a prize in 1915 for his impersonation of Charlie Chaplin.

Bob Hope had a brief career as a boxer in 1919, fighting under the name Packy East.

Bob Hope had three wins and one loss, and he participated in a few staged charity bouts later in life.

In 1921, while working as a lineman for a power company, Bob Hope was assisting his brother Jim in clearing trees when a tree crashed to the ground, crushing his face; the accident required reconstructive surgery, which contributed to his later distinctive appearance.

Bob Hope then formed a partnership with Lloyd Durbin, a friend from the dancing school.

In 1929, Hope informally changed his first name to "Bob".

Bob Hope returned to Broadway in 1933 to star as Huckleberry Haines in the Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields musical Roberta.

Bob Hope began performing on the radio in 1934 mostly with NBC radio, and switched to television when that medium became popular in the 1950s.

Bob Hope started hosting regular TV specials in 1954, and hosted the Academy Awards nineteen times from 1939 through 1977.

Bob Hope signed a contract with Educational Pictures of New York for six short comedies.

Bob Hope soon signed with the Vitaphone short-subject studio in Brooklyn, New York, making musical and comedy shorts during the day and performing in Broadway shows in the evenings.

Bob Hope had seen Lamour performing as a nightclub singer in New York, and invited her to work on his United Service Organizations tours of military facilities.

Bob Hope starred in 54 theatrical features between 1938 and 1972, as well as cameos and short films.

Bob Hope was disappointed with his appearance in Cancel My Reservation, his last starring film; critics and filmgoers panned the movie.

Bob Hope hired eight writers and paid them out of his salary of $2,500 a week.

Bob Hope continued his lucrative career in radio into the 1950s, when radio's popularity began being overshadowed by the upstart television medium.

Bob Hope did many specials for the NBC television network in the following decades, beginning in April 1950.

Bob Hope was one of the first people to use cue cards.

Bob Hope reprised his role as Huck Haines in a 1958 production of Roberta at The Muny Theater in Forest Park in St Louis, Missouri.

Additionally, Bob Hope rescued the Eltham Little Theatre in England from closure by providing funds to buy the property.

Bob Hope continued his interest and support, and regularly visited the facility when in London.

Hope made a guest appearance on The Golden Girls, season 4, episode 17 called "You Gotta Have Hope" in which Rose is convinced Bob Hope is her father.

In 1992, Bob Hope made a guest appearance as himself on the animated Fox series The Simpsons in the episode "Lisa the Beauty Queen".

Bob Hope continued an active entertainment career past his 90th birthday, concentrating on his television specials and USO tours.

Bob Hope was host of the Academy Awards ceremony 19 times between 1939 and 1977.

Bob Hope had a deep respect for the men and women who served in the armed forces, and this was reflected in his willingness to go anywhere to entertain them.

However, during the highly controversial Vietnam War, Bob Hope had trouble convincing some performers to join him on tour, but he was accompanied on at least one USO tour by Ann-Margret.

Bob Hope sometimes recruited his own family members for USO travel.

Bob Hope was widely praised for his comedic timing and his specialization in the use of one-liners and rapid-fire delivery of jokes.

Bob Hope was known for his style of self-deprecating jokes, first building himself up and then tearing himself down.

Bob Hope had no faith in his skills as a dramatic actor, and his performances of that type were not as well received.

Bob Hope had been well known in radio until the late 1940s; however, as his ratings began to slip in the 1950s, he switched to television and became an early pioneer of that medium.

Bob Hope published several books, notably dictating to ghostwriters about his wartime experiences.

Bob Hope was well known as an avid golfer, playing in as many as 150 charity tournaments a year.

Bob Hope had a heavy interest in sports beyond golf and his brief fling as a professional boxer in his youth.

Bob Hope appeared on the June 3,1963, cover of Sports Illustrated magazine wearing an Indians uniform, and sang a special version of "Thanks for the Memory" after the Indians' last game at Cleveland Stadium on October 3,1993.

Bob Hope bought a share with Bing Crosby of the Los Angeles Rams football team in 1947, but sold it in 1962.

Bob Hope frequently used his television specials to promote the annual AP College Football All-America Team.

The players would come onstage one by one and introduce themselves, then Bob Hope, often dressed in a football uniform, would give a one-liner about the player or his school.

Bob Hope was awarded more than 2,000 honors and awards, including 54 honorary university doctorates.

Bob Hope was presented with the National Medal of Arts in 1995 and received the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award in 1997.

In 1978, Bob Hope was invited to dot the "i" in the Ohio State University Marching Band's "Script Ohio" formation, an honor only given to non-band members on 14 occasions from 1936 through 2016.

In 1992, Bob Hope was honored with the "Lombardi Award of Excellence" from the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation.

Bob Hope was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society, in 1992 at Ferris State University.

Bob Hope was briefly married to vaudeville partner Grace Louise Troxell, a secretary from Chicago, Illinois, who was the daughter of Edward and Mary Troxell.

Bob Hope was described as a "former Ziegfeld beauty and one of society's favorite nightclub entertainers, having appeared at many private social functions at New York, Palm Beach, and Southampton".

Bob Hope had actually married Louise in January 1933 in Erie when they were traveling on the vaudeville circuit.

Bob Hope had a reputation as a womanizer and continued to see other women throughout his marriage.

Zoglin wrote that Bob Hope had several "affairs with chorus girls, beauty queens, singers and showbiz wannabes".

Women who have claimed to have been romantically linked to Bob Hope include Barbara Payton, Marilyn Maxwell, and Rosemarie Frankland.

Bob Hope hosted the White House Correspondents Dinner three times in 1944,1953, and 1976.

Bob Hope was supportive politically of conservative Presidents such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Bob Hope was expressing that kind of backward, suburban, WASP view of minorities, homosexuals, the women's movement.

Bush, who was visiting West Point the same day Bob Hope taped a special there, had declined to meet with him.

Additionally, at a luncheon in Washington that same week, Bob Hope had planned to sit with Nancy Reagan, but she canceled at the last minute.

Bob Hope agreed to tape an public service announcement opposing "bigotry" on their behalf.

Bob Hope, who suffered from vision problems for much of his adult life, served as an active honorary chairman on the board of Fight for Sight, a nonprofit organization in the United States which funds medical research in vision and ophthalmology.

Bob Hope hosted its Lights On telecast in 1960 and donated $100,000 to establish the Bob Hope Fight for Sight Fund.

Bob Hope recruited numerous top celebrities for the annual "Lights On" fundraiser.

Bob Hope owned a home which had been custom built for him in 1939 on an 87,000-square-foot lot in Toluca Lake.

At the age of 95, Bob Hope made an appearance at the 50th anniversary of the Primetime Emmy Awards with Milton Berle and Sid Caesar.

Bob Hope last made an appearance at the Hope Classic in 2000, where he hugged Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik.

In 1998, five years before his death, a prepared obituary written by the Associated Press was inadvertently released, resulting in Bob Hope's death being announced on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

However, Bob Hope remained in relatively good health until late in his old age, though he became somewhat frail in his last few years.