LOS ANGELES, July 28 — Bob Hope, ski jump-nosed master of the one-liner and favorite comedian of servicemen and presidents alike, has died, just two months after turning 100. Hope died late Sunday of pneumonia at his home in Toluca Lake, with his family at his bedside, longtime publicist Ward Grant said Monday.THE NATION’S MOST-honored comedian, Hope was a star in every category open to him — vaudeville, radio, television and film, most notably a string of “Road” movies with longtime friend Bing Crosby. For decades, he took his show on the road to bases around the world, boosting the morale of servicemen from World War II to the Gulf War.
He perfected the one-liner, peppering audiences with a fusillade of brief, topical gags.
“I bumped into Gerald Ford the other day. I said, ‘Pardon me.’ He said, ‘I don’t do that anymore.”’
He poked fun gently, without malice, and made himself the butt of many jokes. His golf scores and physical attributes, including his celebrated ski-jump nose, were frequent subjects:
“I want to tell you, I was built like an athlete once — big chest, hard stomach. Of course, that’s all behind me now.”
When Hope went into one of his monologues, it was almost as though the world was conditioned to respond. No matter that the joke was old or flat; he was Bob Hope and he got laughs.
“Audiences are my best friends,” he liked to say. “You never tire of talking with your best friends.”
‘MOST INFLUENTIAL COMEDIAN’
He was admired by his peers, and generations of younger comedians. Woody Allen called Hope “the most influential comedian for me.”
Hope earned a fortune, gave lavishly to charity and was showered with awards, so many that he had to rent a warehouse to store them.
Through he said he was afraid of flying, Hope traveled countless miles to entertain servicemen in field hospitals, jungles and aircraft carriers from France to Berlin to Vietnam to the Persian Gulf. His Christmas tours became tradition.
He headlined in so many war zones that he had a standard joke for the times he was interrupted by gunfire: “I wonder which one of my pictures they saw?”
So often was Hope away entertaining, and so little did he see his wife, Dolores, and their four adopted children, that he once remarked, “When I get home these days, my kids think I’ve been booked on a personal appearance tour.”
Hope had a reputation as an ad-libber, but he kept a stable of writers and had filing cabinets full of jokes. He never let a good joke die — if it got a laugh in Vietnam, it would get a laugh in Saudi Arabia.
On his 100th birthday, he was too frail to take part in public celebrations, but was said to be alert and happy — and overwhelmed by the outpouring of affection. The fabled intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street was renamed Bob Hope Square, and President Bush established the Bob Hope American Patriot Award.
“He can’t believe that this is happening and that he’s made it to his Big 100,” son Kelly Hope said at the time.
Failure is the only thing I've ever been
a success at."
— from "Here Come the Girls" (1957)
Bob Hope: "I've never heard my courage
questioned."
Lucille Ball: "I've never heard your courage mentioned."
— from "Sorrowful Jones" (1949)
"Brave men run in my family."
— from "The Paleface" (1948)
"I wanted to be a detective. It only took brains, courage and a gun — and I had the gun."
— from "My Favorite Brunette" (1947) "The girls call me Pilgrim because every time I dance with one, I make a little progress."
— from "The Ghost Breakers" (1940)
Hope to Dorothy Lamour: "How did you get into that dress — with a spray gun?"
— from "Road to Rio" (1947)
Hope to Dorothy Lamour:"Those eyes, they're beautiful — and they match."
— from "The Road to Utopia" (1945)
Hope: "Many an afternoon, we had tea, the Duchess and I, while her husband, the Duke, was busily engaged in his favorite sport."
Percy Helton: "Was that cricket?"
Hope: "Perhaps not, but she was irresistible."
— from "Fancy Pants" (1950)
"You still have your hourglass figure, my dear, but most of the sand has gone to the bottom."
— from "The Lemon Drop Kid" (1950)
"Say, honey, you and me could make music together, and right now I feel like the Philharmonic."
— from "My Favorite Blonde" (1942) Joan Collins: "I could love you body and soul."
Hope: "They're available — in that order."
— from "Road to Hong Kong" (1962)
Hope to Hedy Lamarr: "It's nights like this that drive men like me to women like you for nights like this."
— from "My Favorite Spy" (1951)
Audrey Dalton: "You mustn't be found in my room. If necessary, I will scream for help."
Hope: "Oh, I don't need any help."
— from "Casanova's Big Night" (1954)
"I've been chased by women before, but not while I was awake."
— from "The Paleface" (1948)
"Oh, I wish I was a girl so I could fight over me."
— from "Here Come the Girls" (1953)
Dorothy Lamour: "It seems to me we've met before ... perhaps in your dreams."
Hope: "You wouldn't be seen in those kinds of places."
— from "Road to Utopia" (1945) Richard Carlson: "A zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes walking around blindly, with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring."
Hope: "You mean like Democrats?"
— from "The Ghost Breakers" (1940)
Nydia Westman: "Do you believe in reincarnation, you know, that dead people come back?"
Hope: "You mean like Republicans?"
— from "The Cat and the Canary" (1939)
Hope to government officials: "Remember, you guys, your salaries are paid by the tax payers, and I may be one some day."
— from "My Favorite Spy" (1953)
"They tell me he was so crooked that when he died they had to screw him into the ground."
— from "The Cat and the Canary" (1939) "If I get the electric chair, my agent gets 10 percent of the current."
— from "My Favorite Blonde" (1942)
Nydia Westman: "Don't these big empty houses scare you?"
Hope: "Not me. I was in vaudeville."
— from "The Cat and the Canary" (1939)
Hope on Bing Crosby: "I don't dally much with riff-raff these days, and he's a pretty raffy kind of riff."
— from "The Road to Morocco" (1942)
"My act is known all over Europe. That's why I'm taking it to America."
— from "The Princess and the Pirate" (1944) Hope: "Not the guillotine?"
Patric Knowles: "Be brave, my friend. You wanted to die, anyway."
Hope: "But like a man, not like a salami." Hope on a fancy apartment: "That's what I like. Everything done in contrasting shades of money." He was born Leslie Townes Hope on May 29, 1903, in Eltham, England, the fifth of seven sons of a British stonemason and a Welsh singer of light opera. The Hopes emigrated to the United States when he was 4 and settled in Cleveland. They found themselves in the backwash of the 1907 depression.
The boy helped out by selling newspapers and working in a shoe store, a drug store and a meat market. He also worked as a caddy and developed a lifelong fondness for golf. A highly competitive golfer, he later shot in the 70s and sponsored the Bob Hope Golf Classic, one of the nation’s biggest tournaments.
Hope changed his name to Bob when classmates ridiculed his English schoolboy name.
He boxed for a time under the name Packy East — “I was on more canvases than Picasso” — and also tried a semester in college before devoting himself to show business. He quickly veered from song and dance to comedy patter, and his monologue routine was born.
By 1930, he had reached vaudeville’s pinnacle — The Palace — and in the ’30s he played leading parts in such Broadway musicals as “Roberta,” “Ziegfeld Follies” and “Red, Hot and Blue,” with Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante. During “Roberta,” he met nightclub singer Dolores Reade and invited her to the show. They married in 1934.
After a few guest radio spots, Hope began working regularly on a Bromo Seltzer radio program. In 1938, he was hired by Pepsodent to create his own show, and that led him to Hollywood. X. :( He lived a long life, but his great laughter and comedy will be missed.