Hope: Entertainer of the Century (78 page)

Hope’s official itinerary had him continuing
: Bob Hope Itinerary, 1941–1951, Hope archives. It lists stops for Hope in Germany, France, and Austria through at least August 31. Yet
Daily Variety
reported on August 22, “Bob Hope arrived in New York yesterday after completing his USO tour of Europe and expects to leave for the coast immediately.” According to
Daily Variety
, he arrived back in Los Angeles on August 30, the day his official itinerary has him appearing at Stadt Stadium in Munich.

“It was a pleasure to hear from you”
: Letter to Hope, December 8, 1944, Hope archives.

CHAPTER 7: PEACE

“Why isn’t Hope doing”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 172.

still dominated by the same prewar stars
: George Rosen, “This Is Where They Came In,”
Variety
, December 19, 1945.

Hope said it would never get past
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood
, 59.

the largest contract for radio talent
:
Daily Variety
reported the figures, January 17, 1945. Luckman, in
Twice in a Lifetime
(177), says the amount “to the best of our knowledge” was the largest ever to that point.

projected to reach $1.25 million
: “Hope Springs Financial,”
Newsweek
, May 6, 1946.

Hope would typically arrive in town
:
Time
correspondent files, July 1946.

“I can’t even remember what city”
:
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
, June 25, 1946.

grossing $500,000 in ticket sales
:
Variety
, July 10, 1946.

He split his show-business endeavors
: “Hope, Inc.,”
Time
, November 18, 1946.

“Wherever he goes, the whole board of directors”
: Douglas Welch,
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, quoted in Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 179.

“We made him remove the wig”
:
Time
correspondent files, November 1946.

he would always take a drive and walk the property
: Payson Wolfe, Hope attorney, tape-recorded interview with Richard Behar, 1983.

“If they would give me one spot”; “Mr. Hearst is very pleased”
: Letters between Hope and Ward Greene, 1946, Hope archives.

“I used to climb over the fence”
: “Hope Sets New High in Gate Crashing,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 23, 1946.

“We didn’t really do the Hollywood”
: Linda Hope, interview with author.!

“She wasn’t easy”
: Ibid.

“Dolores had a voice”
: Rory Burke, interview with author.

“She was a mother of the period”
: Robert Colonna, interview with author.

“My mother would say . . . sit up straight”
: Linda Hope, interview with author.

“Mother was a pistol”
: Tom Malatesta, interview with author.

“I’ve worn out four agents”
: Jim Hope letter, May 15, 1946, Hope archives.

Marie . . . claimed she had been underpaid
:
Daily Variety
, June 15, 1942.

Bob turned down the paper’s request . . . “It was a silly thing”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 180–81.

Producer Paul Jones didn’t like . . . the studio brought in Frank Tashlin
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood
, 60–61.

“He was a wonderful comic actor”
: Woody Allen, interview with author.

he never worked for a major director
: Tashlin probably came the closest, and Raoul Walsh (years before his great films) directed
College Swing
. But no Howard Hawks or Leo McCarey or Billy Wilder. Even Jack Benny did a film for Lubitsch.

“Monsieur Beaucaire,
as now enacted”
: Bosley Crowther,
New York Times
, September 5, 1946.

“That rumbling yesterday”
: John L. Scott,
Los Angeles Times
, August 23, 1946.

“He used to say that he carried two watches”
: Lamour,
My Side of the Road
, 152.

$72,000
under
budget
: Paramount production records, AMPAS library.

“The best picture Monsieur Robin”
: Louella Parsons, undated newspaper column, Hope archives.

returning to Broadway
:
Daily Variety
, March 11, 1947.

making a trip to Europe and North Africa
:
Daily Variety
, January 6, 1947.

stayed at the palatial estate
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 187.

Hope got so sunburned
:
Daily Variety
, July 24, 1947,
Time
correspondent files, July 1947.

Jimmie Fidler . . . gave Hope an early warning
: Letter from Fidler, November 29, 1946, Hope archives.

Hope was branded the most tasteless comedian
: “The RAP,”
Time
, November 17, 1947.

an innuendo-laden free-for-all
: Arthur Marx quotes extensively from it in
Secret Life of Bob Hope
, 224–27.

The network bleeped out Hope’s line
:
Daily Variety
, April 23, 1947.

Hope told Sinatra . . . The line got bleeped
:
Variety
, May 14, 1947.

“You could enjoy it”
: Jack Gould,
New York Times
, September 29, 1946.

“ ‘sad saga of sameness’ ”
:
Variety
, September 24, 1947.

“I can tell the seasons”
: “Irium-Plated Alger,”
Time
, April 10, 1944.!

The travel issue came to a head
:
Daily Variety
, November 6, 1947.

had to miss the first week’s broadcast
:
Daily Variety
, November 11, 1947.

Fred Williams . . . keeled over drunk
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 217.

Queen Elizabeth reportedly “laughed so hard”
:
Daily Variety
, November 28, 1947.

“Look at him”
: Hope recounts the dialogue in
Have Tux
, 224.

“The most important thing for us in America”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 192.

“The only sad thing about coming to Claremore”
: Ibid., 188.

Paramount had initially vowed
: Hedda Hopper,
Los Angeles Times
, October 5, 1946.

“Bing and I hardly left the set”
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood
, 63.

“They could have considered a four-way split”
: Lamour,
My Side of the Road
, 160.

“Crosby’s attitude toward Dorothy Lamour”
: Liberman, unpublished memoir.

“My friendship with Bob”
: Marx,
Secret Life of Bob Hope
, 232.

“I never liked Bing”
: Marcia Lewis Smith, interview with author.

the two at least temporarily patched up
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 189.

“Bob is very much worried”
: Letter from Hugh Davis, December 11, 1947, AMPAS archives.

Colonna . . . was ready to leave
: Robert Colonna,
Greetings, Gate!
, 166; and interview with author.

“He is definitely out to remove”
:
Hollywood Citizen News
, undated article, Hope archives.

“Unpack”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 251.

“He was trying something quite novel”
: Gelbart, interview with author.

“there were product payoffs”
: Si Rose, interview with author.

“He was demanding”
: Gelbart, interview with author.

“Bob’s staff would circle around him”
: A. E. Hotchner,
Doris Day: Her Own Story
(Morrow, 1976), 109.

“we’d always see a gal with him”; “Some of the guys are participating”
: Rose, interview with author.

“they did one take”
: Jane Russell, interview with author.

“Bob, you get back here”
: Ibid.

“A triumphant travesty”
: Howard Barnes,
New York Herald Tribune
, December 16, 1948.

had been planning to take Dolores
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 196.

Dolores, who went to Christmas mass
: Dorothy Reilly, wife of Air Force colonel Alvin Reilly, interview with author.

“It was an adventure”
: Rose, interview with author.

“the greatest filibuster of all times”
:
Los Angeles Times
, December 26, 1948.

Hope asked his driver to find the radio station
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 197–98.!

“Here is a perfect example”
: United Airlines advertisement,
Daily Variety
, April 18, 1949.

“We often flew through storms”
: Hotchner,
Doris Day
, 106.

the two began a relationship
: Payton’s affair with Hope is described in John O’Dowd,
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story
(BearManor Media, 2006), 65–68; and by Payton herself in “Have Tux, Will Travel . . . and That’s What Bob Hope Did with That Blonde,”
Confidential
, July 1956.

“You can’t make money like that”
: John Crosby,
New York Herald Tribune
, March 1, 1949.

“The Hope success should inspire”
:
Hollywood Reporter
, January 20, 1949.

a deal to lease seventeen hundred acres
:
Time
correspondent files, August 1949; and Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 201.

NBC also stepped up
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 200.

another fight with Luckman . . . over the taping
:
Daily Variety
, June 6 and August 12, 1949.

“If your economy-minded production heads”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 202.

“lifts comedian Bob Hope”
:
Time
, June 27, 1949.

the three combined to boost Hope
: Phil Koury, “New Box-Office King,”
New York Times
, January 8, 1950.

Hope was hesitant
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 200.

“We’ll move your pin”
: Ibid., 201.

“Get me some soup”
: Ibid., 203.

“The Bob Hope Christmas stint”
:
Daily Variety
, December 29, 1949.

“His professional jaunts have astonished”
: Koury,
New York Times
, January 8, 1950.

CHAPTER 8: TELEVISION

“I remember how my head jerked”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 207.

“Never trust a politician”
: Ibid., 209.

“I started in this sort of racket”
: Otis J. Guernsey Jr., “Bob Hope Takes Times Square by Storm,”
New York Herald Tribune
, March 5, 1950.

Hope set house records
:
Daily Variety
, March 2, 1950.

“Where was Hope”
: Advertisement in
Variety
, March 15, 1950.

“It was very intuitive and correct”
: Tony Bennett, interview with author.

In May 1948 . . . only 325,000 TV sets in American homes
: “The Infant Grows Up,”
Time
, May 24, 1948.

By the end of 1949, that number had grown
: Radio Electronics Television Manufacturers Association figures,
http://www.earlytelevision.org
.

The radio audience was dropping
: Jeff Greenfield,
Television: The First 50 Years
(Harry N. Abrams, 1977), 44.!

“The only radio comic”
: Walt Taliaferro,
Los Angeles Daily News
, May 30, 1949.

“I want to take a little bet”
: Letter from John Royal, June 29, 1949, “Bob Hope and American Variety,” Library of Congress exhibit.

“Berle can have that medium”
: Letter from Hope, ibid.

Hugh Davis . . . came to visit Hope
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 237.

more than had ever before been spent on a single hour
:
Time
correspondent files, April 1950.

“I’m being underpaid”
:
Time
correspondent files, April 1950.

“It was very difficult”
: Mort Lachman, video interview, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) archives.