“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.
“His hand was soaking wet”: Carl Reiner, interview with author.
“seemed subdued and uncertain”: “The $1,500-a-Minute Program,” Life, April 24, 1950.
“petrified with fear”: John Lester, New York Journal-American, quoted in Faith, Life in Comedy, 213.
“I couldn’t believe how nervous”: Faith, Life in Comedy, 214.
“It was really caveman TV”: Gelbart, interview with author.
“I used to work very fast”: Hope, Have Tux, 238.
a deal that guaranteed Hope $3 million: Variety, May 17 and September 27, 1950, January 10, 1951.
Hope struck a new deal with Paramount: Variety, September 6, 1950.
MacArthur had requested . . . But Hope prevailed: Daily Variety, October 11, 1950.
“He held us spellbound”; “Most of them are so young”: Hope, It Says Here column, October 23, 1950.
“How long have you been here?”: Hope with Shavelson, Don’t Shoot, 181.
“The only thing we’re going in for”: “Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell in Wonsan Before Leathernecks,” Los Angeles Times, October 27, 1950.
“I always had the feeling”: Hope with Shavelson, Don’t Shoot, 183.
sued . . . for making jokes: New York Herald Tribune, June 29, 1950.
“Writers got $2,000 a week”: John Crosby, “Radio’s Seven Deadly Sins,” Life, November 6, 1950.
Hope sought $2 million: Daily Variety, November 17, 1950.
eventually dropped the suit: Variety, May 26, 1951.
“He was the worst egomaniac”: Quirk, Road Well-Traveled, 222.
“I have learned that there is absolutely no truth”: Quoted in Faith, Life in Comedy, 223.
“Our mission in life”: Liberman, unpublished memoir.
“The boss knew a number of people”: Faith, Life in Comedy, 223–24.
“I think he’s a great man”: Joan Barthel, “Bob Hope: The Road Gets Rougher,” Life, January 29, 1971.!
“If he’s had romances”: Betty Beale, “And Here’s a Lady Who Loves Him,” Washington Star, May 24, 1978.
“It never bothered me”: Lahr, “C.E.O. of Comedy.”
“I’m sure that my mother knew”: Linda Hope, interview with author.
“She had grace under fire”: Rory Burke, interview with author.
SLEEP IN A WIGWAM TONIGHT: Liberman, unpublished memoir.
called Maxwell the second most serious: Ibid.
ranked him as Britain’s No. 1 box-office star: Guardian, December 28, 1951.
“had lapses into feebleness”: Quoted in Time correspondent files, April 1951.
“If little that Hope gave us”: Guardian, April 25, 1951.
Hope impulsively promised: Faith, Life in Comedy, 224–25.
“Bob was really great to us kids”: Thompson, Portrait of a Superstar, 94.
“Hope never looked like a serious contender”: Variety, January 30 and 31, 1952.
“How hard can you hit”: Ibid.
got his rescue man, Frank Tashlin: Hope and Thomas, Road to Hollywood, 76–77.
“95 minutes of uninhibited mirth”: Variety, July 16, 1952.
Prompted the Catholic Legion of Decency: Variety, August 6, 1952.
Ho
pe . . . said he was going to lay off television: Daily Variety, December 7, 1951.
“I didn’t think it fair”: Lamour, My Side of the Road, 190.
“I haven’t seen this much of Bob”: Kathryn Crosby, My Life with Bing (Collage, 1983), 197.
“Realizing how important it was”: Lamour, My Side of the Road, 198.
Starr had to threaten to sue: Ben Starr, interview with author.
“He still holds Hollywood like King Kong”: Carrie Rickey, interview with author.
“I think it’s Americanism” . . . Many in the audience booed: Undated wire-service story, Time archives.
the FCC at the last minute withheld: Variety, November 25, 1953.
Hope wanted the cards as big as possible: Barney McNulty, video interview, ATAS archives.
“It’s not only a challenge, but it gives Bob”: Variety, October 13, 1952.
“Hope at his old-time radio best”: Variety, November 12, 1952.
“Seldom has the immediacy”: Jack Gould, New York Times, March 23, 1953.
“socko almost all the way”: Variety, March 25, 1953.
“Why didn’t you play this well yesterday?”: Bob Hope, as told to Dwayne Netland, Confessions of a Hooker: My Lifelong Love Affair with Golf (Doubleday, 1987), 75.
didn’t attend a single meeting: Daily Variety, June 11, 1953.
the first monthly installment . . . sold 5.2 million copies: Army Archerd, Daily Variety, February 16, 1954.!
“That breezy Bob Hope”: Hope, Have Tux, v–vi.
“He told me he starts with his feet”: Arlene Dahl, interview with author.
“Bob was doing about twelve other things”: Thompson, Portrait of a Superstar, 107.
“misses as often as it clicks”: Daily Variety, March 1, 1954.
“Aside from a few scattered laughs”: Hollywood Reporter, March 1, 1954.
“only asking for good stories”: Hedda Hopper, Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1954.
“Let them sue me”: Faith, Life in Comedy, 253.
“In television in America”: Time correspondent files, November 1954.
“As an evening’s entertainment”: Daily Variety, December 8, 1954.
“Entertainment will continue to be”: Daily Variety, November 24, 1954.
saying he wanted to take a break: Daily Variety, February 1, 1955.
“It didn’t really affect me for three days”: Faith, Life in Comedy, 255.
“The gang at Lakeside will tell you”: Jack Hellman, Daily Variety, February 14, 1955.
Hope agreed to a new five-year contract: Daily Variety, June 9, 1955.
Mel Shavelson and Jack Rose . . . came to see him: Shavelson describes the scene in How to Succeed in Hollywood, 60.
Cagney took no salary: Ibid., 61.
“I think the way things are going”: Louella Parsons, Los Angeles Examiner, Pictorial Living, June 26, 1955.
“A commanding abandonment of the buffoon”: Daily Variety, May 26, 1955.
“Hope can now hold up his head”: New York Daily News, quoted in Faith, Life in Comedy, 253.
“The family changed in the 1950s”: Malatesta, interview with author.
“She looked at the report cards”: Kelly Hope, interview with author.
“This trashy magazine”: Linda Hope, interview with author.
CHAPTER 9: AMBASSADOR
Bob Hope applied for a visa: Daily Variety, November 15, 1955.
“greatest I’ve ever seen”: Daily Variety, May 7, 1956.
“I’ve seen many a curtain go up”: Daily Variety, November 15, 1955.
didn’t even return his phone calls: Hedda Hopper, Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1954.
drew a protest from the cameramen’s union: Daily Variety, January 7, 1955.
“In an era when even the best”: “Bob Hope and the 7 Year Itch,” Variety, March 6, 1957.
drew protests from both Canadian and British fans: “Canadians Irked by Bob Hope’s Royalty Jokes,” Los Angeles Times, November 17, 1955.!
When Hope looked at the books: Memo from Jimmy Saphier, March 14, 1957, Hope archives.
“I’m a hit but going broke”: “Bob Hope Going for Broke on TV,” Daily Variety, December 27, 1956.
Under the new deal, NBC would pay: Daily Variety, February 6, 1957.
“The land purchase was done directly”: Tom Sarnoff, interview with author.
“Bob was known to hang on to his real estate”: Art Linkletter, interview with author.
“He was very patient”; “Thank God I had grown up”: Eva Marie Saint, interview with author.
“Leave it to Bob Hope”: Variety, June 20, 1956.
“too much the type of entertainment”: “Has Video Staled Screen Quipping?,” Variety, August 1, 1956.
Hope merely suggested a few “hokey thoughts”: Hope and Thomas, Road to Hollywood, 85–86.
“I had been sold a false bill of goods”; “the biggest egomaniac”: A. Scott Berg, Kate Remembered (Berkley, 2004), 232.
“After only two days I realized”: Michael Freedland, Katharine Hepburn (W. H. Allen, 1984), 141.
Hepburn was “a gem”: Hope and Thomas, Road to Hollywood, 86.
“This is to notify you”; “I am most understanding”: “Ex-Partners,” Time, October 15, 1956.
“The notion of these two characters”: Bosley Crowther, New York Times, February 2, 1957.
Filming was scheduled to begin: Hope gives a long account of the Paris Holiday troubles in I Owe Russia $1200 (Doubleday, 1963), 81–107.
“Each time I pack my bags”: Hopper, Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1957.
He had renewed his application: Hope, I Owe Russia, 11–17; and Faith, Life in Comedy, 257–58.
“What does your Mr. Hope want to do”: Hope, I Owe Russia, 13.
“This was to prevent us”: Ibid., 216.
“I still don’t know who went through”: Ibid., 235.
“Can you believe it?”; “Congratulations”: Lachman, interview with author.
“What we are trying to do is to state”: Hope, I Owe Russia, 252.
“I wish there’d been a lot more Russia”: Cecil Smith, Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1958.
“Who would have thought”: Gould, New York Times, April 7, 1958.
Sitting next to Mrs. Khrushchev: Hope describes the encounter in Don’t Shoot, 231–34.
“Guys ask me all the time”: Weekend 7, no. 42 (1957), Hope archives.
Timex . . . dropped him after just one month: Daily Variety, October 21, 1957.!
“It’s getting out there in person”; “I sit in my office”: Pete Martin, “I Call on Bob Hope,” Saturday Evening Post, April 26, 1958.
Hope told Millar (without irony): Faith, Life in Comedy, 272.
“The walls of the room . . . started closing in”: Hope, I Owe Russia, 166.
“Stop lying to me”: Ibid., 186.
“Bob Hope to Fly East”: Beverly Hills Citizen, March 2, 1959.
Several people offered to donate: Get-well letters, Hope archives.
“If I had taken a day off”: Louella Parsons, “Faith, Hope and Charities,” Los Angeles Examiner, Pictorial Living, March 29, 1959.
Hope “seemed depressed”: Vernon Scott, UPI, March 2, 1959.
“He’s quieter now”; “Nobody moved as fast”: Vernon Scott, “Bob Hope—on the Road to Retirement?,” Los Angeles Examiner, May 10, 1959.
“I felt . . . people were always looking past me”: Timothy White, Rolling Stone, March 20, 1980.
Hope chewed out Bill Faith: Faith, Life in Comedy, 274.
“Bob Hope is the champ”: George Rosen, “Familiarity Breeds TV Fame,” Variety, February 10, 1960.
“Don’t you think this is a rather strange way”: Letter from Jimmy Saphier, August 5, 1959, Hope archives.
“It’s a little straight”: Hope and Thomas, Road to Hollywood, 88.
“I don’t want it to be the Road”: Ibid.
“Was I Lucy?”: Ibid., 89.
Hope wanted instead . .
. Frank ended up using his own: Thompson, Portrait of a Superstar, 129–30.
“I entertained his father!”: Hope, I Owe Russia, 187.
a deal that Hope publicly complained about: Dan E. Moldea, Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA and the Mob (Viking, 1986), 142–43.
“Lenny, you’re for educational TV”: San Diego Union, April 6, 1978.
CHAPTER 10: KING
“It was scary”: Janis Paige, interview with author.
“Everybody hated Zsa Zsa”: Andy Williams, interview with author.
“He said, ‘Jan, she’s throwing hysterics’ ”: Paige, interview with author.
“Bob Hope is such a good American”: “Sinatra Suspects Had Earlier Plot,” New York Times, February 28, 1964.
“If there is anybody who has”: Daily Variety, March 6, 1962.
in Seattle, drawing crowds so big: Daily Variety, July 13, 1962.
who would take Hope . . . to Jack Ruby’s nightclub: Tony Zoppi, interview with author.
Hope did the show, unaware that Nichols: Many letters and clippings in the Hope archives chronicle this misconceived event, including a wrap-up by Tony Zoppi in the Dallas Morning News, July 2, 1962.
“Let’s face it, Bob”: Letter from Warren Leslie, July 5, 1962, Hope archives.
“I can’t wait till I get home”: Time correspondent files, June 8, 1962.
“He was just a doll”: Jack Shea, video interview, ATAS archives.
“This is one of the only bills”; “The president was a very gay”; “I feel very humble”: New York Times, September 12, 1963; and Time correspondent files, September 12, 1963.
“Hope is the closest anybody”: George Rosen, “Of Hope (Bob) and Fulfillment,” Variety, April 26, 1961.
“This is all the talent we have, fellas”: Time correspondent files, September 1963.
“When things go wrong”: Ibid.
Hope would call and bark: Mort Lachman, interview with author.
Bob would sometimes squeeze Mort’s arm: Time correspondent files, September 1963.
Lachman was miffed and quit . . . went back to Hope: Lachman’s break and reconciliation chronicled in Daily Variety stories, March 25, April 13 and 15, 1964.
around $350,000 per hour, plus another $50,000: Rosen, Variety, April 26, 1961.
too steep for Buick: Variety, March 22, 1961.
“He’s shallow in the sense”: Time correspondent files, September 1963.
“When he’s not quipping”: Ibid.
Hope: Entertainer of the Century Page 58
