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Quick Facts
- NAME: Bob Hope
- OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Television Actor, Television Personality
- BIRTH DATE: May 29, 1903
- DEATH DATE: July 27, 2003
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Eltham, United Kingdom
- PLACE OF DEATH: Toluca Lake, California
- Originally: Leslie Townes Hope
Best Known For
Bob Hope was a entertainer and comic actor known for his rapid-fire delivery of jokes and for his success in virtually all entertainment media.
Bob Hope. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 11:32, Feb 09, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/bob-hope-9343481
Bob Hope [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/bob-hope-9343481, February 09
" Bob Hope." 2012. Biography.com 09 Feb 2012, 11:32 http://www.biography.com/people/bob-hope-9343481
' Bob Hope', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/bob-hope-9343481 [accessed Feb 09, 2012]
" Bob Hope," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/bob-hope-9343481 (accessed Feb 09, 2012).
Bob Hope [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 09]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/bob-hope-9343481.
Bob Hope, http://www.biography.com/people/bob-hope-9343481 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
Bob Hope, http://www.biography.com/people/bob-hope-9343481 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
Synopsis
Profile
(born May 29, 1903, Eltham, near London, England—died July 27, 2003, Toluca Lake, California, U.S.) British-born American entertainer and comic actor, known for his rapid-fire delivery of jokes and one-liners and for his success in virtually all entertainment media. He was also known for his decades of overseas tours to entertain American troops, and he received numerous awards and honours for his work as an entertainer and humanitarian.Hope was the fifth of seven sons of a stonemason and a former Welsh concert singer; his family immigrated to the United States when he was four years old. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, manifesting the first signs of his vocation at age 10 when he won a Charlie Chaplin imitation contest. After a series of odd jobs, including amateur boxer, Hope during his late teens embarked on an entertainment career and later performed with a succession of partners in vaudeville. He first appeared on Broadway in The Sidewalks of New York (1927), and after additional work in vaudeville and a failed Hollywood screen test, he landed his first substantial stage role in the Jerome Kern musical Roberta (1933). During the mid-1930s he starred in a series of comedy shorts and found increasing success in radio, a medium well-suited to his loquacious style. Hope made his feature-film debut in The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938), in which he first sang his signature tune “Thanks for the Memory,” and he launched the long-running The Bob Hope Show on radio in that same year. By the end of the decade, Hope was one of America's most popular comics.
Just as silent films had popularized physical and slapstick comedy, the encroachment of sound motion pictures and radio during the 1930s paved the way for Hope's style of brash verbal comedy. Although a bug-eyed double take is a familiar Hope trademark, most of his comedy relied on quips and wisecracks delivered at a breakneck pace. His persona was that of transparent bravado, glib repartee, and ingratiating mediocrity—a smart aleck who cowers at the slightest threat. He did not elicit audience sympathy and was less likely to win the girl at the end of a film than he was to wind up the buffoonish victim of some quagmire of his own making. By allowing the audience to feel superior to him, Hope was one of the few comic performers to sustain a successful career built upon a largely unsympathetic character.
The first films to showcase Hope's familiar persona were The Cat and the Canary (1939) and The Ghost Breakers (1940), two horror-film spoofs that costarred Paulette Goddard. In 1940 Hope made Road to Singapore, the first of seven popular “Road”
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