Legendary Entertainer Bob Hope Dead at 100
By Arthur Spiegelman and Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian Bob Hope, who parlayed an uncanny sense of timing and ability to toss off one line jokes into a legendary show business career, has died peacefully at age 100 with his family at his side, a family spokesman said on Monday.
Hope died of pneumonia on Sunday night at 9:28 p.m. at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Toluca Lake, spokesman Ward Grant said.
President Bush led the nation in mourning the comedian who had become a national institution both through his comedy and through his unstinting devotion to American troops whom he entertained in virtually every conflict from World War II to the first Gulf war.
"Today America lost a great citizen. We mourn the passing of Bob Hope. Bob Hope made us laugh. He lifted our spirits," the president said, adding:
"Bob Hope served our nation when he went to battlefields to entertain thousands of troops from different generations. We extend our prayers to his family and we mourn the loss of a good man. May God bless his soul."
In a statement issued to reporters outside the family home, Hope's wife of 69 years, Dolores Hope, asked friends and fans to celebrate his life, not just mourn his passing.
"While we mourn the passing of such a wonderful and remarkable man, we ask that his friends and fans celebrate his life, a life that Bob loved and lived to the fullest."
Hope is survived by his wife, two sons Anthony and Kelly, two daughters, Linda Hope and Nora Somers, and four grandchildren.
The family said the burial would be private and for immediate family only and that details on a permanent memorial would be announced at a later date.
The streets around Hope's home were blocked off by police to prevent people from disturbing the family.
Neighbors mourned his passing, calling him a generous man. One neighbor, who declined to give his name, said, "As one final joke, I almost expect Bob to come to walking out."
THE ULTIMATE COMEDIAN
Hope, who was born in England, was the ultimate comedian, a master of timing who turned the one-liner into an art form and became a national institution.
His career, which included stints as an amateur boxer, minstrel in black face and dancer, spanned seven decades in which he starred in five mediums: vaudeville, radio, stage, movies and television.
Virtually running his own joke factory by employing almost 100 writers, Hope was able to draw on a collection of hundreds of thousands of jokes that specialized in sexual double entendres, gags about his ski-slope nose and lines that paid homage to his decided lack of humility and willingness to con anyone.
Hope was one of the first superstars and one of the 20th century's greatest comedians. He also pioneered with Bing Crosby (news) one of Hollywood's most enduring genres -- the buddy movie.
Crosby and Hope became one of the screen's great couples in a succession of "Road" movies beginning with 1940's "Road to Singapore," which was originally a serious drama called "The Road to Mandalay" that was turned into a comedy first for George Burns (news) and Gracie Allen and then for Jack Oakie and Fred MacMurray, all of whom turned it down.
During the Vietnam War Hope was criticized for being a "hawk" who supported the conflict. But he said he was really a middle-of-the-road supporter who wanted the war to end and even tried twice to visit Hanoi and arrange prisoner releases.
He was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, Kent, England, the fifth of seven sons of a stonemason. His father moved his family to Cleveland, Ohio, when Hope was 3 to work on a church there.
An often vain man, who some said could never pass a mirror without taking a look, Hope never boasted it was talent that got him to where he was -- as far as he was concerned, timing was everything.
"The only thing I have is timing -- and lots and lots of experience," he once said. "It's not a great talent."
Hope had a singing voice that was no more than mediocre -- but he was called the King of Standup Comedy and he could, with the help of a team of highly paid writers, pour out one-liners fast and with exquisite timing.
Close to 100 people wrote jokes for him, often more than a dozen at a time. Groucho Marx (news) once complained that Hope was not a comic but a translator of what others wrote for him.
In his office in his North Hollywood estate he kept files containing literally millions of jokes -- and he memorized thousands more. Topical one-liners were the basis of his art, and he had been known to telephone his writers just before a performance to demand an instant joke on some new issue.
Typical of his jokes were these samples:
"Where else but in America could the Women's Liberation Movement take off their bras, then go on TV to complain about their lack of support?" (1970)
"I have it on good authority that (Senator Joseph) McCarthy is going to disclose the names of 2 million communists. He has just got his hands on the Moscow telephone directory." (1954)
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