Bob Hope

Bob Hope

English-born comedian raised in Cleveland's Doan's Corners who rose through Ohio vaudeville to become a star of radio, film, television and USO tours.

Born May 29, 1903, 44 Craigton Road, Eltham, London, England
Died July 27, 2003, his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: May 29, 1903, 44 Craigton Road, Eltham, London, England source
Died: July 27, 2003, his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles source
Buried: Bob Hope Memorial Garden, Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana, Mission Hills, Los Angeles source
Also known as: Bob Hope, Lester Hope, Packy East
Education: Fairmount Junior High, Cleveland, OH
: East High School, Cleveland, OH, did not graduate
Known as: Entertainment
Organizations: Paramount Pictures

Life story

Leslie Townes Hope was born in Eltham, London, in 1903 and came to the United States at four, growing up near Cleveland. He attended Fairmount Junior High and East High School in Cleveland but did not graduate.

He moved from vaudeville to Broadway in 1927, started radio in 1934 and went to Hollywood with Paramount in 1938.

He made 54 films, hosted the Academy Awards 19 times and made 57 USO tours between 1941 and 1991.

He received the Congressional Gold Medal (1963) and Presidential Medal of Freedom (1969). He lived in Palm Springs and Toluca Lake, died on July 27, 2003, 59 days after turning 100, and is buried at Mission San Fernando.

Ohio ties

Cleveland (Doan's Corners: Standiforth Court at Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street, later 1913 and 2029 East 105th Street) (1908-1920s)
family homes from age four Cuyahoga County · source
Cleveland (Fairmount Elementary and Junior High, East High School) (1908-about 1919)
schools; left at sixteen Cuyahoga County · source
Church of the Covenant, Euclid Avenue, Cleveland (1910s)
sang in the choir; his father's first stonemasonry job in Cleveland Cuyahoga County · source
Boys' Industrial School, near Lancaster (late 1910s)
attended the state reform school for a time and later gave it money Fairfield County · source
Springfield (Gus Sun Booking Exchange) (1924-1925)
the Springfield-based Gus Sun circuit booked Hope and Lloyd Durbin into tabloid shows in Ohio towns Clark County · source
Cleveland (Hope Metals Products, East 40th Street) (1940 onward)
co-founded the company with his brother Ivor Cuyahoga County · source
Cleveland (Cleveland Indians) (1946 onward)
one of ten investors who bought the team in 1946; kept a small stake for most of his life Cuyahoga County · source

Timeline

1903 Born Leslie Townes Hope on 29 May at 44 Craigton Road, Eltham, the fifth of seven sons of stonemason William Henry Hope and singer Avis Townes Hope. source
1907 His father emigrated to join his brothers Frank, a plumber, and Fred, a steamfitter, in Cleveland. source
1908 Arrived at Ellis Island on 30 March on the SS Philadelphia with his mother and five brothers, and moved into Fred Hope's plumbing shop on East 105th Street in Cleveland. source
1915 Won a Charlie Chaplin imitation contest at Cleveland's Luna Park and used the prize to buy his mother a stove. source
1919 Boxed briefly as 'Packy East', winning three bouts and losing one. source
1920 Became a US citizen in December, at 17, when his parents were naturalized. source
1921 Injured in the face by a falling tree while working as a power-company lineman. source
1922 Teamed with Mildred Rosequist as a dance partner; when her mother refused an out-of-state tour he partnered with Lloyd 'Lefty' Durbin. source
1924 Hope and Durbin were booked in tabloid shows on the Ohio-based Gus Sun circuit. source
1925 Fatty Arbuckle found Hope and Durbin work with Hurley's Jolly Follies; Durbin died on the road that year. source
1928 Became a solo act and changed his first name to Bob. source
1932 The Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, whose Guardians of Traffic his father helped carve, was completed. source
1940 Founded Hope Metals Products on East 40th Street in Cleveland with his older brother Ivor. source
1946 Became one of ten investors who bought the Cleveland Indians. source
1971 Performed at Cleveland Municipal Stadium for the city's 175th anniversary. source
1973 Received the key to the city from Mayor Ralph J. Perk. source
1983 The Lorain-Carnegie Bridge was renamed the Hope Memorial Bridge on 1 September. source
1993 Sang a special version of his signature song after the Indians' last game at Cleveland Stadium on 3 October. source
1996 Served as grand marshal of Cleveland's Bicentennial Parade of Lights. source
2003 East 14th Street at Playhouse Square was renamed Memory Lane-Bob Hope Way for his 100th birthday. source
2003 Died of pneumonia on 27 July at his home in Toluca Lake, California, aged 100. source

What Bob is known for

USO entertainer of U.S. troops
Film, radio and television star
54 films 1938-1972
57 USO tours

Stories

The bridge his father carved

William Henry 'Harry' Hope, Bob Hope's father, was a Cleveland stonemason who helped build the Guardians of Traffic, the eight Art Deco figures by sculptor Henry Hering and architect Frank Walker that stand on the pylons of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge over the Cuyahoga. The figures were carved from Berea sandstone in Cleveland's Little Italy, and the bridge opened in 1932 at a cost of $4.75 million. When the city renamed it the Hope Memorial Bridge on 1 September 1983, press reports did not agree on whom it honoured: Harry Hope, Bob Hope, the whole Hope family, or Harry Hope together with the other workers on the statues.

Source

A Doan's Corners boyhood

The Hopes were poor in Cleveland, and Avis Hope took in boarders. She also took her sons to vaudeville shows in Doan's Corners, which had several theatres. One of them, the Alhambra, had a billiard parlour where young Leslie hustled pool. He earned money singing on the trolley out to Luna Park and winning footraces there, and in the summer of 1915 he won a Charlie Chaplin imitation contest at the park and spent the prize on a stove for his mother. 'We'd have been called juvenile delinquents only our neighborhood couldn't afford a sociologist,' he said in 1967.

Source

Small-time Ohio with Lefty Durbin

Hope's first touring partner was Lloyd 'Lefty' Durbin. In 1924 the two were booked on the Gus Sun circuit, run out of Springfield, Ohio, which sent low-budget 'tabloid' shows, miniature vaudeville and musical comedies, to small towns and rural areas. A 1925 Gus Sun Booking Exchange programme from Springfield survives in Hope's own collection at the Library of Congress. Durbin died on the road in 1925; food poisoning was blamed at first, but the cause was tuberculosis. Hope then teamed with George Byrne, and their dance act slowly added songs and comedy until Hope found he was a natural master of ceremonies.

Source

Honors and things named for them

Congressional Gold Medal 1963
Presidential Medal of Freedom 1969
Honorary KBE 1998

Named for Bob Hope

Hope Memorial Bridge (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County) source
Memory Lane-Bob Hope Way (East 14th Street) (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County) source

Family

wife: Dolores Reade

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

1 Hope Memorial Bridge (Lorain-Carnegie Bridge) and Guardians of Traffic (NRHP 76001398)
State Route 10 over the Cuyahoga River, Cleveland Cuyahoga County · source
2 Church of the Covenant (NRHP 80002977), where Hope sang in the choir
11205 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland Cuyahoga County · source
3 Memory Lane-Bob Hope Way (East 14th Street), Playhouse Square
East 14th Street, Cleveland Cuyahoga County · source
Hope family homes, 1913 and 2029 East 105th Street (Doan's Corners) (unknown)
East 105th Street, Cleveland Cuyahoga County · source
Keith's 105th Street Theater, said to have launched Hope (demolished)
East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue, Cleveland Cuyahoga County · source
4 Former Boys' Industrial School (Fairfield School for Boys), now Southeastern Correctional Institution; Ohio Historical Marker 1-23 (private)
5900 BIS Road SW, Lancaster Fairfield County · source

Ohio places

Where Bob Hope was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Lived: Cleveland, Cuyahoga County ZIP 44114 · Cleveland · Cuyahoga County
School: Lancaster (Boys' Industrial School), Fairfield County ZIP 43130 · Lancaster · Fairfield County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Bob Hope, and what the record shows.

Often said Bob Hope was born in Cleveland.

The record He was born in Eltham, near London, on 29 May 1903 and arrived at Ellis Island on 30 March 1908, aged four. The ship's manifest even listed him as two years old, probably swapped with a brother's age. Hope joked that 'the minute I started to talk, they deported me.' source

Often said The Hope Memorial Bridge is named after Bob Hope.

The record The 1983 renaming is reported differently: as honouring his father Harry Hope, a stonemason who helped carve the bridge's Guardians of Traffic, Bob Hope himself, the whole Hope family, or Harry Hope and his fellow workers. The family tie to the bridge is through his father's stonework, not the comedian's career. source

Often said He took the name 'Bob' because Cleveland classmates teased him about 'Leslie'.

The record Find a Grave's biography says this, but the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History separates the two changes: as a boy he went from Leslie to Lester to avoid jokes, and he took 'Bob' only in 1928, when he became a solo act, because it had more 'hiya fellas' in it. Wikipedia dates the informal change to 1929. source

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

SS Philadelphia passenger manifest, page one, listing Avis Hope and her sons, Ellis Island, 30 March 1908 1908, National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island
Lester Hope business card, Cleveland dance teacher about 1920, Library of Congress, Bob Hope Collection
Gus Sun Booking Exchange programme, Springfield, Ohio 1925, Library of Congress, Bob Hope Collection

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

Residence of Bob Hope, North Hollywood, California
Public domain
Tom Breneman and Bob Hope in 1945
Public domain
Rialto Theater
Public domain
Boyd Theater
Public domain
80-G-244710: Bob Hope and entertainers give show for service men at Maui, Territory of Hawaii. Army, Navy. Mar...
Public domain
Bob Hope presents Look magazine Achievement Award to Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman.
Public domain
Format: Photograph Notes: Find more detailed information about this photograph: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDe...
No known restrictions
Photo of Bob Hope, Jerry Colonna, Dezi Arnaz, Sr., Frances Langford and unidentified man. The photo appears to...
Public domain
Confidential Magazine cover July 1956 - Bob Hope
Public domain
The photo contact sheet, identified as B1803 by the White House Photographic Office (WHPO), is housed at the G...
Public domain
Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Bob Hope & David Niven, publicity photo 1950s
Public domain
Jean O'Neill, Bob Hope, Bobby Dolan, and Anne Seymour (singer), 1937 - Radio Guide July 1937
Public domain