Bob Hope

When I was a kid a Bob Hope movie playing on TV was always a special event for me. My two favorites were “Ghost Breakers” with the beautiful Paulette Goddard and “My Favorite Brunette” with his “Road” gal pal Dorothy Lamour.

I was lucky enough to see Bob Hope in person at NYC’s Waldorf Astoria’s Grand Ballroom in November of 1976. He would have been 73 years old at the time and still at the top of his game. His live shows contained a little more risqué material that we’d ever see on TV and his movies. Outside of seeing tricky Dicky Nixon give a campaign speech here in Danville in 1960 (my dad got that on 8mm) I’d say Bob Hope was the most famous person that I had ever got to see live.

You know…in a way it’s a shame that Hope lived to be 100. By the time he died he was like a relic of the past. My wife Brenda (20 years younger than I and being from a different generation.) asked me “Was he some sort of big star at one time?” (She also has no idea who Red Skelton, Jack Benny or John Wayne were) If Hope had died in his 80’s…his send off would have been majestic….like some sort of god had passed ….the TV networks would have had pre-emptied Johnny Carson and the other late night shows for special tributes to Bob Hopes life. As it was….living 20 years too long…Bob Hope got some mention on the evening news and some space on most newspapers front pages….but little more. I was very disappointed in the coverage of Hope’s passing. There’s a little known Dick Van Dyke movie titled “The Comic” and it starts off with Van Dyke’s character doing a voice-over for his own pitiful, sparsely attended funeral procession and laminated how it would have been if he had died at the peak of his fame instead of living well past his prime. That movie’s opening scene proved to be so true with Hope’s passing.