Hope: Entertainer of the Century (74 page)

“You know you’re the only girl”
: Ibid., 88.

“When he would be in the house”
: Ibid., 134.

“I was defending my dogs”
: Bob Hope,
Have Tux, Will Travel
(Simon & Schuster, 1954), 11.!

“Whose lovely little girl are you?”
: J. Hope, “Mother Had Hopes,” 188.

“The very air in America”
: Ibid., 192–94.

“We started planning and figuring”
: Ibid., 195.

“Gone to Canada”
: Alan Blackmore, interview with author.

“Everybody on the ship was in sympathy”
: J. Hope, “Mother Had Hopes,” 200.

Leslie is the fifth of six
: Ship manifest, USS
Philadelphia
, March 21, 1908.

“I’ll swear she looked”
: J. Hope, “Mother Had Hopes,” 203.

Cleveland was not a bad place
: William Ganson Rose,
Cleveland: The Making of a City
(World Publishing, 1990), 600–607, 679–88.

The bustling area . . . was becoming known
: Charles Asa Post,
Doan’s Corners and the City Four Miles West
(Caxton, 1930).

“Euclid and Cedar had Brush arc lights”
: Map of Doan’s Corners, circa 1900, Western Reserve Historical Society library, Cleveland, OH.

“not only an artist with the stone-cutting tools”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 14.

“I remember Dad saying”
: Ibid., 19.

“For when he was sober”
: J. Hope, “Mother Had Hopes,” 329.

“I have seen Harry in a great group”
: Ibid., 266.

“She had the kind of skin”
: Ibid., 209.

“unless we put our bare bottoms”
: Ibid., 233.

“Ach! How many Hopes”
: Ibid., 313.

“Looking back on my Cleveland boyhood”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 18.

“You sat in front of me”
: Letter from Jessie Morris-Harman, September 9, 1971, Hope archives.

“He was a big show-off”
: Timothy White, “The Road Not Taken,”
Rolling Stone
, March 20, 1980.

“If you want to be a success”
: Hope tells the Rockefeller anecdote in
Have Tux
, 27, among other places.

“As his leisure increased”
: Grace Goulder,
John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland Years
(Western Reserve Historical Society, 1973), 233.

“We would hang around the corner”
: Letter from Norman J. Freeman, January 18, 1973, Hope archives.

“Don’t worry about Leslie”
: William Robert Faith,
Bob Hope: A Life in Comedy
(Da Capo Press, 2003), 11.

“you and ‘Whitey’ fattened me up”
: Letter from Isabele M. Goss, April 7, 1964, Hope archives.

“My father had a Buick”
: Letter from William Hoagland, February 3, 1967, Hope archives.

he was sent to reform school
: Boys Industrial School, Inmate Case Record #20546, vol. 26, Ohio Historical Society.

“adjudged a delinquent”
: May 17, 1918, Juvenile Court records, Cuyahoga County, OH.!

“I guess it’s no secret”
: Typewritten jokes for Boys Club appearance, May 4, 1967, Hope archives.

readmitted to the school
: Boys Industry School, Inmates Case Records. In the faded records, the last digit of the date of Hope’s final release is unclear; it is either 1920 or 1921.

Jack was trying to rescue a fellow soldier
: J. Hope, “Mother Had Hopes,” 337.

“Leslie was a good worker”
: Ibid., 343.

“It is not true my nose”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 10.

“Bob helped out weekends”
: Maurice Condon, “They Remember Bob,”
TV Guide
, April 16, 1966.

“He was a good young fighter”
: Ibid.

“I probably outweighed Hope”
: “Two Recall Assists for Bob Hope,”
Cleveland Press
, April 20, 1960.

“In the first round I played cozy”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 8.

Les and Whitey were walking
: Various accounts of the attack are given in
Have Tux
,
Will Travel
(9), “Mother Had Hopes” (317–20), and the
Cleveland Press
(undated, Hope archives).

“He’s not half as good as you
”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 6.

“Lester Hope will teach you to dance”
: Business card, Hope archives.

“Lester Hope . . . started a new contest”
: “Council Takes No Action to Halt Dancing Contests,”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, April 17, 1923.

“Mildred was tall, blonde”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 38.

“She worshipped Leslie”
: J. Hope, “Mother Had Hopes,” 360–61.

“He would follow me home”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 13.

Mildred claimed that Les . . . kept all the money
: Ibid., 14.

“ ‘This is a little dance’ ”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 39.

“When we came out to do”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 14.

“We wore brown derbies”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 40.

“The whole offering is built”
:
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, August 28, 1923.

CHAPTER 2: VAUDEVILLE

In 1900 the United States had an estimated two thousand
: The statistics and other details of vaudeville’s early years are drawn largely from Trav S.D.,
No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous
(Faber and Faber, 2005).

“Tab shows were a special part”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 41.

“Frankly we had all thought Lefty Durbin”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 16.

“By the end of the week the towels”
: Ibid., 17.

At a hotel in Bedford
: Hope describes the affair and the hotel incident in
Have Tux
, 44.!

she broke off the relationship
: “Hope’s Morgantown Saga Reviewed,”
Morgantown Post
, April 28, 1966, Hope archives.

Hope’s partner died
: The description of Durbin’s death is drawn from Hope’s own brief account in
Have Tux
, 45; Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 18–19; and Jim Hope’s recollections in “Mother Had Hopes,” 359–60. Lawrence Quirk, in
Bob Hope: The Road Well-Traveled
(Applause Books, 2000), 26–27, gives the most uncharitable view of Hope’s actions.

“George was pink-cheeked”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 45.

dubbed “Dancers Supreme”
: Advertisements for
Jolly Follies
, Hope archives.

“After that we told Maley”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 46.

The team added bits of comedy
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 49.

“The most versatile couple”; “they stopped the show”; “For the premier honors”
: Undated newspaper clips, Hope archives.

“I taught myself to play”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 49.

“Because it’ll go to his head”
: Personal reminiscence of the reviewer of Hope’s book
The Road to Hollywood
,
Daily Variety
, July 26, 1977.

One of their models was . . . Duffy and Sweeney
: Hope describes their act with much affection in
Have Tux
, 52–53.

“Our act opened with a soft-shoe”
: Ibid., 55.

State Theater; Oriole Terrace; Stanley Theater
: Contracts for Hope and Byrne’s Detroit and Pittsburgh appearances, Hope archives.

“the thinnest man in vaudeville”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 57; publicity shots of Hope and Byrne, Hope archives.

“If you’re only half as good”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 56.

“the greatest draw attraction”; “The finish is a wow”
: Review reprinted in an advertisement for the show in
Variety
, March 18, 1925.

“They have some fast dances”
: Unidentified newspaper review, Hope archives.

“At first it was a funny sensation”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 56.

By 1925, only a hundred all-live
: Trav,
No Applause
, 250.

More than 260 shows . . . opened on Broadway
: Larry Stempel,
Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater
(W. W. Norton, 2010), 207.

Getting cast in the show
: Hope and Byrne’s abbreviated stint in
Sidewalks of New York
is recounted in Hope,
Have Tux
, 60–61; and Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 24.

“You ought to go West”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 65.

Hope called an agent in Cleveland
: Hope describes his pivotal engagement in New Castle in
Have Tux
, 65–66, among other places.

a suave comedian named Frank Fay
: Trav,
No Applause
, 183, 233. Glimpses of Fay’s work as a vaudeville emcee can be seen in the 1937 film
Nothing Sacred
and other movie roles from the 1930s.

“I think I’ll try it alone”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 66.!

“Without him I’m nothing”
: Quirk,
Road Well-Traveled
, 38.

After the split, Byrne spent a few years
: Byrne obituary,
Variety
, December 28, 1966.

“My mother told me”
: Avis Hope Eckelberry, interview with author.

“If I don’t get any work by Saturday”
: J. Hope, “Mother Had Hopes,” 386.

“I went out, bought a big red bow tie”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 67.

“Audiences knew that white performers”
: Robert W. Snyder,
Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in New York
, 2nd ed. (Ivan R. Dee, 2000), 120.

“Don’t ever put that cork on”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 67.

“I couldn’t get in anybody’s door”
: Ibid., 68.

“I used to dance on that corner”
: Miranda Hope, interview with author.

“Late of
Sidewalks of New York
”
: Advertisement in
Chicago Tribune
, June 25, 1928.

“I thought Bob had more”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 75.

billed him on the marquee as “Ben Hope”
: John Lahr, “The C.E.O. of Comedy,”
New Yorker
, December 21, 1998. Hope repeated the anecdote many times, with varying responses from the theater manager.

“I had to tell you that you didn’t make it”
: Letters from Harry A. Turrell, January 12, 1970, and October 24, 1975, Hope archives. Hope gives his own account of the Stratford engagement in
Have Tux
, 69–72.

signing a contract with the Stratford
: Marcus Loew Western Booking Agency contract, Hope archives.

“I learned a lot about getting laughs”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 71.

“He was a bright package”
: Lahr, “C.E.O. of Comedy.”

“a new twentieth-century aesthetic of shazz and pizzazz”
: Trav,
No Applause
, 161.

He also had a new partner
: Hope describes their act, though little about Troxell, in
Have Tux
, 72.

“When I walked out before my first Fort Worth audience”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 74.

As Hope recalled the events
: Ibid., 77.

“I offered Lee Stewart $35”
: Letter from Dolph Leffler, May 13, 1959, Hope archives.

“How’s the audience here?”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 77.

“No, lady, this is not John Gilbert”
: Ibid., 78.

“Hope, assisted by an unbilled girl”
:
Variety
, November 6, 1929.

The salary
:
a hefty $475 a week:
Contract with Keith–Albee Vaudeville Exchange, Hope archives.

$100 a week, according to Hope
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 80.

Hope crisscrossed the country
: Map of Hope’s 1929–30 vaudeville tour, “Bob
Hope and American Variety,” Library of Congress exhibit, available online at
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bobhope/index.html
.

“socked in heavy on the laugh register”
:
Billboard
, November 23, 1929.

“This act flows”
:
Variety
, June 11, 1930.