Hope: Entertainer of the Century (76 page)

“It’s not easy to say, ‘I love you’ ”; “No, it’s not funny”
: Roy Hemming,
The Melody Lingers On: The Great Songwriters and Their Movie Musicals
(Newmarket Press, 1999), 199, 200.

“I rehearsed Bob and Shirley”
: Chierichetti,
Mitchell Leisen
, 111.

“everything comes through the eyes”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 133.

“We didn’t know we wrote”
: Chierichetti,
Mitchell Leisen
, 111.

“When I saw the rushes”
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood
, 21.

“I don’t think it’s so much”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 132.

“Bob, your whole personality”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 93.

“log-size chip on my shoulder”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 131.

“It’s amazing that you can be a star in New York”
: Robert Coleman,
New York Daily Mirror
, September 8, 1937.

greeted by a Paramount publicist
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 91.

Paramount Pictures was a good place to land
: Ethan Mordden,
The Hollywood Studios: House Style in the Golden Age of the Movies
(Fireside, 1989).

being eyed for a Damon Runyon story
:
Hollywood Reporter
, July 29, 1937.

“Bob Hope, fine Broadway comic”
: Ed Sullivan,
New York Daily News
, January 6, 1938.

“Hope, like Crosby, is just having”
: Paramount press release, 1938, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) archives.

“I found him a shrewd boy”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 232.

“I had watched Hope at the Capitol”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 84.

“The monologue is now showing signs”
: Samuel Kaufman,
New York Sun
, July 17, 1938.

“A comedian won’t be able to take the stage”
: Coleman,
New York Daily Mirror
, September 8, 1937.

“He had never been able to understand”
: Edgar Thompson, unidentified newspaper column, Hope archives.

“He took an old form”
: Coleman,
New York Daily Mirror
, September 8, 1937.

the two would spend two or three late nights
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 209.

“Hope appears too adaptable”
:
Variety
, January 26, 1938.!

The head of Lucky Strike
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 97.

“big hit tune of 1938”
: Jolson radio performance, December 30, 1937, Michael Feinstein archives.

“All loose ends and tatters”
: Frank Nugent,
New York Times
, March 10, 1938.

“You’ll rave over Bob Hope”
: Ed Sullivan,
New York Daily News
, undated column, Hope archives.

“Bob is our American Noël Coward”
: Hedda Hopper, undated column, Hope archives.

spent ten weeks on radio’s
Your Hit Parade
: Hemming,
Melody Lingers On
, 200.

“Our favorite gulp”
: Damon Runyon syndicated column, March 13, 1938.

Hope on the differences . . . Hope’s guide to comedy slang
: Paramount publicity material, AMPAS archives.

“Move over, boys”
: quoted by Wilkie Mahoney in letter to Hope, August 28, 1958, Hope archives.

went to producer Lewis Gensler
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 95.

“a pleasant comedian completely bested”
: Howard Barnes,
New York Herald Tribune
, April 28, 1938.

an offer from Universal
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood
, 28.

“Paramount signed me”
: Script for Paramount appearance, Hope archives.

“Everyone goes to bed”
: Ibid.

only enough money for one pair of dress pants
: Anecdote related by Liberman, unpublished memoir.

hopped in his 1937 Pontiac
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 98.

had considered Milton Berle and Fred Allen
: Charles Luckman,
Twice in a Lifetime
(W. W. Norton, 1988), 141.

“to prevent your being a smart aleck”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 100.

starting salary of $1,500 a week
: Hope later recalled it as $2,500, but this is the figure cited by Luckman,
Twice in a Lifetime
, 141.

“No comic had ever tried . . . All these comedy minds”
: Hope, with Melville Shavelson,
Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me
(Putnam, 1990), 29, 33.

coming close to hiring Ozzie Nelson
:
Variety
, August 9, 1938.

introducing him as a famous Italian tenor
: Bob Colonna, “
Greetings, Gate!”: The Story of Professor Jerry Colonna
(BearManor Media, 2007), 42–43.

found out the rights would cost him $250
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 104.

“That small speck”
:
Variety
, October 5, 1938.

“My idea was to do”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 214.

“When you wrote for Hope”
: Peter Kaplan, “On the Road with Bob Hope,”
New Times
, August 7, 1978.

“he seemed a little concerned”
: Melville Shavelson,
How to Succeed in Hollywood Without Really Trying
(BearManor Media, 2007), 36.!

“He had no sense of time”
: Sherwood Schwartz, interview with author.

“What took you so long?”
: Ibid.

make paper airplanes out of the writers’ paychecks
: A widely repeated anecdote, in Marx,
Secret Life of Bob Hope
, 122; and elsewhere.

“I’ll leave it in the mailbox”
: Shavelson,
How to Succeed
, 37.

“We’d go to a hotel”
: Schwartz, interview with author.

“What we didn’t realize . . . it was Bob’s excuse”
: Lahr, “C.E.O. of Comedy.”

“It never occurred to us”
: Shavelson,
How to Succeed
, 37.

“Two things
:
Sam Goldwyn and Bob Hope”:
Maureen Solomon, Shavelson’s former assistant, interview with author.

“There was no separation”
: Schwartz, interview with author.

“Hope is the ordinary actor type”
: Melvin Frank, private journal.

“My father really loved Hope”
: Elizabeth Frank, interview with author.

“He still had a tendency to go overboard”
: Marx,
Secret Life of Bob Hope
, 125.

Hope exploded
: Schwartz, interview with author.

A 1939 poll of radio critics
: Nachman,
Raised on Radio
, 143.

“In previous pictures”
: Frank S. Nugent,
New York Times
, December 8, 1938.

“Looks like Bette Davis’s garage”
: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona,
Inside Oscar
(Ballantine Books, 1986), 89.

“Bob Hope didn’t get an Oscar”
: George E. Phair, “Hollywood Hides Heart Under Hokum,”
Daily Variety
, February 24, 1939.

“I want you to know”
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood
, 32.

in Chicago, Hope’s show earned $44,500
:
Variety
, July 12, 1939.

“A little pin money”
: Letter from Kenneth Smith, Hope archives.

“start brushing four times a day”
: Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 108.

got the Ohio clan together
: Ibid., 108.

“As always, Hope isn’t inclined”
:
Variety
, July 26, 1939.

“I’m used to this sort of thing”
: Thomas M. Pryor, “Bob Hope and a Series of Interruptions,”
New York Times
, August 6, 1939.

“Crisp instructions were sent”
: “Studios Call Stars Back from War-Menaced Europe,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 26, 1939.

Among the 2,331 passengers
: “
Queen Mary
Brings 2,331 Here Safely,”
New York Times
, September 5, 1939.

“Many of the British people”
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 167.

Hope did an impromptu show
: Ibid., 167–68.

“We were getting along fine”
: Ibid., 287.

“We took his own characteristics”
: Lahr, “C.E.O. of Comedy.”

“the extreme wisdom of comedians”
:
Variety
, October 4, 1939.

boosted him into tenth place
:
Variety
, January 3, 1940.

CHAPTER 5: ACTOR

The names of the winners . . . had prematurely been revealed
: Wiley and Bona,
Inside Oscar
, 98.

“ten best actors of the year”
: Hope’s lines reported in
Daily Variety
, March 1, 1940; and Wiley and Bona,
Inside Oscar.

“Bob Hope . . . was his lifesaving self”
: Hedda Hopper,
Los Angeles Times
, March 4, 1940.

Their chemistry so impressed
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood,
33.

The idea took more than a year
: The rather convoluted genesis of
Road to Singapore
is drawn from Paramount records at the AMPAS library; Faith,
Life in Comedy,
116; and Giddins,
Bing Crosby
, 564–65.

“For a couple of days . . . tore freewheeling into a scene”
: Bing Crosby, as told to Pete Martin,
Call Me Lucky
(Da Capo Press, 1953), 157.

“I kept waiting for a cue”
: Dorothy Lamour, as told to Dick McInnes,
My Side of the Road
(Prentice-Hall, 1980), 88.

“If you recognize any of yours”
: An oft-repeated anecdote, in Faith,
Life in Comedy
, 116; and elsewhere.

“I had a great staff”
: Hope interview,
Film Comment
, May–June 1979.

“The
Road
pictures had the excitement”
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood
, 35.

“How fast was I going, Officer?”
: Giddins,
Bing Crosby
, 580.

“That scene was like a piece of music”
: Hope and Thomas,
Road to Hollywood
, 36.

By April, Paramount was already planning
:
Variety
, April 10, 1940.

“Bing loved to hunt and fish”
: Giddins,
Bing Crosby
, 561.

“Bing was a cold tomato”
: Sherwood Schwartz, interview with author.

“What the hell are you doing that for”
: Liberman, unpublished memoir.

“Bob wanted everything that Bing had”
: Hal Kanter, interview with author.

“It was the only time I saw Bob”
: Ibid.

On his first stop in Joliet . . . there were lines around the block
: Hope with Shavelson,
Don’t Shoot
, 61–62.

With a guarantee of $12,500
:
Variety
, May 15, 1940.

“Bob Hope is blazing Hot”
:
Variety
, May 22, 1940.

“It was my first experience”
: Hope with Shavelson,
Don’t Shoot
, 61–62.

“He had his job, and she had her job”
: Tom Malatesta, interview with author.

“She longed for romance from this man”
: Lahr, “C.E.O. of Comedy.”

When he saw that the boy had a ski nose
: Hope,
Have Tux
, 289.

“I haven’t made a comedy”; “That’s all fine”
: Ibid., 156–59.

“Its lightness and levity throughout”
:
Variety
, June 12, 1940.

especially well with “the under-21 mob”
:
Variety
, June 26, 1940.!

put the squeeze on Pepsodent
:
Variety
, June 19, 1940.

“Everyone would write down”
: Thompson,
Portrait of a Superstar
, 50.

“Who do you think you are—Harpo?”
: Hope with Shavelson,
Don’t Shoot
, 64.

“I want to thank both political candidates”
: Ibid., 65.

“The Democrats really put on”
: Ibid., 67–68.

“We are getting many protests”
: NBC memo, November 19, 1940, “Bob Hope and American Variety,” Library of Congress exhibit.