Bob Hope

The Boxer Who Ended Up in Radio

Leslie Townes Hope was born in a humble neighborhood of London in 1903 and moved to the United States when he was only four years old. Before becoming the comedian everyone remembers in black and white, he tried to make a living as a professional boxer under the name Packy East. He didn't do very well in the ring, but that failure taught him to take the critics' punches with considerable grace.

In the 1920s he honed his craft on the vaudeville circuit, doing a bit of everything. He sang, danced and, above all, talked at a speed that dizzied audiences. That verbal quickness was his ticket to Broadway, where he landed his first major roles before making the definitive leap to radio studios.

Signed with NBC in 1937 to host a show that stayed on the air for almost three decades. Radio gave him the chance to refine his machine-gun style of short jokes. But movies soon came calling with a Paramount Pictures contract that would change his bank account forever.

And the gamble paid off.

In 1938 he filmed The Big Broadcast of 1938, where he first performed the song Thanks for the Memory. That tune became his signature song and the obligatory closing number of all his public appearances. But his real commercial breakthrough came in 1940, when he teamed up with Bing Crosby to make Road to Singapore.

The Gold Mine of Road Movies

That film launched a series of seven feature films that took the duo to exotic places like Morocco and Bali between 1940 and 1962. The formula was simple, based on the chemistry between two guys who insulted each other with style while trying to swindle someone. Hope always played the cowardly one who thought he was a ladies' man, and Crosby the clever one who got the girl.

During World War II, his figure became a constant presence on the battlefront. In 1941 he gave his first show for the troops at a base in California, and from then on he never stopped traveling to conflict zones. He made more than 50 USO tours, visiting Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf to entertain soldiers who were thousands of miles from home.

He was a workaholic.

His detractors said he did it purely for personal publicity. But the reality is that Hope spent more time on military planes than at his own home. That dedication earned him the status of a national institution, one that few actors have managed to maintain for so long without any apparent wear.

The real estate shark

Away from the spotlight, he was an extremely wealthy and shrewd man. He invested much of his salary in farmland in the San Fernando Valley (California) when nobody gave a penny for those lands. By 1967, he was reportedly one of the largest private landowners in the state, with thousands of hectares in his name.

He hosted the Oscars ceremony 19 times between 1939 and 1978. It is a record that still seems impossible for any Hollywood figure to surpass. But despite his close relationship with the Academy, he never won a statuette for an individual performance.

He never won a competitive Oscar.

In return, he received five honorary awards for his service to the industry and his humanitarian work. His style began to feel stale with the arrival of the 70s and new directors seeking gritty realism. He preferred to stick with his clean jokes and special TV appearances without changing a bit of his harmless cynic persona.

He died at his Toluca Lake residence in 2003. He had just turned 100 years old and left an estate worth more than 400 million dollars. His last big-screen appearance was a brief cameo in Spies Like Us from 1985.