BOB HOPE - 1903 TO 2003
HOPE FROM HOME
Bob Hope was on top of the world in early May, 1941. He had yet to turn 38, had a Top Five show on NBC and was quickly becoming a romantic comedy movie star at Paramount Pictures. Certainly, the war in Europe disturbed him. After all, he was born in London as Leslie Townes Hope on May 29, 1903, four years before his parents emigrated to the United States and settled in Cleveland. But the war was thousands of miles from his busy life in Hollywood.
It was Hope’s radio producer at the time, Al Capstaff, who was first to spot the potential of camp shows when he heard the response given to Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge which had begun the practice in March, 1941. He approached Hope with the idea of doing their May 6th broadcast from March Field in Riverside, California, 70 miles from Hollywood, where his brother was stationed.
Hope was reluctant to say the least. He later recalled in his book written with Mel Shavelson, Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me, that his first reaction was, “What for? There‘s no war going on. Why should we drag the whole show down to Riverside? We‘re doing all right without going out of the studio.” (1)
He soon learned why. And it would begin a journey that took him much further than Riverside.
On May 6, 1941, Hope, sidekick Jerry Colonna and singer Frances Langford, (accompanied by comedienne Barbara Jo Allen as Vera Vague, announcer Bill Goowin and Skinnay Ennis’ band), made their first Tuesday night broadcast from a service installation at March Field. Their reception was overwhelming. Hope later remembered: “We had no idea we were going to discover an audience so ready for laughter. It would make what we did for a living seem like stealing money.”
Every joke resulted in an eruption of laughter. Langford received waves of appreciative applause and whistles. Colonna’s silliness was met with hoots and howls. Hope instinctively knew that he had found a gold mine of popularity. All he had to do was work his claim. (2)
As a result, March Field was the first of many NBC shows that the trio would perform for service audiences - and countless others that weren’t broadcast. The first Tuesday night remote from a military installation available for posting here is from Camp Cooke in Lompoc, California, recorded on March 3, 1942, in which Hope, Colonna and Langford are joined by guests Babe Ruth and Betty Hutton. (3) Hope’s recollection, again from his book: “We represented everything those new recruits didn’t have: home cooking, mother and soft roommates. Their real enemies, even after war broke out, were never just the Germans or the Japanese. Their enemies were boredom, officers, mud and abstinence. Any joke that touched those nerves was a sure thing.”
In April, 1942, Hope, Langford and Colonna joined The Hollywood Victory Caravan - a trainload of stars that toured the country selling War Bonds. Before returning to Los Angeles, they performed in 65 stateside service camps and hospitals as well as doing their Tuesday night broadcasts. Hope had discovered his own kind of active duty and loved it. (See "Professor" Jerry Colonna on this site.)
When Hope and Colonna’s film assignments were completed on September 8, 1942, they left with Langford, guitarist Tony Romano and Hope‘s longtime friend and gag writer Barney Dean for a 15 day tour of remote Armed Forces installations in Alaska, previously visited by Edgar Bergen and Joe E. Brown. (4) After ten days of touring in a converted DC-10 that was almost lost in a bad Alaskan storm before it started, they returned to Seattle on September 22nd for the first Pepsodent Show of the season then flew back to Anchorage to complete the tour. Returning home, their show of October 13, 1942, was was the first broadcast ever performed from the Hollywood Canteen, again before an enthusiastic military audience.
The troupe followed that with a November and December tour of service camps and hospitals in Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio and Indiana. Hope’s show of January 5, 1943 was with a service audience in Palm Springs, featuring Langford, Skinnay Ennis’ band, Barbara Jo Allen as Vera Vague, Colonna in a novelty music spot and guest star Rita Hayworth. Their subsequent ten week tour covered bases in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and Ohio.
Outside commitments prevented Colonna from joining Hope, Langford, Romano and Hope's old vaudeville pal, singer/dancer Jack Pepper, on their June 25, 1943, tour for the newly formed USO, entertaining troops in Great Britain, North Africa, Sicily and Iceland during Hope’s summer hiatus from NBC. His return was greeted with the September 20th Time magazine cover story which read in part:
“…From the ranks of show business have sprung heroes and even martyrs. But so far only one legend. That legend is Bob Hope. It sprang up quickly, telepathically among U.S. servicemen in Britain this summer traveling even faster than whirlwind Hope himself, then flew ahead of him to North Africa and Sicily, growing larger as it went. Like most legends it represents measurable qualities in a kind of mystical blend. Hope was funny, treating hoards of soldiers to roars of laughter. Hope was friendly, ate with servicemen, and drank with them. Hope was indefatigable, running himself ragged with five, six, seven shows a day. He was figurative - the straight link to home, the radio voice that filled the living room that in foreign parts called up his image. Hence, boys whom Hope might entertain for an hour awaited him for weeks. And when he came, anonymous guys who had no other recognition felt personally remembered.”
Not to be outdone by a magazine, NBC’s Cavalcade of America from October 11, 1943, features Bob Hope Reports, recounting his experiences on the trip. (5)
Over Hope’s next summer “vacation” he took Colonna, Langford, Romano, Pepper, Dean and dancer Patti Thomas on a ten-week, 30,000 mile, island-hopping tour of the South Pacific, (Eniwetok, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Majuro, etc.), that left on June 22, 1944. The quintet performed approximately 160 camp and hospital shows from Hawaii to Australia and New Guinea with dozens of stops in between.
Although a Japanese soldier was shot within walking distance of their show on tiny Noemfoor, the closest call of the trip came far from the enemy on the troupe’s hop from Sydney to Brisbane, when one of the plane’s two engines died forcing the pilot to ditch the plane on lake in Laurieton, Australia. The troupe gave a performance at the local Australian USO the next day thank to local townspeople and servicemen for their assistance in boating them ashore from the disabled plane in the water. However. city officials failed to notify the outside world of the events and Hope's plane was reported missing for three days.
On August 12. 1944, NBC broadcast a special 15 minute performance by the group shortwaved from, “...somewhere in the Pacific.” Although the location was kept secret, it most likely originated at Kwajelein in the Marshall Islands, home of a powerful AFRS Mosquito Network radio installation. The date is almost prophetic. The Japanese surrendered one year and two days later on August 14, 1945.
Hope, Langford, Colonna and Romano appeared on Lux Radio Theater’s special broadcast of January 8, 1945, to tell the story of their travels in a “dramatization” of his book, I Never Left Home. Many of Hope’s NBC broadcasts of the 1944-45 Season originated from military hospitals where dancer Patti Thomas accompanied them for (obviously) non-broadcast performances. Thomas wrote of those experiences:
“Visiting the hospitals made us grow…so many kids in true pain and yet they laughed so hard at Bob and Jerry. Frances sang so beautifully, with such feeling. Sometimes she had all she could do to sing without crying. My dancing was easier. I just danced and kept smiling and you could see their faces smiling with me. There’s not enough money in this world to buy those expressive and grateful young faces.”
When his NBC season was completed, Hope gathered Jerry Colonna, Jack Pepper, Patti Thomas, singer Gale Robbins, comedian Roger Price and accordionist Ruth Denas for a final World War II tour in England, France - and for the first time - postwar Germany.
The war in the Pacific was over by the time Hope returned for his 1945-46 season, but his hospital and military base broadcasts continued. His first broadcast of the year on September 11, 1945, from the Naval Training Station in Corpus Christie, Texas, with Colonna, Langford and the Skinnay Ennis band, is remindful of all of the troupe’s shows during the war with wildly enthusiastic audiences.
That enthusiasm carried over to Hope’s homecoming broadcast at NBC’s Hollywood studios on December 4, 1945. Yes, NBC packed that studio audience with grateful service members who returned home and helped give him Network Radio’s Number One rating for five consecutive years.
Bob Hope did find gold at March Field in 1941. It became the reward for his tireless efforts.
(1) Hope’s Pepsodent Show was enjoying its second year in Network Radio’s Top Five in the 1940-41 Season, behind Jack Benny, Fibber McGee & Molly and Edgar Bergen.
(2) Ratings justified Hope’s epiphany. His May, 1941, Hooperating rose from fourth to its first Number One monthly ranking. His Pepsodent Show was Network Radio’s most popular program for five of the next six seasons and helped establish NBC as Tuesday night’s ratings leader for the rest of the decade.
(3) Camp Cooke’s name was changed in 1958 to Vandenberg Air Force Base, honoring General Hoyt Vandenberg, second Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.
(4) The Alaskan tour was at the request of Sergeant Lyle Morain, Hope’s former stand-in at Paramount. He didn’t have to ask twice.
(5) This recording was unfortunately speeded up in dubbing. If anyone is able to correct this problem, please contact GOld Time Radio at tojimramsburg@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2018, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Bob Hope was on top of the world in early May, 1941. He had yet to turn 38, had a Top Five show on NBC and was quickly becoming a romantic comedy movie star at Paramount Pictures. Certainly, the war in Europe disturbed him. After all, he was born in London as Leslie Townes Hope on May 29, 1903, four years before his parents emigrated to the United States and settled in Cleveland. But the war was thousands of miles from his busy life in Hollywood.
It was Hope’s radio producer at the time, Al Capstaff, who was first to spot the potential of camp shows when he heard the response given to Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge which had begun the practice in March, 1941. He approached Hope with the idea of doing their May 6th broadcast from March Field in Riverside, California, 70 miles from Hollywood, where his brother was stationed.
Hope was reluctant to say the least. He later recalled in his book written with Mel Shavelson, Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me, that his first reaction was, “What for? There‘s no war going on. Why should we drag the whole show down to Riverside? We‘re doing all right without going out of the studio.” (1)
He soon learned why. And it would begin a journey that took him much further than Riverside.
On May 6, 1941, Hope, sidekick Jerry Colonna and singer Frances Langford, (accompanied by comedienne Barbara Jo Allen as Vera Vague, announcer Bill Goowin and Skinnay Ennis’ band), made their first Tuesday night broadcast from a service installation at March Field. Their reception was overwhelming. Hope later remembered: “We had no idea we were going to discover an audience so ready for laughter. It would make what we did for a living seem like stealing money.”
Every joke resulted in an eruption of laughter. Langford received waves of appreciative applause and whistles. Colonna’s silliness was met with hoots and howls. Hope instinctively knew that he had found a gold mine of popularity. All he had to do was work his claim. (2)
As a result, March Field was the first of many NBC shows that the trio would perform for service audiences - and countless others that weren’t broadcast. The first Tuesday night remote from a military installation available for posting here is from Camp Cooke in Lompoc, California, recorded on March 3, 1942, in which Hope, Colonna and Langford are joined by guests Babe Ruth and Betty Hutton. (3) Hope’s recollection, again from his book: “We represented everything those new recruits didn’t have: home cooking, mother and soft roommates. Their real enemies, even after war broke out, were never just the Germans or the Japanese. Their enemies were boredom, officers, mud and abstinence. Any joke that touched those nerves was a sure thing.”
In April, 1942, Hope, Langford and Colonna joined The Hollywood Victory Caravan - a trainload of stars that toured the country selling War Bonds. Before returning to Los Angeles, they performed in 65 stateside service camps and hospitals as well as doing their Tuesday night broadcasts. Hope had discovered his own kind of active duty and loved it. (See "Professor" Jerry Colonna on this site.)
When Hope and Colonna’s film assignments were completed on September 8, 1942, they left with Langford, guitarist Tony Romano and Hope‘s longtime friend and gag writer Barney Dean for a 15 day tour of remote Armed Forces installations in Alaska, previously visited by Edgar Bergen and Joe E. Brown. (4) After ten days of touring in a converted DC-10 that was almost lost in a bad Alaskan storm before it started, they returned to Seattle on September 22nd for the first Pepsodent Show of the season then flew back to Anchorage to complete the tour. Returning home, their show of October 13, 1942, was was the first broadcast ever performed from the Hollywood Canteen, again before an enthusiastic military audience.
The troupe followed that with a November and December tour of service camps and hospitals in Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio and Indiana. Hope’s show of January 5, 1943 was with a service audience in Palm Springs, featuring Langford, Skinnay Ennis’ band, Barbara Jo Allen as Vera Vague, Colonna in a novelty music spot and guest star Rita Hayworth. Their subsequent ten week tour covered bases in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and Ohio.
Outside commitments prevented Colonna from joining Hope, Langford, Romano and Hope's old vaudeville pal, singer/dancer Jack Pepper, on their June 25, 1943, tour for the newly formed USO, entertaining troops in Great Britain, North Africa, Sicily and Iceland during Hope’s summer hiatus from NBC. His return was greeted with the September 20th Time magazine cover story which read in part:
“…From the ranks of show business have sprung heroes and even martyrs. But so far only one legend. That legend is Bob Hope. It sprang up quickly, telepathically among U.S. servicemen in Britain this summer traveling even faster than whirlwind Hope himself, then flew ahead of him to North Africa and Sicily, growing larger as it went. Like most legends it represents measurable qualities in a kind of mystical blend. Hope was funny, treating hoards of soldiers to roars of laughter. Hope was friendly, ate with servicemen, and drank with them. Hope was indefatigable, running himself ragged with five, six, seven shows a day. He was figurative - the straight link to home, the radio voice that filled the living room that in foreign parts called up his image. Hence, boys whom Hope might entertain for an hour awaited him for weeks. And when he came, anonymous guys who had no other recognition felt personally remembered.”
Not to be outdone by a magazine, NBC’s Cavalcade of America from October 11, 1943, features Bob Hope Reports, recounting his experiences on the trip. (5)
Over Hope’s next summer “vacation” he took Colonna, Langford, Romano, Pepper, Dean and dancer Patti Thomas on a ten-week, 30,000 mile, island-hopping tour of the South Pacific, (Eniwetok, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Majuro, etc.), that left on June 22, 1944. The quintet performed approximately 160 camp and hospital shows from Hawaii to Australia and New Guinea with dozens of stops in between.
Although a Japanese soldier was shot within walking distance of their show on tiny Noemfoor, the closest call of the trip came far from the enemy on the troupe’s hop from Sydney to Brisbane, when one of the plane’s two engines died forcing the pilot to ditch the plane on lake in Laurieton, Australia. The troupe gave a performance at the local Australian USO the next day thank to local townspeople and servicemen for their assistance in boating them ashore from the disabled plane in the water. However. city officials failed to notify the outside world of the events and Hope's plane was reported missing for three days.
On August 12. 1944, NBC broadcast a special 15 minute performance by the group shortwaved from, “...somewhere in the Pacific.” Although the location was kept secret, it most likely originated at Kwajelein in the Marshall Islands, home of a powerful AFRS Mosquito Network radio installation. The date is almost prophetic. The Japanese surrendered one year and two days later on August 14, 1945.
Hope, Langford, Colonna and Romano appeared on Lux Radio Theater’s special broadcast of January 8, 1945, to tell the story of their travels in a “dramatization” of his book, I Never Left Home. Many of Hope’s NBC broadcasts of the 1944-45 Season originated from military hospitals where dancer Patti Thomas accompanied them for (obviously) non-broadcast performances. Thomas wrote of those experiences:
“Visiting the hospitals made us grow…so many kids in true pain and yet they laughed so hard at Bob and Jerry. Frances sang so beautifully, with such feeling. Sometimes she had all she could do to sing without crying. My dancing was easier. I just danced and kept smiling and you could see their faces smiling with me. There’s not enough money in this world to buy those expressive and grateful young faces.”
When his NBC season was completed, Hope gathered Jerry Colonna, Jack Pepper, Patti Thomas, singer Gale Robbins, comedian Roger Price and accordionist Ruth Denas for a final World War II tour in England, France - and for the first time - postwar Germany.
The war in the Pacific was over by the time Hope returned for his 1945-46 season, but his hospital and military base broadcasts continued. His first broadcast of the year on September 11, 1945, from the Naval Training Station in Corpus Christie, Texas, with Colonna, Langford and the Skinnay Ennis band, is remindful of all of the troupe’s shows during the war with wildly enthusiastic audiences.
That enthusiasm carried over to Hope’s homecoming broadcast at NBC’s Hollywood studios on December 4, 1945. Yes, NBC packed that studio audience with grateful service members who returned home and helped give him Network Radio’s Number One rating for five consecutive years.
Bob Hope did find gold at March Field in 1941. It became the reward for his tireless efforts.
(1) Hope’s Pepsodent Show was enjoying its second year in Network Radio’s Top Five in the 1940-41 Season, behind Jack Benny, Fibber McGee & Molly and Edgar Bergen.
(2) Ratings justified Hope’s epiphany. His May, 1941, Hooperating rose from fourth to its first Number One monthly ranking. His Pepsodent Show was Network Radio’s most popular program for five of the next six seasons and helped establish NBC as Tuesday night’s ratings leader for the rest of the decade.
(3) Camp Cooke’s name was changed in 1958 to Vandenberg Air Force Base, honoring General Hoyt Vandenberg, second Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.
(4) The Alaskan tour was at the request of Sergeant Lyle Morain, Hope’s former stand-in at Paramount. He didn’t have to ask twice.
(5) This recording was unfortunately speeded up in dubbing. If anyone is able to correct this problem, please contact GOld Time Radio at tojimramsburg@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2018, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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