Bob Hope

Coming from London, where he was born in 1903, Leslie Towne Hope emigrated at the age of 4, together with his family, to Cleveland (United States). He studied high school while teaching ballet, and worked from his youth, until he offered to open for Fatty Arbuckle during one of his shows. He so enthused audiences that Arbuckle gave him a letter of recommendation for a theater director. Finally, he got his Broadway debut, in a production titled Sidewalks of New York.

After marrying Dolores Reade, his only wife, he achieved a certain relevance on the stage, which led to him being offered film contracts. His first contact with the big screen was the short Going Spanish , from 1934. But the medium that would bring Bob Hope to stardom, curiously, was the radio, where he triumphed with the serial full of songsThe Big Broadcast of 1938 , brought to the screen soon after by Mitchell Leisen . On the billboards he swept the Singapore Road (1940), which teamed him with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour . The two male comedians played two bachelors who try to forget their love disappointments in the city referred to in the title. The actress gave life to a frivolous woman, with whom they both fell in love. The film began one of the best-known series in the history of comedy, the saga of the “Road to” (Way of). They followedRoad to Utopia ,Road to Bali , all hosted by the unforgettable trio. Other works by Hope were also well received by the public, especially her parodies. She sharpened the pirate genre inThe princess and the pirate , but also to the intrigue, inMorena and dangerous , and to the western, inPale face andThe son of Paleface .

There were 18 occasions on which he presented the Oscars, since 1930, which makes him the star who has dealt with this task the most times. He stood out for his witty phrases of the type “Why do I present these awards? I will do anything to avoid paying the 12 dollars that the entrance costs.”

Although in the 1960s his films had become somewhat repetitive, and interested viewers less, he concentrated on the small screen. Many of his shows became part of television history, and he shone above all with his Christmas specials. He shot the last one in 1981, and around that time he stopped working regularly, although his last work dates from 1986, when he appeared in a telefilm entitled A Masterpiece of Murder . In total he had starred in more than 60 films, and he had been given 5 special Oscars. In 1977 he published “Road to Hollywood”, his autobiography. He passed away on July 27, 2003.