Nov. 25, 1951: Rehearsals of "My L.A.," sketches inspired by Matt Weinstock's book, with a script by Larry Gelbart, Laurence Marks and Bill Manhoff.

Nov. 3, 1972: Larry Gelbart on writing "MASH" for TV.    

 
BOB HOPE 1903-2003

Comic wit of a century

* What a show. Animated as a cartoon, he amused presidents and delighted a loyal, loving public.

Tuesday July 29, 2003

By Larry Gelbart, Special to The Times

Paying tribute to Bob Hope in just a few short words is like trying to give Mt. Rushmore a close shave.

In
an industry that demands not only ever-newer faces, but also that the
older faces be made to look as if they were new all over again, Hope
boasted a career that had a shelf life of darn near an entire century.

The
year that he was born (following a nine-month tryout in the womb),
Roosevelt was in the White House. Theodore Roosevelt, that is; the 26th
of our presidents. Hope went on to entertain and become the confidant
and golf partner of succeeding U.S. presidents clear through to our
43rd. In a life that spanned the better and all of the worst parts of
the last hundred years — from TR to FDR, from Henry to Gerald Ford,
from Bush to Bush, Louis to Neil Armstrong, Bojangles to Jackie
Robinson, Karl Marx to Groucho, from vaudeville to video — America's
comic laureate never met a medium he couldn't, and didn't eventually,
master.

With his first radio show in May of 1937, Hope entered
the national consciousness he was not to leave for the next 60 years.
Either radio was invented for him or he was invented for radio, for it
was through that medium that, by generating incredible bursts of brio,
Hope made the family Philco crackle with his machine-gun delivery, his
style very much like another ex-hoofer, Jimmy Cagney. Only without the
snarl.

(Philco, for those of you who might quite possibly have
been born yesterday, was the name of a make of radio in the days when,
more than a mere appliance, radios could be surfed for their Web-like
usefulness; a wooden member of every household, they were, for the
family that owned one [one was enough in those days — one of
anything], its theater, its newsroom, encyclopedia, vaudeville house,
jukebox. Radio was a warm, friendly, benevolent friend — despite the
commercials it offered, wherein doctors instructed a simpler, sweeter,
goofier American on how much our digestive process could be aided by
the smoking of cigarettes.)

Although his radio shows are
somewhat inaccessible these days, it's altogether possible that
somewhere, way, way out there, high up in the ether, perhaps a member
of the Martian Marine Corps is laughing his heads off at Hope's cracks
about Bing's protruding ears or Jane Russell's equally outstanding
protrusions.

But see Bob on the big screen. See him on the
little one. See Bob run. See him clown and quip, see him lech and leer.
See how Bob always gave his all — which for anyone else would have
been all-and-a-half.

Walt Disney had to draw animation. Bob Hope embodied it.

In
1950, when he agreed to stick his head inside the then-new medium of
television, he did so with his characteristic confidence and sense of
adventure, knowing all that he had done before was prologue and that
the tube would prove to be his ideal, ultimate destination; knowing
that when vaudeville died, television was the box they put it in.

And
so, from his debut in 1950 until his final special in 1996, this Peck's
Bad Boy in a Windsor knot reigned supreme in a medium at once whimsical
and harsh, where some less-fortunate performers' shows have been known
to be canceled before the very first commercial.

God only knows
how much comedy material Hope consumed, this man for so many seasons —
how many ad-libs and trigger-fast comebacks he read off an endless sea
of cue cards that he was the first to call "idiot boards."

Faceless
we might have been, we who toiled endlessly to mine Hope's one-liners,
but we were always publicly appreciated by him — as we were privately
delighted by him.

Those who knew him knew that he never needed a
script in his hands to be humorous. His mind was as swift as his
delivery; his offstage, off-the-cuff remarks often far more spontaneous
and wittier than the sometimes too easy, by-the-numbers jokes we came
up with for him.

Here's a sample, though, of some of the best of
our work, one of the better jokes from a Bob Hope monologue. The
context will reveal its vintage.

"I see where Gen. Eisenhower has decided to run for president," Hope informs us.

Then adds:

"Just shows you what some guys won't do to get out of the Army."

Two
simple sentences, the joke is an example of democracy in action, Hope
demonstrating that in America even an immigrant boy can grow up to kid
the president. And use a bank shot off a five-star supreme commander in
the process.

For several decades and for far more wars than anyone ever wanted, one of Bob's sure-fire one-liners used to be:

"I just got back from Washington. I like to go there every once in a while just to visit my money."

In
these times, when numbers seem to have replaced words in the matter of
which is more important to us, there has been a good deal of
speculation as to just how many millions Bob Hope managed to stash away
throughout his mortal gig. The exact number is strictly between his
estate and the IRS. (His gift for business — not stage business but
rather business business — was not in any way less brilliant. His
long-ago agent, Jimmy Saphier, once told me that Bob had the smarts to
be able to run General Motors.)

Let us rather speculate, and
appreciate, how many millions — those millions we are sure of — whose
lives were enriched watching him as he displayed his gift for acting
the fool, the fool we were always certain was the person sitting right
next to us.

And for being cheeky, for trying to turn on an
achingly pretty woman and always getting turned down for his efforts,
instead of suffering that fate ourselves.

And, lastly, for
visiting the countless sons and daughters in faraway places — all the
husbands and fathers and sisters that we could not — to say how
grateful we at home were for the sacrifices they were making on our
behalf.

Asked to recall a favorite anecdote of the days I spent
working with Hope, my standard reply is that it was, in fact, one, long
anecdote that lasted four years.

Pressed for something that
won't take quite that long to retell, I repeat a telegram that he sent
ages ago to a former secretary of his — a young woman who had just
married. The message, which Bob had delivered to the bride on her first
night in her honeymoon suite, consisted of two words.

The two words were: "Act surprised."

Brevity, indeed, is the soul of wit.

And so, indeed, was Bob Hope.

*

Larry Gelbart wrote for Bob Hope from 1948 to 1952. He went on to write for Broadway and films.