Radio and television mirror (Jan-June 1949)

[kt MY Gill liti Xfh j^(mj\di()jb m L mm bij \)(m yaxy FIRST I want to say that everything Doris Day has written about me is untrue. I haven't read it, but I deny the whole thing. I asked her to let me see it so I could refute it in a nice way, instead of like this, but she said she'd already sent it in to Radio Mirror. She didn't improve things any by saying, "I thought it would embarrass you if I read it to you." What did she mean, "read it to me?" I can read — ^why, I went to college! I ilemember those happy days well — all three of them. And they're proud of me at my old school. They've put a plaque over my old desk. It says "Bob Hope slept here." One of the nice things about making a personal appearance tour of the country is that you get a chance to look at famous landmarks like that. Another nice thing is that you get a chance to really know the people you're working with. Doris joined the Tuesday night NBC broadcast last September, and she showed no signs of breaking under the strain of working with me by the time we left Hollywood in January. But after five weeks of one night stands, I can really give you the lowdown on her. It's one thing to do a half-hour show on the air once a week from Hollywood. It's quite another thing to play nine two-and-a-half-hour shows a week on the road as well as the network show. If there is any gravel in a girl, that routine will bring it to the surface. We set out from Hollywood on January 4, cheered on by my friends — ^my brother and two others. It was wonderful to see all of those smiUng faces and to hear those shouts of "Keep moving — ^you need a change and we need a rest." It did not work out quite that way. The hotels got all oi my change and the government got the rest, but we had fun, even when we were in the air. We traveled in a United Mainliner DC6 that stayed with us throughout the tour. They named the ship after me, "The Bob Hope"^ — not, as has been erroneously reported, "The Hot-Air Lift." A lump comes into nay throat every time I think of that splendid flying crew. It isn't my stomach. My stomach went in the other direction. I leaned over to find it as we crossed the Santa Rosa Mountains {Continued on page 102) WHEN you first meet Bob Hope you think he is wonderful because he is kind and nice, and the gags keep pouring out and you have a lot of laughs. After you have done five weeks of one night stands with him you really know that he is wonderful because you have found out a lot of things about him that he would never tell — things that you would not get a chance to see unless you were traveling with his company and spending practically every waking minute caught up in the activities that move around him like a tornado. For the first week, your head is in a whirl because there are about fourteen things happening each minute and every minute. There seem to be hundreds of people swarming around grabbing at his attention and thousands of demands on his time. As you see this go on and on, you understand why they call him "Mr. Perpetual Motion," and you begin to wonder how he can keep up the pace, and when he is going to begin to wear thin and snap at somebody. But it never happens. Gradually you begin to reahze that his good nature goes on forever, and so does his sense of humor. It isn't an act. He really is just as funny all the time off the stage as he is on. Then you begin to notice something about his gags. They never are mean and if there is a sting in them it is always pointed at Bob, himself, never at anybody else. He never hurts anybody's feelings because he really likes people and he shows it in a hundred different ways. I'll tell you about some of them later. Though you may die laughing at some of his gags about himself, nobody ever tries to get funny by making that kind of a crack about him. In the first place, you respect him too much for all he is and all he has done and all he knows. In the second place, he jvist isn't the kind of man anybody gets fresh with. He is easy and friendly and just the same to everybody, from the most important people in the land to the guys backstage, but he just . isn't the kind of a man you would play a practical joke on, for instance. He hasn't any pose or side; he always seems to be just himself. But pretty soon you find out that he is really hard to get to know. He seems to have a little wall buUt around him. It is a wall made of laughter and fun, but it is there, just the same. {Continued on page 104) 54 The Bob Hope Shoiv is heard Tuesday nights at 9, EST, over National Broadcasting Company stations.