Screenland (Nov 1940-Apr 1941)

r Who's Yehudi? Bob Hope Tells! Continued from page 27 with the Little Things In Life which, the motto writers tell us, are the Important Things — like dieting, for example. I've seen more pusses go sour over the diet thing than enough. Women, men, too, read their calories lists like they were chanting a dirge. Women look like they're digging their graves with their teeth when they pass up a French pastry for a jigger of old celery juice ! "Now, then, it's a pleasing sight to see Bob Hope on the Paramount lot these days, attired in tight tights, riding back and forth between the commissary and the set of 'Road To Zanzibar' (advt!) riding from his home to the studio and back again, on his bicycle built for one. And for why does Hope bike it? Takes the pot down. For I was getting a pot, my pretties, but I could have some fun depotting myself, couldn't I ? I could, and did. I rode a bike instead of lolling in a car. I ate only with people who were also slightly potty. Hence, I didn't see what I was missing, thus didn't miss it. . ." (Bob, by the way, and come to think of it, rather forcibly suggested that I try a mixed green salad with old-fashioned French dressing ; he was slimming on clear chicken broth and a fresh fruit compote). "Then, at home," he said, "I have a pooltable in my living room. In fact, our living room is a combination living room, pool room and game room. When I'm disgusted with things, I get up and shoot a game of pool. Play more games, is what I mean. But, more importantly, don't keep your games segregated. I mean, don't have the things you do for fun put into a concentration camp so that you have to get up and go off into some special room, or even away from home, in order to play. Have your fun right where you live, have it in your living room or in your bedroom, if you like. So if you're having an argument with your wife you can get right up from where you're sitting, can get up right in the middle of a sentence and shoot some pool. "Then, take business. I may, often do, go and talk over my business deals on the golf course. And this is a true note I'm giving you, this is a concrete piece of advice to the Funlorn if I ever mixed concrete : DO mix business with pleasure ! If you haven't a golf course handy, go to an amusement park, discuss your deal in a Fun House, on a roller-coaster, go down to the beach, get out on a tennis court, do some flagpole sitting, go anywhere you like — but take it away from those four walls, a dictaphone, and a frustrated secretary. "Me, I built my house, English farmhouse style for those who care how their humble entertainers are housed, right next door to the Lakeview Golf Course. To those of the Funlorn who possibly can, I do strongly recommend building a home adjoining a golf course. The minute I get out of a broadcasting studio or off a set, I tear home and hop over the back fence and streak across that golf course. I relax there more than anywhere in the world. Just to get that sun and air is almost enough, without Crosby and the game. "Have lots of people around all the time, is another peerless panacea for the peeved. You can't be crabby in a crowd. Well, anyway, nowhere near so crabby as you can feel alone. I love to have a mob of people around me. And always do. On the set, in the commissary, in my dressing room, at home. Comes of being one of six brothers, no doubt. You get it thrown at you all the time when you're one of a sextette. Anyway, wife Dolores and I have an informal, congenial crowd around the house ALL the time. No formality, you know. No stiff shirts. No set hours for meals. Formality is rigor mortis on the body of fun. The kind of folks we have around, the Crosbys, the Fred MacMurrays and dozens of others, are the kind that don't care, don't even notice if I run in, grab something to eat, run right out again. And no explanations necessary. And no harm done. "Why, I can remember only one night in the whole seven years we've been married, when we sat at home alone, Dolores and I, read the papers, listened to the radio and went to bed. We couldn't sleep. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are at it again (remember them in "Road to Singapore"?). Now they're making "Road to Zanzibar," but no matter what the picture may be called, when this mirth-producing pair get together all roads lead to another laugh riot. 90 Hurry, hurry, hurry, folks — step this way and see Fearless Bob Hope dressed for one of the road show scenes in "Road to Zanzibar." Bob is supposed to be shot out of a cannon and the wings are to help him soar through the air with ease — he hopes. We never thought we'd see the day when Bob would wear tights. "Play with kids, that's another pink pill for the Funlorn. Play with kids, your own, if you have any, your neighbors' if you haven't. I have a lot of fun playing with our sixteen-months-old daughter, Linda. Thing is, when you play with kids you have to be kind of silly, you have to fall apart. Nothing better for you than to fall apart, in a nice way. I read fairy stories to Linda now, too. Sometimes I act them out for her. Only part I won't play is that of the Bad Fairy. I want to be a good fairy or nothing ! "The kid angle is really for me — we've got something there — so I'm not running out of ideas when I repeat myself and say that if you haven't any of your own, by all means go out and adopt a couple. if you can afford it and if you can't afford it, borrow a few from the neighbors for an hour or two every day. I'll admit that it was Dolores' idea for us to adopt a baby. I'll admit that, at first, I was against it. It didn't interest me, didn't appeal to me. 'That's not for me,' I said. I went to the Cradle with Dolores, under duress vile, so to speak. I'd look at the characters, I said, but I'd stay on the nether side of the plate glass and I'd come out as empty-handed as I went in. "Well," said Bob, with a smile that twisted a little in the middle, "well, all I can say is that / went out and got the second baby myself. Dolores didn't even go with me, didn't even know I was going. The first kid they showed me, I took one look at him, barely born he was, and he was all nose, nostrils sticking out like he was about to take off— the kid absolutely looks like me. 'This is for me !' I said. The matron said, 'But how do vou know Mrs. Hope will like this baby ?' I said 'I'll okay