Classic Movie Hub Blog

“Hope: Entertainer of the Century”
Exclusive Interview with author Richard Zoglin

With his topical jokes and his all-American brash-but-cowardly screen character, Bob Hope was the only entertainer to achieve top-rated success in every major mass-entertainment medium of the century. Above all, Hope helped redefine the very notion of what it meant to be a star… he was a savvy businessman, an enterprising brand marketer, a tireless worker and a public-spirited entertainer who set the standard for public service in Hollywood. And now, we can read all about Hope’s extraordinary life and career in a fascinating new biography from Richard Zoglin, Hope: Entertainer of the Century, which will be in stores on Tuesday, November 4.  But that’s not all — CMH is happy to say that Richard has honored us with an exclusive interview about the book.

Before we start the interview however, I just want to add that this biography is a thoroughly enjoyable read. It’s wonderfully informative and interesting, and provides great insight into Bob Hope, the entertainer and the man. I learned a lot and smiled a lot, and, quite frankly, was struck by Hope’s relentless hard work in building his legacy. I’m still thinking about the book now, even weeks after reading it, and would strongly recommend it to all classic movie fans.

A big Thank You to Richard Zoglin for taking the time to do this interview — and to Simon and Schuster for supplying CMH with SIX copies of  Hope: Entertainer of the Century to give away during the month of November!  Contest details here.

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CMH: You’ve spent much of your career as a contributing editor and theater critic for Time magazine. What compelled you to write such an extensive biography on Bob Hope?

Richard Zoglin: A few years ago I wrote a book called Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America. It got me wondering about the man who was really the founding father of modern stand-up comedy, Bob Hope. I felt he had never gotten the recognition he deserved, as a pioneer not just in stand-up comedy but in many other fields as well, and I was surprised no one had written a really good, definitive biography of him. So I thought it was time.

CMH: Bob Hope is such an iconic figure in American entertainment. I can only imagine how difficult it was to chronicle his life and career, and beyond that, express the depth and breath of his impact in America and on the world stage. Could you please share with us how long it took to write the book, and how you approached compiling and organizing the research for it?

Richard Zoglin: The book took me about five years from start to finish. My most important resource was Hope’s own papers and letters at the Library of Congress — more than 250 boxes of them, which took me several weeks to go through. I was also fortunate to come upon a couple of unpublished memoirs that helped me immensely, including one by Bob’s older brother Jim Hope, which chronicles the family’s hardscrabble life in England and later in Cleveland. A surprising number of people were still around who knew and worked with Hope in his heyday, and I made an effort to track down and interview all of them as soon as possible, since many were quite old (and quite a few, sadly, have died since I talked to them). Beyond that, it was just a matter of plowing through the archives of publications like Variety, to try to piece together his extraordinary career.

CMH: You mention in the book that Hope’s life “almost perfectly spanned the century, and to recount his career is to recapitulate the history of modern American show business.” Could you please elaborate on this a little for us?

Richard Zoglin: Hope started in vaudeville, at the tail end of that colorful era. When vaudeville was dying he segued neatly to Broadway, at a time when Broadway was flourishing. He became a radio star when radio was the dominant mass-audience medium, and he was one of the first Hollywood stars to make the leap into television.  He always seemed to have a nose for where the mass audience was going.

CMH: To quote the book, “Vaudeville was Hope’s irreplaceable school of show business.”  What was it about Hope’s vaudeville years that would impact him as an entertainer for the rest of his life? 

Richard Zoglin: Vaudeville instilled in Hope a love of live performing, and gave him the travel bug. He never lost that love of the road, and he always seemed to be on the move. I also think his long apprenticeship in vaudeville made him resourceful and resilient as a performer. He struggled for years to make it, and he had to work hard for his success. He never stopped working.

CMH: The book takes us through every aspect of Hope’s career, from vaudeville and radio, to Broadway, film and television, chronicling his relentless hard work and determination along the way.  We also learn that Hope was a savvy businessman and brand marketer. There are many examples of Hope’s incredible business acumen in the book; could you share just one example with us?

Richard Zoglin: In 1944, when Hope was one of Hollywood’s most bankable movie stars, he decided that he didn’t want to be a salaried employee for Paramount any more, and he convinced the studio to let him set up his own production company, so he could gain more control over his career and take ownership of his own work. He wasn’t the first star to set up his own production company, but he was the most prominent and the most successful. Now virtually every top Hollywood star has a production deal modeled on the one Hope set up.

Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in Road to Bali

CMH: Many fans grew up watching (and loving) the ‘Road’ movies starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The book talks about the duo’s first meeting in 1932, and (five years later) the start of their friendship and professional partnership. What was it about the duo’s dynamic that made the Hope/Crosby formula so successful?

Richard Zoglin: On screen, they had the perfect combination of camaraderie and tension.  Crosby was the schemer, Hope the patsy; Crosby the cool customer, Hope the nervous Nellie; Crosby the suave ladies’ man, Hope the overeager wannabe. As performers, they were so in sync with each other that their dialogue often sounded ad-libbed, and you felt you were watching the real Hope and Crosby, not two made-up characters. Off-stage they weren’t close friends, but on a movie screen or on the stage, they brought out the best in each other.

CMH: As stated in the book, “Hope recognized, more acutely than any other star of his day, the power of his celebrity and felt a calling to use it”.  How did Hope help set the standard for public service in Hollywood?

Richard Zoglin: Hope was peripatetic in his public-service work, not just entertaining U.S. troops around the globe, but appearing for virtually any charity that he could fit into his schedule. He loved doing this kind of work, because it satisfied his compulsive need to be onstage and brought him large and invariably enthusiastic audiences. But his public-service work also set an example that was hard for the rest of Hollywood to ignore. He showed that stars have an obligation to do more than just make movies and sign autographs. They can give back, work for causes, take a role on the public stage.

Bob Hope, WW II USO tour

CMH: Hope’s tireless commitment to USO touring is an integral part of his image.  Many of us are aware of these efforts, but perhaps not to the extent in which the book details. Could you talk a bit about Hope’s ambitious USO touring efforts and how, at times, it put him in harm’s way?

Richard Zoglin: During World War II, Hope was one of many stars who went overseas to entertain the troops. But no star was more intrepid, or connected so well with the troops. Partly this was because they appreciated the risks he was taking. Three days after the General George Patton led Allied forces in a successful invasion of Sicily, Hope and his troupe were there to entertain the troops. Hope and his entertainers were in the line of fire for many enemy bombing raids, both in Sicily and North Africa. Years later, on his first trip to Vietnam, in 1964, Hope and his troupe arrived at their Saigon hotel to find that it had been nearly destroyed by a bomb just 10 minutes before. Captured North Vietnamese documents later revealed that the blast had in fact been aimed at Hope and his troupe, but had exploded 10 minutes early.

CMH: The book includes many of Hope’s funny lines and quotes (which made me smile quite a bit). What was it about Hope’s brand of humor that endeared him to audiences? And, how has Hope impacted modern standup comedy?

Richard Zoglin: In movies, I think what made Hope so appealing was his self-deprecating wit: he poked fun at his own cowardice, his inability to get the girl, his helplessness at the hands of Crosby’s schemes. He made it OK to laugh at our failings. His stand-up monologues, on the other hand, were notable for their topicality. Hope joked about the news headlines, the weather, Hollywood gossip, his own travels and golf game. When he started out, this was something new; now it is what virtually every stand-up comedian and late-night TV host does.

CMH: The book made me realize that I’ve taken Bob Hope’s celebrity for granted — in that I was surprised to learn how long and hard he worked to achieve stardom, and how tirelessly he worked even after achieving stardom. Was there anything that surprised you about Hope as you were doing your research for the book?

Richard Zoglin: I was surprised at how sharp and prescient Hope was about the changing entertainment industry, and how often he was a pioneer. For example, in the 1950s Hollywood was still keeping an arm’s length from television, afraid that the new medium was stealing away the movie audience. Hope argued that Hollywood should learn to live with television — and in fact use TV to help sell its movies. Hope made TV commercials to promote his films before anyone else did. Now it is de rigueur for every major Hollywood release.

CMH: What three Bob Hope films would you recommend to ‘new’ fans if they are not yet familiar with Hope’s legacy? And why?

Richard Zoglin: First I would recommend one of the Road pictures. Almost any (except the last, Road to Hong Kong) would do, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Road to Zanzibar. Then I would suggest one of his solo films from the early ’40s, when he was young, attractive and at his most appealing – maybe My Favorite Blonde, which is a great spoof of Hitchcock-type spy capers. And then I would tell them to look at Sorrowful Jones, to see Hope’s range as an actor and the closest he ever came to a dramatic role.

CMH: In closing, I’d like to circle back around to a question you posed in the book’s introduction, and I’m wondering if you could sum up your answer to it in just a few sentences: Who was Bob Hope, and why did he matter?

Richard Zoglin: He was the most successful entertainer of the 20th century, for the simple reason that he achieved more success in more fields — Broadway, radio, TV, movies, live concerts — than anyone else.  But he was the most important entertainer of the century because he really defined what it means to be a star in the modern era: a businessman who took control of his own career, a marketer of his own fame, and a star who showed that it was possible to give back and have a role on the public stage.

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Thanks again to Richard Zoglin and Simon and Schuster for this fascinating book and interview, and for six books to giveaway in November.  For those of you who can’t wait to win the book, you can purchase it here

About Richard Zoglin:  Richard Zoglin has spent more than thirty years as a writer and editor for Time and is currently the magazine’s theater critic. His book Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America is considered the definitive history of that seminal era in stand-up comedy. Zoglin is a native of Kansis City, Missouri, and curently lives in New York City. You can follow Richard Zoglin on twitter at @rzoglin.

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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub