Did anyone ever really love Bob Hope?

Why does everything these days have to be a superlative? Why must writers scream for our attention, yelling that the guy in their book blows everyone else out of the water? Bob Hope, claims Richard Zoglin in this biography, was the most important entertainer of the 20th century. In fact, he adds, you could argue that Hope was ‘the only important entertainer’. Can Zoglin really believe this? Is he really telling Chaplin, Sinatra, Elvis, Monroe et al to roll over? Even if you made the ‘only important …’ boast about one of those people it would sound absurd. Making it about Bob Hope sets you up for a 486-page fall.

It isn’t that Hope’s story lacks importance. If Zoglin had said ‘look, here’s a guy who lived to be 100, who saw vaudeville give way to Hollywood, radio give way to TV and mastered all four, who’s one of several dozen 20th-century stars worthy of your attention’, we might have cut him more slack. But no, everybody has to have an angle. In this case, the braggingly acute one at the top of the triangle.

Hope’s sheer longevity was incredible. Born in 1903, he died three years after the writer of his New York Times obituary. The first time he hosted the Oscars the big winner was Gone With the Wind; the last time it was Star Wars. So early did his fame come that one of the beneficiaries of his support for a south London boys’ club was Michael Caine. The largesse was possible because of Hope’s ruthless business streak: by the late 1940s he was earning a million dollars a year, and reputedly went on to become the largest private landowner in California. His work for charity didn’t stop him watching the pennies, though.