This is the year of passing of legends. Sorry to announce that Bob Hope has passed away last night. Here is the story from Reuters. He was 100 years old. Please feel free to comment or give tribute to this thread for Bob Hope.
Hondo 
By Arthur Spiegelman and Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian Bob Hope, who parlayed an uncanny sense of timing and ability to toss off one line jokes into a legendary show business career, has died peacefully at age 100 with his family at his side, a family spokesman said on Monday.
Hope died of pneumonia on Sunday night at 9:28 p.m. at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Toluca Lake, spokesman Ward Grant said.
President Bush led the nation in mourning the comedian who had become a national institution both through his comedy and through his unstinting devotion to American troops whom he entertained in virtually every conflict from World War II to the first Gulf war.
"Today America lost a great citizen. We mourn the passing of Bob Hope. Bob Hope made us laugh. He lifted our spirits," the president said, adding:
"Bob Hope served our nation when he went to battlefields to entertain thousands of troops from different generations. We extend our prayers to his family and we mourn the loss of a good man. May God bless his soul."
In a statement issued to reporters outside the family home, Hope's wife of 69 years, Dolores Hope, asked friends and fans to celebrate his life, not just mourn his passing.
"While we mourn the passing of such a wonderful and remarkable man, we ask that his friends and fans celebrate his life, a life that Bob loved and lived to the fullest."
Hope is survived by his wife, two sons Anthony and Kelly, two daughters, Linda Hope and Nora Somers, and four grandchildren.
The family said the burial would be private and for immediate family only and that details on a permanent memorial would be announced at a later date.
The streets around Hope's home were blocked off by police to prevent people from disturbing the family.
Neighbors mourned his passing, calling him a generous man. One neighbor, who declined to give his name, said, "As one final joke, I almost expect Bob to come to walking out."
THE ULTIMATE COMEDIAN
Hope, who was born in England, was the ultimate comedian, a master of timing who turned the one-liner into an art form and became a national institution.
His career, which included stints as an amateur boxer, minstrel in black face and dancer, spanned seven decades in which he starred in five mediums: vaudeville, radio, stage, movies and television.
Virtually running his own joke factory by employing almost 100 writers, Hope was able to draw on a collection of hundreds of thousands of jokes that specialized in sexual double entendres, gags about his ski-slope nose and lines that paid homage to his decided lack of humility and willingness to con anyone.
Hope was one of the first superstars and one of the 20th century's greatest comedians. He also pioneered with Bing Crosby one of Hollywood's most enduring genres -- the buddy movie.
Crosby and Hope became one of the screen's great couples in a succession of "Road" movies beginning with 1940's "Road to Singapore," which was originally a serious drama called "The Road to Mandalay" that was turned into a comedy first for George Burns and Gracie Allen and then for Jack Oakie and Fred MacMurray, all of whom turned it down.
During the Vietnam War Hope was criticized for being a "hawk" who supported the conflict. But he said he was really a middle-of-the-road supporter who wanted the war to end and even tried twice to visit Hanoi and arrange prisoner releases.
He was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, Kent, England, the fifth of seven sons of a stonemason. His father moved his family to Cleveland, Ohio, when Hope was 3 to work on a church there.
An often vain man, who some said could never pass a mirror without taking a look, Hope never boasted it was talent that got him to where he was -- as far as he was concerned, timing was everything.
"The only thing I have is timing -- and lots and lots of experience," he once said. "It's not a great talent."
Hope had a singing voice that was no more than mediocre -- but he was called the King of Standup Comedy and he could, with the help of a team of highly paid writers, pour out one-liners fast and with exquisite timing.
Close to 100 people wrote jokes for him, often more than a dozen at a time. Groucho Marx once complained that Hope was not a comic but a translator of what others wrote for him.
In his office in his North Hollywood estate he kept files containing literally millions of jokes -- and he memorized thousands more. Topical one-liners were the basis of his art, and he had been known to telephone his writers just before a performance to demand an instant joke on some new issue.
Typical of his jokes were these samples:
"Where else but in America could the Women's Liberation Movement take off their bras, then go on TV to complain about their lack of support?" (1970)
"I have it on good authority that (Senator Joseph) McCarthy is going to disclose the names of 2 million communists. He has just got his hands on the Moscow telephone directory." (1954)
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By Arthur Spiegelman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bob Hope, whose death at age 100 was announced on Monday, was the ultimate comedian, a master of timing who turned the one-liner into an art form and became a national institution.
Jailed briefly as a teen-ager for stealing tennis balls, Hope rose through show business ranks to become a close friend of a succession of presidents, including Kennedy, Nixon, Ford and Reagan and built up a personal fortune of at least $200 million.
He often joked that his greatest fear was being hijacked to a country "that never heard of me."
His career -- which included stints as a amateur boxer, minstrel in black face and dancer -- spanned seven decades, in which he starred in five mediums: vaudeville, radio, stage, movies and television.
Virtually running his own joke factory by employing almost 100 writers, Hope was able to draw on a collection of hundreds of thousands of jokes that specialized in sexual double entendres, gags about his nose and lines that paid homage to his decided lack of humility and willingness to con anyone.
An often vain man, who some said could never pass a mirror without taking a look, Hope never boasted it was talent that got him to where he was -- as far as he was concerned, timing was everything.
"The only thing I have is timing -- and lots and lots of experience," he once said. "It's not a great talent."
With his trademark ski-slope nose, Hope was one of the first superstars and one of the 20th century's greatest comedians. He also pioneered with Bing Crosby of one of Hollywood's most enduring genres -- the buddy movie.
Crosby and Hope became one of the screen's great couples in a succession of "Road" movies beginning with 1939's "Road to Singapore," which was originally a serious drama called "The Road to Mandalay" that was turned into a comedy first for George Burns and Gracie Allen and then for Jack Oakie and Fred MacMurray, all of whom turned it down.
Crosby and Hope had appeared on each other's radio programs in which their writers had concocted a comical feud between the two. Crosby said the success of the "Road" pictures centered around the fact "that it seemed easier for our writers to write abusive dialogue than any other kind." Hope played the wise guy who tried in vain to win the girl -- usually Dorothy Lamour -- from Crosby, who always seemed able to outsmart him.
Former Hope writer Larry Gelbart once said Hope "was aware that when vaudeville died, television was the box they put it in. Once he made the V in TV stand for 'variety.' He breathed life into it."
KING OF STANDUP
Hope had passably good looks and a singing voice that was no more than mediocre -- but he was called the King of Standup Comedy and he could, with the help of a team of highly paid writers, pour out one-liners fast and with exquisite timing.
Close to 100 people wrote jokes for him, often more than a dozen at a time. Groucho Marx once complained that Hope was not a comic but a translator of what others wrote for him, according to writer John Lahr in a New Yorker recent article.
In his office in his North Hollywood estate he kept files containing literally millions of jokes -- and he memorized thousands more. Topical one-liners were the basis of his art, and he had been known to telephone his writers just before a performance to demand an instant joke on some new issue.
Typical of his jokes were these samples:
"Where else but in America could the Women's Liberation Movement take off their bras, then go on TV to complain about their lack of support?" (1970)
"I have it on good authority that (Senator Joseph) McCarthy is going to disclose the names of 2 million communists. He has just got his hands on the Moscow telephone directory." (1954)
"Students are revolting all over the world. I don't know what they're revolting about, I just know that they're revolting." (1969)
In his 80s, he said he still worked 200 days a year and expected to live to be 100 -- "As long as I have a theater booking." He would typically give more than 100 performances a year, traveling across America and abroad.
The comedian never really adapted to the changing world. In the 1960s he was criticized by feminists angered by his girl jokes, a staple of his act.
Biographers and others who followed Hope's career have seen in him a driven man who craved the affection redolent in a laughing audience. He also had the reputation of being a womanizer with Lahr saying that Hope's wife of 66 years, Dolores, turning a blind eye to his affairs. Lahr quoted Delores Hope as telling him, "It never bothered me because I thought I was better-looking than anyone else."
Even when a toddler in Cleveland, Ohio, Hope was a mimic. His aunt Polly used to reward him with cookies and, according to one biographer, counseled the tiny hope: "Always leave 'em laughing."
Hope even liked an audience when he was filming, and would invite large numbers of people to sets when making his "Road" movies. In his early days on radio, he insisted on having a live audience for his jokes.
But the audiences he liked best were America's fighting men and women. In World War II, Korea, Vietnam, right up to the 1991 Gulf war, Hope was there, always with his up-to-the-minute jokes and string of beautiful women.
Hope's hair thinned and his jowls and wrinkles were testament to his nonstop lifestyle, but he remained upright and had a lift in his walk, thanks to the exercise he derived from being a fanatical golfer.
From 1941, when the United States entered World War II, Hope entertained in all theaters of operation, a super-patriot plugging the American way of life amid a barrage of jokes.
VIETNAM WAR
During the Vietnam war he was criticized for being a "hawk" who supported the conflict. But Hope said he was really a middle-of-the-road supporter who wanted the war ended and even tried twice to visit Hanoi and arrange prisoner releases. His support of the Vietnam war played a major part in eroding his national reputation with many Americans questioning whether he was funny any more.
The "Bob Hope Christmas Show," filmed while the comedian was entertaining servicemen, was usually the highest-rated television special of the year during the Vietnam war. Some saw Hope as a political right-winger. He once said he felt he had to openly take sides on major issues.
But he also said he had wanted to campaign for President Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, but the head of the toothpaste firm sponsoring his radio show had told him: "Republicans clean their teeth as well, you know."
He was a friend of presidents. Republican President Richard Nixon attended the weddings of two of Hope's four adopted children and the comedian was a close friend of Republican Ronald Reagan, with whom he shared a Hollywood background.
Hope received 49 honorary degrees and more than 700 awards for humanitarian and professional efforts, including presidential medals of merit. In 1952 he received a Hollywood Oscar "for his contribution to the laughter of the world."
But the devoted American was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, Kent, England, the fifth of seven sons of a stonemason. His father moved his family to Cleveland, Ohio, when Hope was three to work on a church there.
Hope took up amateur boxing as a youth, fighting under the name Packy East, then switched to dancing. He worked as an
assistant to an elder brother, a butcher, while earning $5 a night as a black-faced singing and dancing partner in a club.
After years of touring in stage acts, Hope became one of the stars of the Jerome Kern show "Roberta" in New York in 1933.
A friend took Hope to a nightclub where Dolores Reade was singing. She accepted his invitation to see his show, The following year they married.
Hope's big break came in 1938 when he was given his own radio show, "The Bob Hope Show," which ran for 15 years, and his first starring role in a film, "The Big Broadcast of 1938." In that film, Hope sang what was to become his theme song, "Thanks for the Memory."
