Bob Hope Stories

Once when he was a little boy in England, Leslie Hope (He later renamed himself Bob after a race car driver he idolized) wanted to pick an apple off a tree. Symbolic of his career, he didn't want just any apple but the highest one possible. He lost his balance, fell and permanently changed the shape of his nose.

His big break in Hollywood was getting the part Jack Benny turned down in the Paramount film "The Big Broadcast Of 1938". The director Mitchell Leisen could not stand the star of the film, the ornery WC Fields, who would run off the movie set and come back too soused to do the required scenes, flub his lines and scream for his lawyer. Liesen found Hope much more cooperative, although he was a nervous ham in front of the camera. Desperate to be a more traditional leading man like Fred Macmurray, Hope begged Paramount to pay for a nose job but they refused. It was in this film he got to sing "Thanks For The Memories" which along with his ski nose became Hope's trademarks.

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The Warner Brothers Make Noise

Hollywood was an attractive place for the early filmmakers to settle, full of good weather, orange and lemon trees. For producers who owed money on borrowed camera equipment if a creditor came after them, they could hide among the trees. It was a hard business full of casualties and took a pirate's mentality to survive. Most of the studio heads were from poor backgrounds, with limited English skills and never forgot their childhood or a personal slight. Included were Jack, Harry, Albert and Sam, the four Warner Brothers from Youngstown, Ohio. They had begun with showing movies off the side of a tent in Youngstown, borrowing all the chairs from the local undertaker. Every time there was a funeral in Youngstown, they had to give all the chairs back and the film patrons were forced to stand.

As a boy Jack Warner wished to be a singer and a comedian. His brothers, recognizing his lack of talent instructed him to sing in the tent when they wanted the audience to leave. He was later advised that the money was not in performing, it was in paying performers. Among the stars that would be under contract to him would be Betty Davis, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn.

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Masters Of Disguise

Gene Hackman once lamented that the worst thing about becoming a famous actor is that you lose the ability to observe people without being noticed yourself. But some performers are so good at disguises that notoriety is no obstacle. A case in point was John Barrymore trying to buy his first house in Beverly Hills in 1926. Frustrated by rising real estate prices due to stars like Tom Mix and Charlie Chaplin moving into the neighborhood, Barrymore went to look at a lot dressed as his most famous movie role, Mr. Hyde. The realtor was taken aback by the long haired, wild eyed, fiendish looking man who got out of the limo. Every time the broker would suggest a price he was met by an intimidating growl. Finally he made the sale by lopping twenty thousand dollars off the initial number.

Barrymore's penchant for disguises did not end with his home purchase. The actor was often arrested and locked up for vagrancy, specifically being drunk and going through his rich neighbor's trash cans to find scraps for his pet buzzard. His experiences were put to good use when he showed up to a costume party put on by Marion Davies dressed as a bum. Unfortunately, his outfit was so authentic he was turned away.

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Tales Of Hollywood And Politics

Arnold Schwarzenegger's surprise announcement that he was seeking the California Governorship brought to mind the many times Hollywood figures have been involved in politics. Here are some related anecdotes:

When actors first came to Hollywood there were signs put up in front of hotels and apartments that said no dogs or actors allowed, with the performers ruefully complaining about not getting top billing. The insecurity of the profession has come through in political campaigns. When Ronald Reagan successfully ran for Governor of California in 1966 one of the fruitless tactics used by his opposition was a television commercial featuring Gene Kelley stating," In films I played a gambler, a baseball player and I could play a Governor but you wouldn't really want an actor to really be a Governor would you?"

Ronald Reagan at one time was such a Liberal Democrat he drove friends to distraction with his views. One day in the thirties he was driving a friend home from work, yammering on about President Roosevelt's New Deal policies. Reagan who was near sighted and an erratic driver at best, seemed oblivious to road conditions. "Ronnie, watch out for that truck!" the friend yelled. Missing an accident by a hair, Reagan continued," Truck drivers, that's who the New Deal will help!"

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Pretty Women Have Stayed At The Beverly Wilshire

Since it was built in 1929, The Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel has attracted rich and famous guests from around the world. To the general public the hotel is most famous for being used in the 1990 movie Pretty Woman. They have disappointed thousands of people by turning down requests from around the world who would like to stay in the same suite that Julia Roberts and Richard Gere had in the movie because it does not exist, it was filmed at the Walt Disney studio.

Julia Robert's character in the film was not the only pretty woman who stayed there. In the 60's the hotel became a swinging hangout for Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, with parades of women going in and out of their rooms. A little old lady who stayed beneath Beatty constantly banged her ceiling with her broom, to try and get him and his lady friends to stop making so much noise.

Not everyone was having fun in the hotel. Michael Caine spent his honeymoon there with his beautiful wife Shakira. Caine was and is a favorite of the staff. In honor of Shakira they decided to give them the authentic Indian honeymoon suite. In India, the honeymoon beds hang from the ceiling with bells hanging from the bottom. The neighbors like to hear the bells go off for the happy couple, but in this case Shakira was already pregnant and Caine was jetlagged. All they wanted was to get some sleep but they couldn't do it because of the blankety blank bells! The English actor ended up ordering four hamburgers from room service and stuffed the buns into the bells so that they could get through the night!

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Hollywood's Fascination with the Comic Book Superhero

Movie production companies and TV have been creating feature length movies, movie
serials and TV shows for years exploiting the public fascination with Superheroes. But as
special effect technology and costume designs became better and better, Hollywood
kicked it up a notch with feature-length high budget productions. Superman, the Movie
and the 3 sequels started in the 1970s and the '90s and beyond brought us Batman, The
Hulk, the X-Men and the now infamous Spider-Man, to name a few.

Why all this interest in producing Superhero movies? Big bucks!! The two Spider-Man
movies alone have netted about 800 million dollars apiece in worldwide ticket sales.
That's not chicken feed. This kind of income could not be generated without an avid
public interest in Superheroes. So if you feel you are alone in your voracious passion for
your own comic book collection, think again.

And now a new twist has been added. Directors, screenplay writers, and even actors are
writing for, of all things, comic books now. Big name Hollywood writers are helping to
sell more comics. For example, Joss Whedon, perhaps best known for creating Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, has written stories for Marvel in the series Astonishing X-Men. Back in
the 90s, who would have known that all these fan boys had been hiding in the Hollywood
woodworks waiting for comics to gain some cultural credibility?

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How Did the Comic Book Get Its Start?

The origins of the comic book are somewhat controversial and perhaps the jury is still
out. So lets go back to the cartoonish broadsheets of the Middle Ages, which were
parchment products, created by anonymous woodcutters. As mass circulation of these
broadsheets became possible, they soon developed a market, particularly at public
executions, popular events for centuries (ugh), which drew thousands of happy
spectators. Many of these spectators would invest in an artist's rendering of a hanging or
burning, and thus making a very lucky day for the broadsheet seller.

The broadsheet evolved into higher-level content as humor was introduced. Eventually,
all types of broadsheets emerged, which were eventually bound in collections, the
prototype of the modern magazine. Magazines formatted like the popular Punch, an
elegant British creation, became the primary focus of documentary accounts of news and
events, fiction and humor. One can see in Punch, the sophisticated evolution of a comic
style, particularly in respect of the evolution of comics in Great Britain. Still and all, from
an historical standpoint, the comic strip stood in the alley, waiting to be born. And then
some say Great Britain's Ally Sloper's "Half Alley" was the first comic book. This was a
black and white tabloid that had panels of cartoons mixed with a sliver of news; circa
1884.

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