America in WWII - (Page 38) WWII COVER STORY AM E RICA I N BOB HOPE and The Road to GI Joe There was nowhere Bob Hope wouldn’t go to entertain the best audience he ever had —America’s WWII service men and women. by Richard Sassaman “ T HERE IS A STARTLING SIMILARITY between Bob Hope and Donald Duck,” wrote screenwriter and director Frank Tashlin. “Both became immensely popular during World War II. Both were braggers who backed down in a pinch but somehow prevailed.” America’s greatest military entertainer during World War II (Bob Hope, that is), who couldn’t stop entertaining US troops for almost 50 years after the war, was not originally an American. Born Leslie Townes Hope in a London suburb in May 1903, Bob Hope came to Cleveland, Ohio, with his family when he was four years old. A few years after becoming a US citizen in 1920, he was a vaudeville performer appearing under the more masculine name Lester. But Lester becomes Les, and in 1929, perhaps feeling that Les Hope was not exactly inspiring, he changed his name again. “Bob—it seemed more down-to-earth—just like his audience,” wrote biographer Lawrence J. Quirk. “Bob Hope it would be.” Hope’s five-decade career “covering the bases,” as his biographer William Faith describes it—some 60 tours from Korea to Vietnam to the Persian Gulf—began almost by accident. We weren’t even at war then. It was early May 1941 when his radio producer, Albert Capstaff, urged him to take The Pepsodent Show out of its Hollywood studio and do a live broadcast from March Field in nearby Riverside. Hope didn’t see the point. Why not just bring the soldiers to the studio? Capstaff told him they numbered in the thousands. He didn’t mention his ulterior motive: his own brother was one of the OCTOBER 2007 38 AMERICA IN WWII NATIONAL ARCHIVES
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