America in WWII - (Page 43) BOB HOPE and The Road to GI Joe by Richard Sassaman much greater than the material deserved. “The reason for our overwhelming welcome from troops all over the world,” Hope decided later, “was that we spelled, more than anything else, ‘home.’” “In America, only the Boy Scouts were prepared.” (Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me) Cagney, Bing Crosby, Olivia de Havilland, Cary Grant, Laurel and Hardy, Groucho Marx, Merle Oberon, and Spencer Tracy. They did skits written by big-name writers George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart and performed songs by popular composers Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, and Frank Loesser. A Christmas 1941 in Radio Daily, the newspaper for commercial radio and television stations, confirmed the national appeal of the military broadcasts by naming Hope the top comedian and top entertainer of the year. Such honors didn’t mean much, however, coming in the somber weeks after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Quirk wrote that Hope was irked on Sunday morning, December 7, because This Week magazine, a supplement to the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, had reported his gross income for 1940 ($464,161.78). But the startling news coming over the radio from Hawaii quickly made him forget his irritation. POLL PUBLISHED TWO DAYS BEFORE chute drop? Well, his first lieutenant told him which cord to pull, and told him that when he hit the ground there would be a station wagon waiting to drive him back to the base. So the airman jumped out of the plane and when he pulled the cord nothing happened, and he said, ‘And I bet the station wagon won’t be there either.’” (live in Alaska) “You heard about the airman who was making his first para- B “I’ve been offering to kiss every movie star who bought a $500 [war] bond. But I only sold one, and Boris Karloff wants his money back.” (live at the Hollywood Canteen) N THE SPRING OF 1942, Hope became master of ceremonies for the Hollywood Victory Caravan, a two-week tour of 12 American cities that was part of a film industry effort that ultimately raised a billion dollars for army and navy relief agencies. The caravan included 50 Hollywood stars, among them James I Y THE END OF THE TWO WEEKS, the Hope Gypsies, as Hope called them, were exhausted. But still they set off for 65 more shows at military bases and hospitals. By September the Gypsies, now including guitarist Tony Romano, had arranged their first USO (United Service Organizations) tour and set off to the US Territory of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The soldiers there, Hope later wrote, “were the loneliest guys in the world. Also the coldest.” In the summer of 1943, the Gypsies, with Hope’s friend and exvaudevillian Jack Pepper filling in for Colonna, toured England and Northern Ireland. “The European theater,” Hope said, “was a little like vaudeville with foxholes.” Actor Burgess Meredith wrote to his future bride Paulette Goddard that “the most wonderful thing about England right now is Bob Hope…. He is tire- ALL IMAGES THIS SPREAD: NATIONAL ARCHIVES Hope and the Gypsies, as he called his fellow players, rubbed elbows with the GIs they entertained. Above, left: Leggy Patty Thomas, a stalwart Hope Gypsy, often invited servicemen onstage to dance with her. Here, she prances with Hope at a PT-boat base in Dutch New Guinea in September 1944, during the South Pacific tour that Hope called “the Pineapple Circuit.” Above, right: Hope and Langford goof around with sailors at Coco Solo in March 1944. Opposite: On Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, in August 1944, injured GI Norman Weintraub gets a visit from Hope, Langford, Thomas, and Colonna. Hope and Weintraub both hailed from Cleveland, Ohio. OCTOBER 2007 AMERICA IN WWII 43
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