Bedpan Deadpan : Expansion of Motion Picture Hospital Begins With a Touch of Hope

Dust was flying on one side of the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills on Thursday as carpenter Richard Huffman worked to tear down its tiny, 45-year-old clinic.

Quips were flying on the other side as comedian Bob Hope worked the crowd on hand for the ground breaking for the clinic’s $22-million replacement.

A new 81-bed hospital wing is the first phase of an expansion designed to triple the capacity of the show business hospital and retirement home.

Gate Named for Bob Hope

Officials of the Motion Picture & Television Fund are relying on donations to pay for the $50-million project. They told the ground-breaking crowd that the entrance to the new building would be named the “Bob Hope Gateway and Court” in honor of the $1 million he has donated.

That was a perfect entrance for Hope.

“Isn’t that nice,” he deadpanned. “They named a gate after me. A $1-million gate.”

Hope was on a roll.

“If I was a part of the Administration in Washington, it would probably be a revolving door,” he said.

“I just hate it when our foreign policy is funnier than I am. Selling arms to Iran is like Johnny Carson selling jokes to Joan Rivers.”

In the front row of the crowd of 550, the one-liners drew a grin from actor Charlton Heston, who is a close friend of President Reagan. They drew gales of laughter from several donors of multimillion-dollar gifts sitting near him, however.

Officials praised MCA Chairman Lew Wasserman and his wife, Edie, who have given $5 million. They said the late Jules and Doris Stein, whose family members were at the ground breaking, donated $3 million.

Half of Expansion Funded

Fund administrators said they now have financing for about half of the $50-million expansion.

Hope’s donation was made four weeks ago, a few days before his former sidekick, Jerry Colonna, died at the Motion Picture Hospital at age 82. Hope had been at Colonna’s side at the end.

“My good friend Jerry Colonna spent his final 12 years here receiving great and loving care,” Hope said. He called the hospital’s nurses “the Florence Nightingales of show business.”

“I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. I’ve been out here many, many times and seen a lot of my marvelous friends disappear.”

‘Tip of the Iceberg’

John Pavlik, executive director of the fund, said famous actors who retire to the Woodland Hills facility represent only “the visible tip of the iceberg” of studio retirees who need the services of the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital.

He said there is a waiting list of former performers, technicians and production workers who are at least 65 and have worked in the industry for 20 years or more. The planned expansion will nearly double the size of the hospital, to 259 beds, and raise the residential capacity from 124 retirees to 541.

One resident, former actress Mae Clarke, 76, told the crowd that the newcomers will discover that “this is heaven.”

Producer-director Hal Roach, 94, who helped create the Motion Picture Fund in 1921, said he hopes the retirement home has room so he can move in “when I get so old I can’t work.”

Others at the ceremony were Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, Motion Picture Assn. of America President Jack Valenti and actors Walter Matthau, Cesar Romero, Ellen Corby and Janet Leigh. Roddy McDowall stood at the side with television crews to tape the speeches with his own video camera.

McDowall also captured the ground breaking, in which Hope took a hand.

“At my age, it’s a little disturbing to be handed a shovel and told to start digging,” joked Hope, who is 83.

A few hundred feet away, the demolition crew clearing space for the actual building missed all of the excitement.

“We just heard about all the stars being here,” Huffman said as he pried roofing timbers loose. “We’re the last guys to hear.”