Hope’s Road Led to Toluca Lake in ’38
Nearly 94 years ago, he entered the world in Eltham, England, as Leslie Townes Hope.
Today, Bob Hope is arguably the San Fernando Valley’s most famous and beloved resident.
The legendary comedian settled in Toluca Lake in 1938 with wife, Dolores, on a 6-acre site where Hope continues to maintain a home and office.
“Bob Hope has three homes,” publicist Ward Grant once quipped. “Toluca Lake, Palm Springs and Los Angeles International Airport.”
After working as a boxer, dancer, singer, saxophonist and vaudevillian, Hope gained his first fame in the 1930s as the star of his own NBC radio show. Between 1940 and 1962, he traveled to such far-flung cinematic locales as Zanzibar and Bali in seven “Road” movies, alongside pals Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour.
In all, Hope made 58 movies, hundreds of trips to entertain U.S. military personnel around the world and 285 television specials for NBC, an unparalleled collaboration that ended last year when the network aired “Bob Hope . . . Laughing With the Presidents” and the entertainer declared himself a “free agent” in cheeky newspaper ads.
The city of Burbank paid tribute to Hope’s longtime association with NBC by unveiling Bob Hope Drive in 1988.
The honor could not have been more appropriate: Since the 1950s, Hope has been one of the largest private property owners in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
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