Fan’s Hope Fulfilled With Honor for Bob

The queen says thanks for the memories.

And Bob Hope’s fans are probably saying thanks for remembering to Gregg Donovan after the announcement that the entertainer will be made an honorary British knight by Buckingham Palace.

Donovan is a 38-year-old former valet for the comedian who waged a four-year campaign to honor Hope--flooding the palace and the prime minister’s residence with faxes and letters urging the recognition.

The honor was disclosed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a White House dinner Thursday.

Hope, 94, was at a loss for words when he learned about the knighthood, a spokesman said. “Seventy years of ad lib material and I’m speechless,” the comedian said.

Donovan, now a concierge at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, described himself as “walking on Cloud 10” now that his transatlantic lobbying effort has paid off.

The title of Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire will be bestowed by Queen Elizabeth at a future date. It will honor Hope for his work entertaining British troops during World War II.

Hope, born in Eltham, England, in 1903, moved with his family to Cleveland in 1907 and became a U.S. citizen in 1920. “I left England when I found out I couldn’t be king,” Hope would quip later.

The knighthood idea came to Donovan in 1993 when he was working as Hope’s valet at the entertainer’s Toluca Lake estate. One of Donovan’s jobs was to read the daily newspaper to Hope, then 89.

“One day I came across a story that said the queen had given honorary knighthood to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger,” said Donovan, a Santa Monica resident.

“I looked across the living room and there, sitting on the piano next to pictures of President Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, was a picture of Queen Elizabeth.

“I said, ‘You were born in England, and you entertained British troops, didn’t you? If anybody should be knighted, it’s you.’ ”

Hope agreed.

Donovan began his one-man campaign in 1994 when he left Hope’s employ to take a job as concierge at an international conference center in Edinburgh, Scotland. When British dignitaries passed through, Donovan pitched his knighthood idea--politely, of course.

He wrote Queen Elizabeth in early 1995, explaining that knighthood was “an honor Mr. Hope dreamed of,” Donovan said.

After that, he wrote Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, Princess Anne and former Prime Minister John Major, along with dozens of other royals and every member of Parliament.

By last year, the Times of London, the Daily Mail and other British newspapers were taking note of his blitz. “Every few weeks a fax arrives at Buckingham Palace from the Regal Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles,” reported the Times.

This past November, Parliament member and Minister of Defense George Robertson wrote Donovan from the House of Commons to thank him for his persistence and to tip him off that “a possible honour for Bob Hope . . . is now in the system.”

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Ward Grant, a spokesman for Hope, said the comedian was aware of Donovan’s efforts. But he said the campaign became “a source of embarrassment” last fall when the National Enquirer falsely reported that knighthood was Hope’s “dying wish” and printed a clip-out coupon for readers to send to the queen supporting the honor.

Donovan said he was a typical fan of Hope’s comedy when he took the valet job. But he said working with the star turned him into an admirer of the wisecracking entertainer. “I told him I’d try to get knighthood for him, and he just laughed,” Donovan said. “I guess he thought I was joking.”