A funnier century, thanks to Bob Hope

Like George Burns, Bob Hope has been a man whom applause did more to keep alive than pills or Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth.

There was always another award to be received, another banquet in his honor and another audience to be thrilled by his mere presence. That was true as recently as 1999, when there was another outing for him as grand marshal of a parade, and, with his sight and hearing failing fast and his body frail with his remarkably advanced years, Hope went the distance, waving cheerfully to fans he could hear but only dimly see.

He’s not well enough to make public appearances these days, but as he celebrates birthday No. 100 Thursday, the applause continues to roll in. A two-hour tribute was reshown on NBC Sunday night, a batch of his films is out on DVD from Universal Home Video, and an exhibit of memorabilia, “Bob Hope: American Patriot,” is on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley. The state Legislature has proclaimed Thursday as Bob Hope Day in California.

No wonder. When Hope’s death was prematurely announced on the floor of Congress in 1998, the first response was that it couldn’t possibly be true. He has been part of the cultural life of the nation, and much of the rest of the world, for as long as anybody can remember.

One clue to the longevity not only of his life but also his career is that his lively and likable public personality formed early on and never really changed, even after he had become a pal and confidant of presidents and a millionaire many times over.

He has always been the cocky, wisecracking, hustling clown, a Lothario with a terrible batting average, his unsuccessful eagerness for romance a sort of lifelong running gag. He was a not-half-bad hoofer and an ingratiating and unpretentious crooner. But first and last he was a rapid-fire dispenser of jokes, the output of a large and changing platoon of writers, some of whom, like producer-director Mel Shavelson, went on to other, more individual things.

Like Jack Benny, Hope got a lot of mileage out of his perceived persona as the ever-rejected lover and the schemer whose plans and ego were often, but always temporarily, deflated. Bing Crosby’s suave calm was the perfect foil for Hope’s hyperactivity. His jokey complaint all the years Hope emceed the Academy Awards show was that he never got an Oscar for a screen role. In fact he eventually had six special Oscars, but for humanitarian work, not -- to keep the joke running -- for his acting.

But more than any comedian this side of Mort Sahl (who qualifies as a satirist, not a comic), Hope’s jokes were topical, as fresh as the day’s paper but carefully, politically neutral. His palship with presidents was as bipartisan as he could make it, although it seemed clear that, like many a man with a lot to conserve, he was a conservative at heart.

He is probably as far-traveled as any entertainer in history, and I first caught up with him on one of his travels. To promote his new movie “My Favorite Spy” (1951), with Hedy Lamarr, Hope ran a contest on his radio show, with the top prize the chance to have the premiere of the film in your living room. The winner was a dentist’s wife in Bellaire, Ohio, and Hope flew in with his radio entourage -- the Les Brown band, Jerry Colonna and a clutch of Hollywood beauties including Mary Murphy and Gloria Grahame. He broadcast from the local high school auditorium to a deliriously delighted crowd.

The day of the premiere, Hope was grand marshal of a parade in his honor, sitting in a sleigh atop a flatbed truck. It was November, and a hard wind off the Ohio River was bitingly cold. The parade was delayed, and after a while Hope, mildly enough, shouted down to an official and said, “Better get this going, pal, or you’ll have a blue comedian up here.” Hope could turn a neat topical line himself.

That night Hope was coming down with a flu-level cold. He stood at the top of the stairs, waiting for his cue to make his entrance. He looked and obviously felt terrible. When the hostess introduced him, he muttered, “Well, pal, here goes nothin’ ” and headed down the stairs to thunderous applause. Hope sat in the front row of the rented folding chairs and kept up a breezy, funny commentary all the way through the film.

It was a tour de force turn for a very limited audience, but then as ever, Hope was an indefatigable performer. His famous visits to the troops during World War II and later conflicts were often genuinely dangerous and always great for morale, with jokes tailored to every base he hit. Always an astute businessman, he also got television specials out of the later tours. The troop shows and all the attendant publicity did much to enhance Hope’s high status as an authentic American icon.

There was, of course, a private Hope, and he bore the familiar hallmarks of a man who had come up from thin beginnings, including his short career as an amateur boxer. Like many a comedian of his generation, he had known all the knockabout uncertainties of the vaudeville life -- the cheap boarding houses and drafty theaters -- all the while perfecting his timing and the guileful skills needed to win over show-me audiences in the far provinces. To paraphrase Sophie Tucker’s famous dictum, he had been poor and he had been rich, and it was no contest.

By the time he had his first big hit on Broadway in 1933, in “Roberta,” and thence gone west to Hollywood and radio and eventually television, Hope was well on his way to becoming an institution, with a well-oiled and efficient operation dedicated to marketing and capitalizing on one product, Hope himself.

He was a shrewd investor who bought land on what often turned out to be where sprawling L.A. was about to sprawl farther. He once told me he had paid $10,000 for a plot of land, mostly to earn a commission for his brother, who sold real estate. Years later, Hope said, Jules Stein of Universal, discovering that Hope owned the parcel, called and asked what he wanted for it. Hope, who’d forgotten he had it, jokingly said a million dollars. “Fine,” said Stein. The studio wanted it for a parking lot.

Hope’s home and business compound in Toluca Lake adjoin the Lakeside Country Club. Hope could practice chip shots from his back lawn, and, until the last few years, he did.

I met him again at Lakeside for the first time since Bellaire. I had just joined The Times in 1965, and the promotion department wanted a picture of us -- to prove, presumably, that I was moving in high circles. Hope suggested a caption for the picture. “Chuck Champlin has done more for the entertainment industry,” he proposed, “than anyone since Everett Dirksen.” The senator had just brought out an album of songs. It was, as I think of it, a wonderfully silly idea, irreverent, topical and, I’m sure, an improvement on anything sincere the promotion folks might have come up with.

I asked Hope if he remembered the excursion to Bellaire. “Almost froze,” he said. He had done everything, and I suspect he’s forgotten very little of it.

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Charles Champlin was The Times’ film critic from 1967 to 1980 and the arts editor from 1965 until he retired in 1981.