From Whitehall to Hollywood

Bob Hope, the British-born comedian who has died aged 100, was for more than half a century one of the best-loved and most successful American entertainers.

Film actor and comedian Bob Hope is Bristol's second most famous showbiz export, but as yet unhonoured in his home city.

Bristol's first cinema has one. Wallace and Gromit have one. Gary Grant has several. But Bristol's second most famous showbiz export, the film comedian who lived in Bristol and Weston-super-Mare, has yet to be honoured in his home city. Bob Hope is plaqueless.

Virtually everyone from Bristol connected with the film industry got a memorial plaque during the Cinema 100 celebrations last year.

But not Bob, the Bristol boy who conquered Hollywood.

'There is still hope', says Andrew Kelly of Bristol Cultural Development Partnership.

The organizers of Cinema 100 didn't provide a plaque for Bob even though Bristol asked for one.

But the British Film Institute is considering continuing the plaque scheme and Bristol will be pressing for recognition for Bob Hope before its too late.

Bob has now retired from show business, although as late as 1991, he was still working 200 nights a year despite growing deafness. 'I am going to keep going until I win an Oscar,' he told the Bristol Evening Post then.

'I've compered the Oscar ceremony 19 times and I've been awarded two honorary ones'

'But I want one for my acting though I haven't seen a part in a long time that was good enough. But in order to get one, your film has to be submitted to the Academy and I don't think any of mine even got that far'. His chances of getting that Oscar are virtually nil.

His wife, Dolores, said affectionately of her husband: He can't see, he can't hear, he can't remember - but he looks great.

Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope in London, but his family were deeply rooted in the West.

His grandfather, James Hope, helped build Weston-super-Mare sea wall in 1883 and was one of the team that carved the Statue of Liberty.

Twenty one years previously, he had married Emily Collard whose own parents, William Collard and Ehzabeth Watts, were married at St Mary Redcliffe in 1840.

Bob's father, William Hope, was a stonemason who was working in London when Bob was born.

But the family soon returned west to Weston-super-Mare, living in Orchard Street and at 12 Lindley Terrace before moving to Bristol.

There they lived at 326 Whitehall Road, Whitehall, and 14 Clouds Hill Avenue, St George.

Family historian Alan Blackmore of Clevedon has tracked down most of the known information about Bob's early days in showbiz; His brother wrote in his diary that as a toddler, Bob would stand in St George's Park and attract the sympathy of passing ladies by crying with a fist in his eye until one would wipe his nose, give him a spit bath with her handkerchief while the gentleman would search their pockets to find him some money.

It was also in St George's Park where Bob received a permanent memory of Bristol - a scar on his head.

On a visit to the Colston Hall in 1952, he remembered:

'I had a little dog and one day I saw some boys ill treating it.

I ran out to protect it and one of them threw a stone.

It hit me on the temple.

Every once in a while when I look in the mirror, I can still see the scar'

Retelling the story before a sell-out charity show at the London Palladium in 1988, he added:

'The dog attacked me too ? I carry both scars to this day and I've always been leery of dog acts ever since.

suppose having left at four, I'm pretty damn lucky to have any memories of England at all.

And they only come from being hit on the head'.

But in his 1954 autobiography, he recorded another memory of his childhood.

I'd gone to school dressed in an Eton jacket and a stiff white turned-down collar.

I was quite a sight coming home, with my book in one hand and my two front teeth in the other'. Bob's father emigrated to America in 1907 and the family followed in 1908. 'The one big thing I remember about the voyage was that I just wouldn't let them vaccinate me' he told the Bristol Evening Post on that 1952 visit

'They chased me all over the ship and I well recall leading them a merry dance'...

Hope, who died of pneumonia at his home in California two months after his 100th birthday maintained his sense of humor, quipping 'I'm so old, they've canceled my blood type.' And according to one of Hope's daughters, when asked on his deathbed where he wanted to be buried, he told his wife, 'Surprise me.' He died two months later of pneumonia at 9:28 PM July 27th 2003 at his home in Toluca Lake, north of Hollywood.

In 1907, at the age of four, Leslie 'Bob' Hope boarded a liner to the new world and, if he left seeking fame and fortune, there is no better example of someone who found it.

News Update 2004....Bob Hope plaque unveiled .. A PLAQUE commemorating legendary British-born comedian Bob Hope was being unveiled today at St George's Park, St George, Church Road entrance exactly a year after he died. The plaque, in a Bristol park where Hope used to play as a child, was being unveiled by his cousin, Sidney, and comedian Eddie Large.

It is circular with a blue background and has images of Hope and scenes from his life and work and an inscription. Hope received more than 2,000 awards including an honorary knighthood from the Queen in 1998.