Bob Hope: A Genius for Comedy

When Bob Hope looks back on the long lap of honor that is his life, he likes to tell a story about his vaudeville beginnings. In about 1928, not long after heâ??d started doing gags onstage, he was playing the Orpheum Theatre in Evansville, Indiana, and he noticed that his newly minted name had been wrongly billed as â??Ben Hope, Comedian.â? In Hopeâ??s gruelling slog to stardom, which he didnâ??t reach until he was in his late thirties, his name underwent a number of transformations. He had entered the world, in 1903, as Leslie Townes Hope, but once heâ??d found the stage, as a song-and-dance man, the name changed from â??Leslieâ? to the more masculine â??Lester.â? When comedy gradually emerged as Hopeâ??s meal ticket, the name mutated again. Although his clippings have a few references to â??Billâ? and â??Bobby,â? he settled on â??Bob Hopeâ?â??not just because it read well on a marquee but because it had, he said, â??more â??Hiya, fellasâ?? in it.â? So when he saw the Orpheumâ??s misprint the cocksure young comic buttonholed the theatre manager and upbraided him for the mistake. As Hope recalls their exchange, on an A&E Biography film, â?? â??Whatâ??s your name?â?? the manager said. I said, â??Bob Hope.â?? He said, â??Who knows?â??