Stars: The Comedian as Hero

(9 of 10)
Jews. He is a patsy for just about any call for a benefit performance or public function—a dinner for an old friend, a White House invitation, a sports-award shindig. Sometimes, when a benefit fails to raise its quota, Bob will write a personal check for the difference. Though he gets $20,000 to $25,000 for a college date, he always turns the check back to the college scholarship fund.

He has a legendary loyalty to his old vaudeville cronies, his brothers,- distant kin, in-laws of distant kin, acquaintances, agents and NBC ("30 unbroken years, and I've enjoyed every dollar of the relationship"). His wardrobe girl is an invalid who works from a wheelchair. He has seen to it that his old sidekick, Jerry Colonna, semipar-alyzed by a stroke, gets plenty of work.

He supports the widow of his longtime pressagent who died several years ago.

"If I quit," says Hope, "I'd fall apart." He tends to get sick on vacations, though he does go fishing about once a year. It's hardly any fun, he complains, "the fish don't applaud." His stamina comes from golf, a lot of walking and a lot of working. He'll launch into an old soft-shoe step while on the phone, sleeps irregularly but can cork off for a few seconds any old time. Wherever he goes, he takes his masseur, Fred Miron, who gives Hope a 45-minute rub every day. He loves practical jokes and mechanical toys; one favorite is a battery-driven Frankenstein monster that moves its arms and head in grisly fashion for about 30 seconds, then drops its pants and blushes.

Map Pins. On his travels, he loves to send postcards to friends. He is a lapsed Presbyterian, while Dolores takes her Catholicism very seriously. Once, on a trip to South America with Dolores, Bob sent a postcard to a pal. On one side was a photograph of Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue. On the other side, he wrote: "Look who met us at the pier. Was Dolores thrilled!"

In a business where marriages are made and dropped like options, the Hopes are an exceptional family. Despite Bob's peripatetic life, they have managed to raise a fine family of four adopted youngsters. Linda is a bright, smashing 28-year-old blonde who is working at becoming a documentary film maker. Tony, 27, recently got married, is a Harvard Law graduate working at 20th Century-Fox. Nora, 21, is a lively chick who is a secretary at Manhattan's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Kelly, 21, is a Navy seaman, freshly graduated from the Underwater Warfare School in San Diego.

Linda, shamelessly swiping two of her dad's oldest gags, reports that "he is out of town so much it's a full-time job for us to keep moving the pins on the map. I was twelve before I learned that he wasn't an airline pilot." Nevertheless, Hope has never missed a crucial or ceremonial family occasion—except for Christmas, which the Hopes save for New Year's Day. And besides, what the children and Dolores share with Bob they refuse to measure in geographical distances.

Not long ago, Hope and Jack Benny were sitting in a studio while a young rock group was rehearsing. The two old gagmen observed and listened to the zippy youthfulness of the kids with some bemusement. At length, Hope turned to Benny and asked, "Jack, do you realize how fortunate we are that the audiences still want