5 Things You Didn’t Know About Legendary Comedian Bob Hope

BEAU JAMES, Bob Hope, 1957 — Everett Collection

It’s no overstatement to say Bob Hope, who was born 122 years ago on May 29, 1903, entertained generations of fans. The comedian died a centenarian in 2003, and he spent many of those 100 years in the limelight.

Many people know the broad strokes of Hope’s life story: Born in England but raised in Ohio, Hope went from vaudeville fame to radio and TV superstardom, became a repeat host of the Academy Awards, and entertained the U.S. troops in dozens of USO tours.

But see how many of the biographical details below you know — we have a feeling some of these facts might surprise even the most Hope-ful of fans!

1As a child, he won a Charlie Chaplin imitation contest

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Hope spent many hours of his childhood at Luna Park in Cleveland, Ohio, according to the Library of Congress. He earned money singing on the trolley on the way to the amusement park, and, once there, earned more money by winning footraces. And in the summer of 1915, when Hope would have been 11 or 12, the future Hollywood star won a Charlie Chaplin imitation contestant, the winnings of which he used to buy his mother a stove.

Later, Hope worked as a newsboy, a butcher’s assistant, a shoe salesman, and an amateur boxer, according to his bio for So Ready for Laughter: The Legacy of Bob Hope museum exhibit.

2He got his signature profile from an accident when he was 18

THE ANN-MARGRET SHOW, from left: Bob Hope, Ann-Margret, (aired December 11, 1968).

Everett Collection

As Hope worked with his brother for the Ohio and Southern Ohio Power Company in the summer of 1921, a pine tree fell prematurely, and Hope’s face was smashed in the accident.

“I woke up in the hospital [Cleveland’s Polyclinic] and they wouldn’t give me a mirror for three weeks,” the comedian told Rolling Stone in 1980. “I was worried, but I felt lucky to be alive. My family was relieved when they found out there were no brain injuries, but the doctors had to rearrange my nose and face.”

Due to those surgical reconstructions, Hope’s cheekbones, nose, and chin became more pronounced, according to Rolling Stone.

3He rescued a Leave It to Beaver star from a fire

Before Jerry Mathers played the title character in the classic sitcom Leave It to Beaver, he appeared with Hope as an uncredited child in several films, including the 1955 musical biopic film The Seven Little Foys. Hope portrayed Eddie Foy; and Mathers played one of the vaudeville entertainer’s sons as a youngster in some sequences.

To depict Foy’s heroics during Chicago’s 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire, crew members on The Seven Little Foys doused a stage curtain with gasoline and set it ablaze.

“But they used too much,” Mathers said in a 2015 interview. “The actors and extras began running out the door. I was up on a scaffold behind the stage and the flames were getting close. Bob climbed a ladder to get me.”

The pair teamed up again the following year in That Certain Feeling — this time, with Mathers fully credited.

4He witnessed the golfing talent of a 2-year-old Tiger Woods

When golf champ Tiger Woods was 2 years old, he showed off his skills on The Mike Douglas Show as Hope and actor James Stewart, two other guests of that episode, looked on, according to a Golf.com report.

In 1997, however, Woods declined a personal invitation from the comedian to play at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

“We wrote to Tiger three times, called his father twice, called IMG twice, and never got a return call,” tournament director Michael Milthorpe said at the time, per Golf Digest. “I just think if Bob Hope calls you up and asks you to play in his tournament, you say yes.”

5He and his wife set the record for Hollywood couples

HOPE FOR THE HOLIDAYS, Bob Hope, Dolores Hope, 1994

Everett Collection

Upon Bob Hope’s death in 2003, he and his wife Dolores Hope set the Guinness World Record for longest Hollywood marriage with their union of 69 years and 158 days.

Bob and Dolores met in 1933, when he saw her singing at the Vogue Club in New York City, and they married the following year.

“We’ve been married for 63 years, but I’ve only been home three weeks,” Bob quipped to the Saturday Evening Post in 1998. “It’s been suggested that I am inclined to travel a bit — that I wander from my happy home. This is not true. Just the other evening I said to my wife, ‘Dolores’ — I knew it was Dolores, she introduced herself to me — ‘I’ve done an awful lot of traveling, but you’ve been very understanding about it,’ — although [she] did rent out my room.”