Hope: Entertainer of the Century (72 page)

Hope, with Bea Lillie, dons Western garb for a sketch on his first TV show, sponsored by Frigidaire, in April 1950.
(© Corbis)

By 1955, when he wrestled playfully over a statuette with Best Actor winner Marlon Brando, Hope had made his Oscar snubs a running gag.
(© Associated Press)

Dolores and Bob with the family in the mid-1950s. From left to right: Tony, Nora, Kelly, and Linda.
(© Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images)

Mother had Hopes: Bob and his brothers, from left to right (and oldest to youngest), Ivor, Jim, Fred, Jack, Bob, and George.
(© Hope Enterprises, Inc.)

The Facts of Life
, with Lucille Ball, showed a new, more mature side of Hope on screen, but it was his last good film.
(© John Springer Collection/Corbis)

Among his multitude of awards, none pleased Hope more than his Congressional Gold Medal, presented to him by President Kennedy in September 1963.
(© Corbis)

Carroll Baker was just one of a string of beauties Hope brought to Vietnam for the troops to ogle.
(© Corbis/AP Images)

With Phyllis Diller on his 1966 trip to Vietnam: the crowds grew with America’s commitment to a troubling war.
(© Bettmann/Corbis)

Hope’s corny spoofs of the counterculture (here with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé) planted him firmly on the geriatric side of the generation gap.
(© Bettmann/Corbis)

Nixon hugs Sammy Davis Jr. (with Les Brown looking on), as Hope’s Republican politics become more open.
(© Bettmann/Corbis)

Hope in Hawaii with two of his later writers, Bob Mills (left) and Gene Perret, and the cue cards that by then had become indispensable.
(© Robert L. Mills)

The old guard: Hope and two presidential pals, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.
(© Bettmann/Corbis)

On the golf course, as nearly everywhere else, the picture of determination and class.
(© Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)