BOB HOPE & DOROTHY LAMOUR - Orig. Vint. Phot. ca.1944

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BOB HOPE & DOROTHY LAMOUR ( ♣ I sell copies ONLY under request ♣ ) A genuine Vintage Photograph from Two Great Comediant s . ♣ Probably Date: 1 944 ♣ Size of the Photograph: 7.20 x 9.5 0 inches (aprox.) Condition of the Photograph: VERY GOOD (Small m arks and folds at the corners and at the edges , as you can see) This is not a Reproduction or a current copy is Real Vintage This photograph, like many others, comes from an Argentinean Newspaper collection I bought some years ago. BOB HOPE : It is hardly necessary to enumerate the accomplishments, patriotic services, charitable donations, awards, medals, and honorariums pertaining to Bob Hope, a man for whom the word "legend" seems somehow inadequate. Never mind that he was born in England; the entertainer unquestionably became an American institution. Hope's father was a stonemason and his mother a one-time concert singer; when he was two, his parents moved him and his brothers to Cleveland, w relatives awaited. Since everyone in the Hope clan was expected to contribute to the family's income, he took on several part-time jobs early in life. One of these was as a concessionaire at Cleveland's Luna Park, w Hope had his first taste of show business by winning a Charlie Chaplin imitation contest. (He later claimed he'd gotten his brothers to strong-arm all the neighborhood kids to vote for him). At 16, Hope entered the work force full-time as a shoe salesman for a department store, then as a stock boy for an auto company. At night, he and a friend picked up spare change singing at local restaurants and saloons, and, for a brief time, he was an amateur boxer, calling himself "Packy East." Picking up dancing tips from older vaudevillians, Hope decided to devote himself to a show business career, first in partnership with his girlfriend Mildred Rosequist, then with a pal named Lloyd Durbin. Comedian Fatty Arbuckle, headlining a touring revue, caught Hope and Durbin's comedy/dancing act and helped the boys get better bookings. Following the accidental death of Durbin, Hope found another partner, George Byrne, with whom he developed a blackface act. After several career reversals, Hope and Byrne were about to pack it in when they were hired to emcee Marshall Walker's Whiz Bang review in New Castle, PA. As the more loquacious member of the team, Hope went out on-stage as a single and got excellent response for his seemingly ad-libbed wisecracks. It was in this and subsequent vaudeville appearances that Hope learned how to handle tough audiences by having the guts to wait on-stage until everyone in the crowd had gotten his jokes; he was still using this technique seven decades later. Dropping his blackface makeup and cannibalizing every college humor magazine he could get his hands on, Hope took on yet another partner (Louise Troxell) in 1928 and started getting choice vaudeville bookings on the Keith Circuit. A year later, he was given a movie screen test, but was told his ski-slope nose didn't photograph well. With material from legendary gagster Al Boasberg, Hope appeared as a single in The Antics of 1931, which led to a better theatrical gig with Ballyhoo of 1932, in which he was encouraged to ad-lib to his heart's content. He then went back to vaudeville and squeezed in his first radio appearance in 1933 before being hired as the comedy second lead in an important Jerome Kern Broadway musical, Roberta. During the long run of this hit, Hope met and married nightclub singer Dolores Reade, who became still another of his on-stage partners when the play closed and Hope yet again returned to vaudeville. He scored a major success in Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, which spotlighted his talent for sketch comedy, and then co-starred with Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante in Red, Hot and Blue. In 1937, ... read more

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