Beloved entertainer Bob Hope, who died on Monday, was still cracking jokes as he approached his 100th birthday in May.
”I’m so old that they’ve cancelled my blood type,” he wisecracked just before the milestone, according to an aide.
Hope’s razor-sharp wit and extraordinary 75-year career has made him one of America’s best-loved entertainers and an unlikely hero for the 10-million US troops he entertained for over half a century.
When his longtime comedy partner Phyllis Diller asked the ”laugh boss” a few years ago who would ever want to be 100 years old, Hope shot back: ”Anybody who’s 99.”
The competitive showman takes pride in having outlived contemporaries from Bing Crosby, to Dorothy Lamour to Jack Benny and George Burns, aides confided.
The master of the lightning speed one-liner has notched up a string of show business records in his decades-long career in movies and television in the United States.
Hope kept making his famed TV specials under an unprecedented and extremely lucrative 60-year contract with the NBC network until he was 93.
But he is remembered as much for his tireless shows for US servicemen overseas.
The funnyman, singer, dancer and actor travelled 10-million kilometers to entertain US troops on six continents between World War II and his final Gulf War tour in 1990, aged 87.
When asked by a friend why he did not retire and spend his time fishing, he replied simply: ”Because fish don’t applaud.”
After a career on vaudeville, radio, cinema and finally television, Hope finally slowed down in 1996 and devoted his time to his wife of 69 years, Dolores, and to his first passion, golf. – Sapa-AFP