up. Then he ran into Charlie Cooley, a vaudeville hoofer he knew from Cleveland. Sorry to see his brash Cleveland pal down on his luck, Cooley took him into the Woods Theater Building to meet his friend Charlie Hogan, who booked vaudeville acts in movie theaters around town. Hogan told Hope an emcee spot was open on Memorial Day weekend at the West Englewood Theater, on the city’s southwest side. The pay was only $25, but Les, hungry for anything, snapped it up.
He did well, and before the weekend gig was over, Hogan had lined up another emcee job for him: two weeks at the Stratford Theater, a popular neighborhood movie house at Sixty-Third and Halstead. The Stratford had just lost its longtime emcee, Ted Leary, and was trying out replacements.“Late of Sidewalks of New York Co.,” read the ad in the Chicago Tribune on June 25, 1928, announcing Hope’s debutthere (on a bill with the Wallace Beery movie Partners in Crime ). The ad was a notable milestone. For the first time, he was billed as Bob Hope.
The name change was fairly arbitrary, if euphonious.“I thought Bob had more ‘Hiya, fellas’ in it,” Hope said. The name took awhile to catch on. Hope loved telling the story of a theater in Evansville, Indiana, thatbilled him on the marquee as “Ben Hope.” When he complained, the theater manager shrugged and said, “Who knows?” Hope kept a photo of the marquee for the rest of his life.
At the Stratford, Hope made friends with a pint-size song-and-dance man named Barney Dean, who talked up Hope’s act with Charlie Hogan, and his two-week run was extended to four weeks. But the neighborhood regulars were a tough crowd. Harry Turrell, the Stratford’s manager, reminded Hope in a letter years later of “the very unfair reception given you when you tried so hard to follow Ted Leary, who had been a fixture there for many years”; after six weeks“I had to tell you that you didn’t make it.” After his Stratford gig ended, Hope (who had kept his connections in the New York theater world) landed the small role of Screeves the butler in a short-lived Broadway musical called Ups-a Daisy. But on New Year’s Eve he was back in Chicago,signing a contract with the Stratford for another stint as emcee, at $225 a week. This time Hope stayed for sixteen straight weeks, and the engagement was a turning point in his career.
At the Stratford, Hope had to develop a comedy act on the fly. A vaudeville comic who traveled the road, appearing in a new city every week, could recycle material over and over. But the emcee of a neighborhood movie house faced many of the same patrons week after week, as the movie bills changed. That meant he had to keep coming up with new material. Hope scrounged for new gags anywhere he could. He mined vaudeville jokebooks and magazines such as College Humor . He stole bits from more established vaudeville comics like Frank Tinney. He begged new acts that came through town to throw a couple of extra jokes his way.
He improvised material, playing off the acts he had to introduce—such as the Great Guilfoil, who juggled cannonballs. He danced andsang, wading into the audience for numbers like “If You See Me Dancing in Some Cabaret, That’s Just My Way of Forgetting You.” He threw in some Duffy-and-Sweeney-style stunts: there would be a loud crash offstage, after which Hope would walk on, dust off his clothes, and straighten his tie as if he’d just finished a fight, snarling, “Lie there and bleed.” He would poke fun at himself when his jokes bombed—“I found that joke in my stocking; if it happens again, I’ll change laundries”—to disarm the crowd and get them on his side.
“I learned a lot about getting laughs and about ways of handling jokes of different types at the Stratford,” he said. “I’d lead off with a subtle joke, and after telling it, I’d say to the audience, ‘Go ahead; figure it out.’ Then I’d wait till they got it. One of the things I learned at the
He did well, and before the weekend gig was over, Hogan had lined up another emcee job for him: two weeks at the Stratford Theater, a popular neighborhood movie house at Sixty-Third and Halstead. The Stratford had just lost its longtime emcee, Ted Leary, and was trying out replacements.“Late of Sidewalks of New York Co.,” read the ad in the Chicago Tribune on June 25, 1928, announcing Hope’s debutthere (on a bill with the Wallace Beery movie Partners in Crime ). The ad was a notable milestone. For the first time, he was billed as Bob Hope.
The name change was fairly arbitrary, if euphonious.“I thought Bob had more ‘Hiya, fellas’ in it,” Hope said. The name took awhile to catch on. Hope loved telling the story of a theater in Evansville, Indiana, thatbilled him on the marquee as “Ben Hope.” When he complained, the theater manager shrugged and said, “Who knows?” Hope kept a photo of the marquee for the rest of his life.
At the Stratford, Hope made friends with a pint-size song-and-dance man named Barney Dean, who talked up Hope’s act with Charlie Hogan, and his two-week run was extended to four weeks. But the neighborhood regulars were a tough crowd. Harry Turrell, the Stratford’s manager, reminded Hope in a letter years later of “the very unfair reception given you when you tried so hard to follow Ted Leary, who had been a fixture there for many years”; after six weeks“I had to tell you that you didn’t make it.” After his Stratford gig ended, Hope (who had kept his connections in the New York theater world) landed the small role of Screeves the butler in a short-lived Broadway musical called Ups-a Daisy. But on New Year’s Eve he was back in Chicago,signing a contract with the Stratford for another stint as emcee, at $225 a week. This time Hope stayed for sixteen straight weeks, and the engagement was a turning point in his career.
At the Stratford, Hope had to develop a comedy act on the fly. A vaudeville comic who traveled the road, appearing in a new city every week, could recycle material over and over. But the emcee of a neighborhood movie house faced many of the same patrons week after week, as the movie bills changed. That meant he had to keep coming up with new material. Hope scrounged for new gags anywhere he could. He mined vaudeville jokebooks and magazines such as College Humor . He stole bits from more established vaudeville comics like Frank Tinney. He begged new acts that came through town to throw a couple of extra jokes his way.
He improvised material, playing off the acts he had to introduce—such as the Great Guilfoil, who juggled cannonballs. He danced andsang, wading into the audience for numbers like “If You See Me Dancing in Some Cabaret, That’s Just My Way of Forgetting You.” He threw in some Duffy-and-Sweeney-style stunts: there would be a loud crash offstage, after which Hope would walk on, dust off his clothes, and straighten his tie as if he’d just finished a fight, snarling, “Lie there and bleed.” He would poke fun at himself when his jokes bombed—“I found that joke in my stocking; if it happens again, I’ll change laundries”—to disarm the crowd and get them on his side.
“I learned a lot about getting laughs and about ways of handling jokes of different types at the Stratford,” he said. “I’d lead off with a subtle joke, and after telling it, I’d say to the audience, ‘Go ahead; figure it out.’ Then I’d wait till they got it. One of the things I learned at the
Similar Books
