Bob and Bing
Not Exactly a Duo

Although never a comedy team in the sense of Bud and Lou, Stan and Oliver, Dick and Dan, David and Robert, Jerry and Dean, Tommy and Dickie, or Sue and Mel, Bob and Bing achieved considerable success as a comedy team.

Ha? (To quote Shakespeare.) You say Bob and Bing weren't a comedy team? And yet they succeeded as a comedy team?

What do you mean by that?

What we mean is Bob and Bing never performed as a single act. But they did appear together in movies, on television, on stage, and on that now forgotten medium - radio. Yes, yes, people still listen to radio but not RADIO!!!!!

Born Leslie Townes Hope in 1903, Bob was from London. But the family immigrated to America when he was four. Since by the laws of the times, when parents became naturalized the kids did, too, we speak of Bob as an American comedian.

Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr., was born in Tacoma, Washington, also in 1903 and not quite a month before Bob. When he was still a kid, Harry was dubbed "Bing" after a character in a comic strip that he particularly liked. It was a large family (seven kids) and the oldest, Everett, became an astute businessman to whom Bing credited much of his success. The youngest, George (known as Bob), became a famous and successful band leader of the 1930's and 40's.

The Hope family settled in Cleveland, and after Bob learned how to hustle pool, it became evident that he wanted to pursue a non-traditional career. His dad had coached him in boxing and for a while Bob tried going professional.

It quickly became evident that the Sweet Science wasn't in Bob's cards. One of his opponents, a tough boxer named Howard "Happy" Walsh, found the youngster wasn't that great. So when the two were paired off, Happy decided to carry Bob so as not to embarrass him in front of his friends. What Happy didn't know was that Bob would unconsciously make faces, and during the fight, he thought Bob was sneering at him. So Happy landed a hard right and a hook, and Bob went down for the count.

By the time he was 20 and with his mom's encouragement, Bob had decided to be a performer. This was a time when passive entertainment meant live entertainment. Singers and dancing acts were particularly popular. Anyone could learn dancing at a local dance hall, and Bob decided that if he couldn't be a boxer, he'd be a hoofer.

Bob also had an entrepreneurial side, and he once organized a dance marathon. Dance marathons were where couples would pay an entrance fee and they would all keep dancing until all but one pair dropped. But Cleveland's City Council had banned these grueling and even dangerous events. At the vote, though, the Council did not stop marathons that were already in progress. But Bob's marathon was ruled to have started too late, and it was stopped after an hour.

Bob decided to start a dance act with a young lady named Mildred Rosequist. But that plan was also squelched - not by the City Council but by Mildred's parents. Finally Bob - going by the name "Lester" - formed a professional partership with another dancer named Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin. The Les and Lefty "soft shoe" act hit the vaudeville circuit in 1924.

The term "vaudeville" is attested to by the early 1830's when it described a short, often one-act, play. But by the late 19th century, the term referred to what we call a "variety performance". That is, a vaudeville show had become a series of short separate acts. In a typical show you'd have singers, dancers, jugglers, magicians, and, of course, comedians. The acts featured a large number of smalltime performers but there were also "headliners" - big name acts that drew the crowds. Naturally the headliners drew top dollar for themselves.

And how did you get in? Well, you auditioned. Formal auditions were scheduled, but you could also simply show up at the impressario's office and wait until he had the time to see you.

Vaudeville had advantages for the beginners. The separate acts were usually brief. So the performers didn't have to learn more than a couple of routines. The drawback was that there were multiple shows and a vaudeville performer might have to go on stage ten times a day.

Bob and Lefty auditioned for the theaters and were good enough to get hired. When they danced they would also pepper their performance with back-and-forth jokes so Les and Lefty began to gain the reputation for their comedy. They were good enough to soon move up to the well-known Keith Circuit.

Bob's ability in singing and dancing also landed him spots in longer running plays and musicals. Nevertheless, it became clear that his true ability was as what was then called a "monologist". Today we'd call it stand-up comedy.

By the early 1930's Bob had begun landing parts in Broadway shows and musicals and in a few years he moved into radio. Then in 1934 he was cast in a short motion picture.

This first picture, Going Spanish, had Bob acting like a Mexican jumping bean. At one showing the columnist Walter Winchell was in the audience. Walter asked Bob what he thought of his first film.

"When they catch Dillinger", Bob said, "they're going to make him sit through it twice."

Walter thought this was funny and included the comment in his column.

When Bob began appearing in films, his schnoz became an issue. A make up artist once told him that on stage make-up could help mask his nasal prominence, but in movies with the closeups, a ski-nose was a ski nose and was not to be gainsaid. He suggested Bob get a nose job.

Bob talked it over with his wife, Delores. She said no. The producers were trying to turn him into a leading man when his real talent was comedy. Besides, she liked his nose as it was and for comedy it was perfect. Bob agreed.

Despite his rather inauspicious start in movies, Bob was building his reputation and appearing in stage productions with big name stars. Then in 1938, he was hired to host NBC's The Pepsodent Show, a radio program with the mustachioed and rolling-eyed comedian, Jerry Colonna. The show ran until June 6, 1944. Yes, that was D-Day.

The Pepsodent Show was scheduled on Tuesday night between two of the most popular shows Fibber McGee and Molly and Red Skelton. You couldn't ask for a better time slot, and you'll read that Bob was paid a whopping $3000 a week!

Of course, Bob also had to pay his writers and cast. So although Bob was getting good pay he wasn't yet rolling in dough.

The Peopsodent Show is credited with launching the Bob Hope as we know him. And it was also in 1938 that Bob was also cast as the master of ceremonies of a cruise ship in the motion picture The Big Broadcast of 1938. In the picture he sang "Thanks For the Memory". The song was a hit and became Bob's signature song. Bob had made the big time.

Naturally his work in films and radio kept Bob busy - essentially he had simultaneous multiple jobs. At one point his doctor told him to take two weeks off or risk a heart attack. Bob took a fishing vacation, but was back at work in three days.

"I thought I told you two weeks," his doctor said.

"Fish don't applaud," Bob said.

Back in Spokane, Bing had been singing since he was in school. He was good enough so that in the early 1920's he and his friend Al Rinker decided to try it in Hollywood. The duo was soon noticed by Paul Whiteman, then the biggest name bandleader in the country, and they were signed on in 1926. But Bing was the one to stand out.

The 1920's was also the time when recording technology made the big leap from acoustical to electronic. The sound could now approach near present day quality and the recording industry really took off. By the early 1930's Bing, with his crooning baritone and laid back persona, had become one of the most popular recording artists in America.

But Bing could do more than just sing, and he was given the lead role in the film The Big Broadcast. No, that wasn't the movie with Bob, but an earlier film in 1932. Appearing with some of the biggest names at the time, Bing solidified himself as not only the most popular singer but as a bonafide film star.

It was also in 1932 that Bing was billed at the Capital Theater in New York. The emcee was none other than Bob Hope. The two had met earlier at the Friar's Club, a private emporium where performers would show up to take it easy. Knowing of Bob's real talent, Bing suggested that they do a comedy routine. Bob was agreeable and for a few minutes on stage they traded zingers and got the audience laughing. From then on the back and forth repartée became de rigueur when they were together

Without doubt Bing's most famous film - with the attendant song - was White Christmas. But it was the 1940 film The Road to Singapore where Bob and Bing appeared in tandem starring roles. They did six more Road to [...] pictures (all with Dorothy Lamour) where the two men venture to far off and exotic locales. The 40's and 50's were still the era when Americans thought of countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific as primitive and romantic. Today, of course, Singapore is one of the most modern and developed (and richest) cities in the world.

People tend to think of Bob as the actor and Bing as the singer. Actually Bing developed at least, if not more, of a reputation for being a box-office draw. After all, it was Bing who won an Academy Award for Best Actor for playing a priest in Going My Way.

Bing's movies usually had wholesome and traditional themes. One of his later movies was High Time which anticipated Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School with Bing playing a retired restaurant chain owner who decided to go back to college. Although the plot has a number of college-stereotypes from the era, the film is amusing enough.

There is a romantic interest for Bing. That was a widowed French professor (played by Nichole Maurey) who has more on her mind that teaching Bing how to conjugate verbs. At one point Bing and the Professor Helene accidentally bump into each other.

"Oh, excuse me," she said.

"My pleasure," responds Bing.

High Time co-starred Fabian Forte and Tuesday Weld. In later years Fabian said during the shooting Bing was standoffish and aloof, possibly due to the generation gap or because he didn't care for Fabian's own speciality which was rock-and-roll. And yes, in the picture Fabian did sing with Bing.

Bob, on the other hand, tended to play wise guys, both in movies and in his stand-up routines. Today it's been forgotten that sometimes his jokes packed a punch that some did not find amusing. Once he got into trouble with the Mexican government for making jokes which were seen as promoting Mexican stereotypes. When they called on Bob to apologize he just made more jokes.

Starting in World War II, Bob began touring in shows sponsored by the United Service Organization (USO). The news of these trips to war zones kept him in the admiring public eye, and he kept performing for the troops up to and including the Gulf War in 1990.

Bob was also one of the first big entertainers to travel primarily by plane - even into the 1950's train travel was preferred. Of course, during the War, his travel to the troops had to be provided by the Army Air Corps. Bob once commented on the flight to one of the oversea bases.

We've had a very fast flying trip up to now. Flew all the way down here from San Francisco. Didn't scare me a bit. I read a novel coming down. Going back I'm going to read the second page.

One soldier who attended one of Bob's shows in Vietnam mentioned that the jokes were a bit more - well - "robust" than what you heard on his television specials. But even back home at live performances - state fairs and the like - the jokes could be a bit risqué - or at least for the times.

In the 1970's at a fair in the Midwest, Bob told the following joke about when he and Bing were out playing golf.

And as we went to the 9th hole, a rattlesnake jumped out and bit me on the happy meat. Yep, right on the happy meat. I told Bing to find a doctor quick.

Bing ran to the clubhouse where he found a doctor. He told Bing to render emergency first aid.

"Run right back," the doctor said, "and make sure you suck out all the poison. If you don't do that, he'll die."

So Bing ran back and as he came up I asked, "What did the doctor say?"

And Bing said, "He said you're going to die."

At an interview after the performance Bob commented, "Today I can tell the jokes upfront that I used to tell backstage." Times, of course, have changed and such a joke is now scarcely scandalous.

What surprises some is that Bob had no hesitation in tossing out some not-so-double-ententres even in his earlier days. On one of the Pepsodent radio shows, Dorothy Lamour was a guest. At one point the script called on Dorothy to direct some barbs at Bob. She then went on - and remember this was live radio:

"Don't take me seriously, Bob," Dorothy read. "I was just pulling your leg.

"Listen, Dottie," Bob said. "You can pull my right leg and you can pull my left leg but don't mess with Mr. In-Between.

Bing's first wife, Dixie, died in 1952, and five years later he married Kathryn Grandstaff. Kathryn, an actress who performed under the name Kathryn Grant, is well-known to science fiction and fantasy buffs as Princess Parisa in the Ray Harryhausen animated film The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Through most of the movie Kathryn - or rather Princess Parisa - is shrunk down by the evil magician Sokurah (Torin Thatcher). But of course eventually Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) prevails, and Kathryn is restored to her normal proportions.

Both Bob and Bing were expert amateur golfers, and Bing was very nearly scratch. Bing founded the Bing Crosby Clambake tournament at Pebble Beach in 1937 where the first winner was Sam Snead. Officially known as the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, today it's the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. You'd think they'd keep Bing's name in it, but today the rule is, soddy, no dough, no name. But at least Bing did get elected to the Golf Hall of Fame, and when Bing died in 1977 it was after playing a round of golf.

You'll read that Bob was not a great improviser and his reliance on scripted material prompted Tonight Show host Johnny Carson to say that Bob wasn't that great of a guest. We also learn that Bob didn't write his own jokes but hired a multitude of writers, one of whom, Sherwood Schwartz, would go on to create Gilligan's Island.

Of course, virtually all comedians hire writers, and saying Bob didn't write any of his material is a bit of an oversimplification. Typically Bob would call a last minute meeting where they would all thrash out the final jokes. Bob's input was substantial and in the end he had the final say.

Bob expected the writers to be available at all times. Sometimes he would call one up at night and say he needed a certain number of jokes on certain topics by the next morning. So the writer would be up all night trying to craft what Bob had ordered.

We can understand, then, why the writers would feel rather put upon. Their salaries weren't necessarily horrible but not that great, either. A new hire might get $50 a week - somewhat above the average wage of the time. But they had no rights to their material and their contracts were limited to the show's duration. We also read that Bob would pay them by having them gather at the bottom of a stairwell. He would then make paper airplanes out of their checks and make everyone scramble. Bob said it was just a joke but the writers were not amused.

As far as being tied to the scripts, certainly in some of the live radio broadcasts Bob clearly is throwing in ad-libs. In 1951, he appeared (without pay) on "The Bing Crosby Show for Chesterfields" radio show. That the show had the name of its "sponsor" was lamentably all too common in those days, particularly for shows financed by cigarette companies.

During the skit with Bing, Bob mentioned that he had been making the western film Son of Paleface with Jane Russell and Roy Rogers. Like Roy he was going to sell Bob Hope clothes.

"I'm going to put out a complete line of Bob Hope items," Bob said. "Why, before long everyone in the country will be wearing my clothes."

"Well," commented Bing, "there's room, there's room."

After the laughter, Bob went off-script and complained that Bing's quip had gotten a laugh.

"'There's room?' That's not even funny," Bob griped. "Your brother Everett must have a clique in the audience."

"He is. He's out there," Bing said. "He's with a large group from the Finlandia Band. A very steamy group."

"Yes, that's what I smell, huh?" Bob cracked. "I thought a track team went through here."

Then Bob went back to reading the script.

"But getting back to the Bob Hope Line of clothes," he said, "I wish you all kinds of luck, but please don't expect me to buy any of them."

"That's my line," Bing said.

That got the biggest laugh of show.

Of course, eventually the younger crowd began to see Bob's material as old-fashioned and even corny. As the counterculture gained in popularity during the 1950's and 60's, Bob was seen as being too chummy with what became known as The Establishment.

In the end, though, Bob's ties with the presidents and other politicians did him in good stead. There were a number television shows and specials, and Bob hosted the Academy Awards 18 times. He became one of the wealthiest men in America.

It's inevitable, we suppose, but both Bing and Bob have been the subject of tell-all biographies. The books report on multiple peccadilloes and paint pictures of both men being far from the kindly, grandfatherly figures of popular vision. We even read that they didn't really like each other that much. But such a conclusion seems to contradict what Bob said about Bing during later interviews.

Bob's last show was in 1996. However, he had become so frail (he was over 90) that he had to be content with being more of a spectator than a participant. During his last three years he was largely confined to his bed, and he died on July 27, 2003, 100 years old.

References

Hope: Entertainer of the Century, Richard Zoglin, Simon and Schuster, November 4, 2014.

Going My Way: Bing Crosby and American Culture, Ruth Prigozy and Walter Raubicheck, University of Rochester Press, 2007.

The Secret Life of Bob Hope: An Unauthorized Biography, Arthur Marx, Barricade Books.

"Bob Hope Reflects on the Road Not Taken", Timothy White, Rolling Stone, March 20, 1980.

"Bob Hope and American Variety", Library of Congress.

"Famous Today, Forgotten Tomorrow", Jim Fusilli, The Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2014.

"White Christmas? Stop Lying To Us, Bing", Tom Chivers, December 25, 2014

"Laugh Factory: How Bob Hope Made a Career in Comedy", Adam Gopnik

"Bob Crosby: Another Talented Crosby", David Lobosco , Great Entertainers Archive, June 13, 2012.

"This is Bob Hope: Interview with Linda Hope", Jed Ryan, Huffington Post, December 28, 2017.

"Review: High Time (1960) Starring Bing Crosby", Lee Pfeiffer, Cinema Retro, October 29, 2015.

"High Time (1960)", Groucho Reviews.

Fabian Phones to Chat, Reminisce Upon Reading About Late Actress, Ed Blank, Trib LIVE, January 4, 2004.

"Great Escape: 9 Luxurious, Remote Hotels Around the World", Michaela Trimble, Vogue, July 15, 2016.

"Chase and Sandborn Hours 102nd Anniversary Program. Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthur Show", Edgar Bergen (Narrator), Carroll Carroll (Writer), November 13, 1966, Internet Archive Old Time Radio.

Bing Crosby for Chesterfield, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope (Guest), Martha Tilton (Guest), October 17, 1951, Old Time Radio.

"Bing Crosby Dies at 73 on Golf Course", Richard West and Ted Thackrey, Jr., The Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1977.

"Bob Hope USO Shows: The One-Man Morale Machine", USO, February 4, 2016.

"Bob Hope Gets Little Thanks for All the Memories", Susan King, Los Angeles Times, November 29, 2014.

"Bob Hope's Last Days", Miss Cellina, Neatorama, February 17, 2016.

"Vaudeville", Ngram Viewier, Google.