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Jewish World Review May 23, 2003 / 21 Iyar, 5763
Greg Crosby
Thanks for the memory, Bob Hope
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | I never met Bob Hope but I feel I have. As a kid, I used to sit in front of the television with my sister and watch his movies. We loved his expressions when he'd look into the camera, his double takes were great and his breezy way with a gag line always got me. Watching a Bob Hope picture on a rainy day and eating tuna sandwiches that mom made for us was about as good as it got back then. You know, it still sounds pretty good to me right now. "MOM! I'm hungry!"
We always loved it when Bob Hope went into a song, too. Songs and dancing were just as important as the gags in a Hope picture. A lot of people forget just how good a dancer Bob Hope was in those days. And he was no slouch with a song, either. He really held his own alongside the great Bing Crosby and other singers of the day. Bob Hope introduced quite a number of hit songs in his pictures, like 'Two Sleepy People," from "Thanks For The Memory" and "Silver Bells" from "The Lemon Drop Kid," (one of my favorite Hope pictures and a wonderful Christmas movie). There was something about Bob Hope that went beyond just being funny in those pictures from the forties and fifties. Oh sure, he was funny, but he also had a comfortable feeling about him. He wasn't dangerously insane like Danny Kaye or Jerry Lewis. And there was an intelligent cleverness in his character, even when he was his at his wackiest. And my wife tells me he had a sexiness, too. I'll take her word for it. So, for all those great rainy days that I spent watching Bob Hope pictures with my sister on the couch, eating a tuna sandwich, and laughing out loud, I will be forever thankful to Bob Hope. Thanks for the memory. Thanks for the memory, Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. A freelance writer in Southern California, you may contact him by clicking here.
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