Customer Reviews

Bob Hope

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Bob Hope came with a bunch of pretty girls and good musicians to play for me and about a jillion other lonesome GI's so I am predisposed to like the man and this review might not be perfectly objective. He told us jokes that hit right straight home. This book is full of those jokes and each chapter is headed by a little history just to set things straight. He just about covers the whole last century right down the the exposed wire. There is no prejudice or meanness... just the naked truth. He never overlooked any of the facts of the matter. It is, indeed, the best history of the twentieth century I ever read. Thank's for the memories, kind sir... and happy birthday.

The initial idea of Mr. Hope putting his life into jokes sounds good. He was a comedian. He was good at what he did. What better way could he relay his life story? The problem is that all together, these jokes lose their humor.

The book might be useful for quotes, but overall as an autobiography it is seriously lacking.

i love bob hope hence the purchase of the book...i was disappointed in the fact that it was a small hardcover book, and simply a copy of his jokes for the various times of his life...i believe that very little effort went in putting the book together, and it was a disapointment...find another book to read about this great man...

BOB HOPE: MY LIFE IN JOKES by Bob Hope with Linda Hope
was written just before the great comedian's death . . . it presents his best jokes and comic anecdotes, organized by the stages of his life.

Each of the ten chapters corresponds to a decade in his amazing
career . . . I liked the fact that the jokes were often preceded by mini-blurbs about what was happening during that time and, also, that there were pictures of Hope in front of each of chapter (showing how he looked over the years).

Hope's jokes rarely made me laugh out loud . . . though, that
said, they did put a smile on my face as I read them--and do
again as I share the following with you:

I was really good to my mother. Whenever there was any wood
to be chopped . . . I'd run right out and sharpen her axe.

Bowling has one advantage over golf. You rarely lose a ball.

I play golf in the eighties. Any hotter I won't play.

You'll like this book [his autobiography, HAVE TUX, WILL TRAVEL]. It starts out by telling all my good points, all my achievements, and gives the entire history of my education. . . . The second page is good, too.

Well, the [1992] election campaign in the country is picking up
speed. The voters are yawning faster. All the candidates are talking about health care now. Don't they realize that it's their campaign speeches that make us sick? . . . You know, we could wipe out the federal deficit if there was a tax on campaign promises.

Age is only a number. However, in my case, it is a rather large
number.

The best way to look young is to hang out with older people. . . . For met, that's getting harder and harder to do.

It would have been better if it was an actual biography. If you're just looking for jokes then this is the book for you. I'm not over 50 so a lot of the jokes weren't funny but the rest are timeless.

Trevor Gibson

Bob Hope was one of the most widely known people of the twentieth century. He was recognized for his skills in acting and comedy, and he was also well known for his entertainment of the troops overseas in a time of war. This book was written by Bob Hope and his daughter Linda Hope. It was an unusual way of telling someone's life. The story of Bob Hope's life in this book was told through a combination of jokes and paragraphs. In the next few paragraphs, you won't find very many things about Bob Hope's public life. What you will find is topics on Bob Hope's personal life, outside of acting and entertaining.
Bob Hope was born in England in 1903. He grew to the age of 8 in England, and then moved to America. He was the youngest of eight children and this might have helped him develop a good sense of humor. In his early teen years, he found himself with a friend in show business. This is predominantly how he started acting and performing comedy. For the rest of his teen years, Hope struggled to pitch in to the family's money by acting in a part of a show every night for a few months at a time. The shows would travel around the country from time to time, but Bob was getting a little tired of traveling. To solve this annoyance, Bob Hope applied for a job on a movie set in Hollywood, California. He got the job and started in the movie acting business.
By his mid-thirties, he had been making movies for about a decade, and decided to try acting a little on his own. He started to add, little by little, jokes here and there to spruce up his movies. He never actually produced any movies, but he was the main actor in most of his movies. Of all the movies Hope was in, sixty of them were top movies of the year. He starred in over forty of those sixty movies. He is most famous for his acting and comedy work in the "Road" series of movies, which were very popular in the 1950's.
During the 1930's and early 1940's Bob Hope performed his comedy and acting in Hollywood. In the late 1940's, though, he started to leave Hollywood occasionally to go and entertain military troops overseas. He put his life in danger to go and help the minds of soldiers who were in a warzone for years at a time. His benefit performances helped the soldiers forget about the war for an evening or so. It also helped remind the soldiers of home. One of his quotes from a presentation in Vietnam said, "Look at me, fellas, these are the kind of clothes you'll be wearing when you get home!" After that day in Vietnam, 50 guys from that presentation group re-enlisted.
As Bob Hope grew older, he took up the game of golf, and came to enjoy it. He also acted less frequently. Instead of acting, he used up his valuable time to further entertain the troops fighting in various countries for America. I think he did this because he was a strong supporter of American spirit, and wanted to do anything to help or better serve the people that give him freedom. America is his adopted country. Bob Hope continued this tradition as he grew into his fifties and sixties, and finally set its place in him in his seventies and on. He performed for the troops in every warzone until the late 1990's. Even so, Bob Hope will always be what he was; a famous actor who based his lines and roles on comedy. He died recently at the age of one hundred and one, but his legacy will go on forever.

Bob Hope was never a great favorite of mine. And this though like every American movie- going and later television- watching child of my time I spent a lot of time watching him fool around with Bing and Dotty Lamour. Bob was a bit of a wise- guy and a bit cold somehow. He lacked the warmth of favorites like Uncle Miltie and Jack Benny and Amos and Andy.
But as the years went by I began to appreciate him a bit more. And this especially when he became much older and became almost the sole survivor of a whole generation of American comedians.
This joke- book compiled by his daughter gives jokes, decade by decade, ten chapters for ten decades of his one- hundred year old life.
While there is not much laughing out-loud material there are quite a few smiles to be gotten out of this collection.
There is also the story of a self- made hardworking kid who really made it big in America and appreciated it very much. And did work hard to give it back.
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Hope.

Having met Bob Hope, I was really pleased how this one turned out. It was the biography of Bob through his jokes. It was really funny and well done. The cool thing about it was going through each stage and found the 10 year jokes were just great. If you ever watched Forest Gump then this is what it was like for me. There were things happening during each stage that Bob joked about that told the story of the time but also about how people lived during those times. Great book.

this is a great book. it tells bob hope's life story and tells you many of his jokes as well which only ads to his already fascinating rags to riches story.

What makes this book stand out is that it gives us a thumbnail history of the 20th century. Some may wrongly say they don't get the humor and that is because for the most part it is topical. If you read the book without any understanding of what was going on during the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, etc. then you will miss a great deal. What made Bob Hope an icon to all of us, whether military or civilian, was his ability to take everyday situations at the time and get us to laugh. Both at the situations and ourselves. This is a brilliant collection and it brought back so many great memories.