Hope by Richard Zoglin is as close as anyone is likely to come to a definitive biography of Bob Hope. If it falls short, perhaps it's the subject's fault: When you get past the manic energy and self-promotion, spiced up by greed and adventurous sex, there really isn't much inside the man. Did Hope create the monologue? I will take Zoglin's word for it, but Carson will go down as its master practitioner. Yet Hope was a success in all media: vaudeville, Broadway, radio, television, movies, even books. There was a comic book about him that ran for 18 years. His joke writers deserve much of the credit (or blame) for his success, but he could ad lib, dance and sing. The numbers his TV specials pulled will never be surpassed: The medium is forevermore too fragmented. He worked like a Trojan, and quit too late. Zoglin's portrait is hardly affectionate, but is more credible for that.
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