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CNN Live Today
Bob Hope Turns 99
Aired May 29, 2002 - 11:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Legendary entertainer Bob Hope turning 99 today -- Hope spent much of the 20th century entertaining us, including the troops, all over the world, from World War II to Desert Storm. He starred in 284 TV specials and 56 movies. Officials will rededicate a chapel at Los Angeles National Cemetery in his honor today. And Congress had to approve the change.
But frail health will keep Hope at home with his family in Toluca Lake, California.
And Bob Hope's son Tony joins us by the telephone from his dad's home.
Hi there, Tony.
TONY HOPE, SON OF BOB HOPE: Hi, Fredricka. How are you today?
WHITFIELD: Doing just great.
So, how is your dad doing? And how is he spending his birthday today?
HOPE: Well, so far, he is having breakfast and taking it easy.
But we're all getting geared up to head over for the dedication, where my mother and sister and brother and myself, my wife, and a bunch of cousins from Ohio and around the country are coming in for the dedication.
WHITFIELD: Wow, the whole family will be at the dedication. But Bob Hope himself will be staying at home?
HOPE: Yes, he is going to stay home.
WHITFIELD: OK.
Well, tell what his health has been like. It has been quite a few years since many of us have be able to see him publicly, perhaps during one of the last anniversary Bob Hope specials. But how is he feeling these days?
HOPE: He doesn't have any pain from any particular source. He is eating well. And he communicates with my mother a lot. But his attention span isn't what it used to be. WHITFIELD: He certainly -- to say he is a legend is an understatement. Everyone remembers, in some capacity of growing up, their childhood years, or their adult years, something about Bob Hope's imprint on that. For you, as you kind of look at, he's just one year away from a century, what sort of indelible images do you have about the public Bob Hope that we all have come to know and love?
HOPE: Oh, my images go back to the Christmas tours. I was on seven of the Christmas tours when I was in college and law school. And the reception that the troops would give him has a warmth and a strength that I have never seen on a stage anywhere.
WHITFIELD: And it seems as though he really was the one to pave the way for celebrities to make their appearances with the U.S. troops abroad. No one has been able to fill his shoes, but everyone certainly pays homage to the impact that he made.
HOPE: That's true. But he always considered it to be a two-way street.
As far as he was concerned, it started in 1943 at March Air Force Base, where he did a live radio show. And he got such a huge reception from the audience that he kept going back. And then, at the end of the war, the audience would all tune in to his radio show and listen to him. And they had a symbiotic relationship which was nurtured by both sides over a 50-year period.
WHITFIELD: Well, what did he express to you or perhaps other family members about how personal an experience that really was, the kind of reception? You said he didn't feel like he just was doing the giving. He felt like he was getting an awful lot back. What are some of the stories or the things that he told family members that he felt he was getting back?
HOPE: Well, I remember one night about midnight Christmas Eve in Saigon in 1964, when we were going through a hospital. And the men were in pretty bad shape. And he was doing his best to cheer them up.
But even he had had about as much as he could. And when we left the last ward, as he went smiling out and saying, "Good luck, fellows" and all of that, he looked down. And I could see that he had blood on the cuffs of his shirt from one of the wounded men. And tears came to his eyes. And he got very sentimental about it, and said, "After all, that's what we're here for."
WHITFIELD: A very compassionate man. Well, we always, of course, would see him smiling, but that is such a wonderful touch for you to share with us on his 99th birthday today.
Happy birthday to him. And thank you for the memories on behalf of everybody to him, if you can express that to him.
HOPE: Well, thank you, Fredricka. I will pass it on personally.
WHITFIELD: And best wishes on the rededication of the chapel at the Los Angeles National Cemetery today in his honor. HOPE: Thanks. We'll all be there.
WHITFIELD: All right, Tony, thank you very much. And best wishes to your dad, Bob Hope, on his 99th birthday today.
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