Bob Hope

 
Quote: [on growing up in poverty] Four of us slept in one bed. When it got cold mother threw on another brother.

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Bob Hope KBE, KC*SG, KSS (born Leslie Townes Hope) was a British-American stand-up comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer, dancer, athlete, and author.

With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with 54 feature films with Hope as star, including a series of seven "Road" musical comedy movies with Bing Crosby as Hope's top-billed partner.

After a brief career as a boxer in the late 1910s, he began his career in show business in the early 1920s, initially as a comedian and dancer on the vaudeville circuit, before acting on Broadway. Hope began appearing on radio and in films starting in 1934. He was praised for his comedic timing, specializing in one-liners and rapid-fire delivery of jokes which often were self-deprecating.

Hope participated in the sports of golf and boxing and owned a small stake in his hometown baseball team, the Cleveland Indians. Hope retired in 1997, and died at the age of 100 in 2003, at his home in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.