![]() A few days after Hope's death, author and journalist Christopher Hitchens called him "paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny" in Slate. Congress unanimously passed Resolution 75 in 1997 to make him the nation's first Honorary Veteran, and he considered this his highest achievement. It was the beginning of nearly 60 years of shows at military bases at home and abroad. ![]() In 1941, he performed his first show for soldiers, a group of airmen stationed in March Field, California. ![]() The Guinness Book of World Records named him the most honored entertainer in the world, with 2,000 awards and citations, including 54 honorary doctorates and a knighthood from his native England. He never won an Oscar for his acting - "Oscar Night at my house is called Passover," he once quipped - but the Academy nevertheless honored him five times, with two honorary Oscars, two special awards, and a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. His comedy was verbal, not physical, and he usually played unsympathetic characters that the audience could feel superior to. By 1940, after working in vaudeville, Broadway, and radio, he was one of America's most popular comedians. His first successful show-biz venture came at the age of 10, when he won a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. ![]() His family moved to the United States when he was four years old, and he grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. It's the birthday of comedian Bob Hope (1903), born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, near London. ![]()
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