Pete Martin - Have Tux Will Travel

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION

IN "WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.

COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY THE BOB AND DOLORES HOPE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC.

ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 630 FIFTH AVENUE

NEW YORK 20, N. Y.

Parts of this book have appeared in the Saturday Evening Post under the title THIS IS ON ME.

FIRST PRINTING

DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION NUMBER: 92

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK

WARNING!

I'VE GOT A FRIEND who knows the entire book-writing scam. When he heard that I was doing a book about myself, he packed some K-rations, a sleeping bag, a spare can of gas and headed for my house in North Hollywood. He took off on the Hollywood Freeway. The Hollywood Freeway that's a road on which you blow both your horn and your top. Neither one does any good.

His face was gray with fatigue when he checked in. He borrowed my razor, gulped a few mouthfuls of my brandy and unwrapped the surprise he'd brought along for me. It was a bundle of advice.

"Look, chum," he said. If youre doing a book about yourself, youve got to probe deep in your insides. Youve got to strip off the layers of the Hope the public knows and put that other Hope down on paper. Lets not be shallow and surfacy about this thing, chum.

Im going to level with those whore thinking about reading this. I dont know what other kind of Bob Hope my adviser meant. Maybe he meant a crazy-mixed-up-kid Bob Hope. Maybe he was day-dreaming about a deep-domed, Walter-Lippmann-type Bob Hope. Could be he was conjuring up a sensitive, introverted Bob Hope.

I've got news for those who're hoping to read With Bob Hope in a Platinum-Lined Snake Pit. That breezy Hope that Hope with a bounce you see on the screen or on your TV set is me.

WARNING

I get peeved as easy as the next guy unless the next guy is Donald Duck. Occasionally Im disillusioned with people I've liked and trusted. But I don't make a hobby of mental turmoil. If I did, it would be out for this story. I dont think most people want that.

So Im just putting down the Bob Hope I know. Im no one-man Moral Rearmament Movement. I dont go around giving out with monologues about my sense of inner guilt and the pretzel bends in my soul. Nor do I go for sleeping pills or lying on a psychiatrist's couch to have my head shrunk. Im not a baby who sucks soothing syrup from a booze bottle.

Maybe this makes me less interesting. I notice that most of the books are written about people whose insides look like road maps. Those roads lead to frustration.

When I feel a spell of brooding coming on, I lie down and knock off some uninterrupted sleep.

WARNING

Maybe there's supposed to be something glamorous about folks whose personalities are split like a bundle of kindling. But I notice they spend most of their time getting an analyst to glue them back together.

It wouldn't be hard to arrange that out here in California. We grow more neuroses than hibiscus. We've got even more psychiatrists than actors 9 agents. Our psychiatrists have Cadillac fins on their couches.

I have a warning signal that saves me lots of psychiatrists' fees. If I pick up a golf club at the Lakeside Golf Club or at any golf club in the world and the stick seems heavy, that means my barometer is dropping. When that happens, I know I'm a little tired. I ought to get some rest. If I'm ragged at golf, that's it. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't know I'm tired.

I know it's hard for people to believe that a man in my business is normal emotionally and mentally. If they don't, there's nothing I can do about it.

Not long ago I got on a plane to fly north to play Letterman Hospital in San Francisco. I sat next to a kid about sixteen. He recognized me when I sat down. I was trying to put some routines together to use at Letterman and at Oak Knoll Hospital. I pulled out a pile of material to look at. This kid said to me, "Do you have to memorize all that?"

"No," I said, Im just looking through some jokes.

The kid gave me a third degree. He didnt use the glaring, unshaded light in my eyes and the hose, but he did a thorough job. He just kept asking me questions.

Finally he asked, "Did you ever make a picture with Bing Crosby?"

"Didnt you ever see any of the Road pictures?" I wanted to know.

"No," he said.

He asked me how I put my stuff together. He wanted to know how long Id been in show business. He tried to squeeze it out of me whether it had been a lot of trouble getting a start.

WARNING

The woman sitting behind me asked me for my autograph. I gave it to her. The kid asked for my autograph too. He held it up and studied it. He said to the woman back of us, "What do you know? Signs it the same way every time."

He turned back to me. Boy, you must have a pretty tough life.

I wasnt feeling abused. I said, "I feel pretty good!'

There was a pause. Then he asked, "When did you have your last breakdown?"

"What gave you the idea I've had a nervous breakdown?" I wanted to know.

Don't all comedians have nervous breakdowns? he asked.

"Some of them may," I said; "I feel fine."

I still do. Most of the time its my audiences that have the nervous breakdowns. See how you make out.

Chapter 1

ONE OF MY WRITERS, Larry Klein, looked at me one day and said, "You know, if you had your life to live all over again, you wouldn't have time to do it." I wouldn't want to live it over again. It's been pretty exciting up to now. The encore might not be as much fun.

Among other things, Larry meant that I travel a lot. Hoofers, comedians and singers used to put ads in Variety. Those ads read: "Have tuxedo, will travel." This meant they were ready to go any place any time. It meant that they were "available" for picnics, weddings, clambakes, one-night stands, extended engagements. It also meant that they would be dressed classy when they showed up.

I've been traveling ever since I can remember. I've been "available" ever since I did my first Charlie Chaplin imitation when I was nine or ten. But I haven't always had a tux. I bought my first one out of savings when I was nineteen. It was real sharp, but it was secondhand and a tight fit. It cost me fourteen bucks at Richman's in Cleveland. It would cost more than that now to have it let out enough at the seams.

Im still traveling. I'm the only hit-and-run comedian in the business. My wife, Dolores, complains that I'm always taking off for Alaska, London, Korea, Cleveland, Denver, or Washington, D. C., without giving her warning. Ill say this for Dolores: No one can handle being married to a traveling-salesman type better than she does. She's very sweet about my absences, although I notice that the towels in our bathroom are marked Hers and Welcome Traveler. But when she gets a certain look in her eye, I take her on my next trip.

Of course, Dolores is much too good for me. She was raised on the right side of the tracks. We Hopes lived under the tracks.