Wednesday, May 26, 1943

Dear Diary,

Fibber Mc Gee pulled a corny gag last night. I’ve forgotten it, but after he said it, Molly countered with the usual, “It ain’t funny, McGee.” He said, “That’s funny. I traded Bob Hope three ‘She’s so fat that’ jokes for that one. It ought to be pretty good.”

I saw an article today that explained why Bob wasn’t in pictures sooner. His first test, for MGM, was so bad he got no results from it. Afterwards, when producers saw him in “Roberta” on Broadway, they invariably sent to MGM for his screen test. Nobody ever signed him. After about two years of that, Bob asked the help of a friend of his at MGM. This friend got the test, pretending a big shot wanted to see it, and took it out of the studio and burned it. A few months later, when Paramount wanted a test of Bob, they had to make a new one. This one was the real Hope – and so our dream man made the grade!

Five weeks ago.