Dear Diary,
I got several pictures of Bob today. Most of them were taken at Dottie Lamour’s wedding. Two showed Bob and Jimmy Cagney trying to out-dance each other at an army camp.
There was an article in one of the magazines about a recent meeting of the Actors Guild, where several stars, including Bob, Kay Kyser, and Jimmy Cagney, played it on some stars who have shirked their duty in regard to the entertainment of the armed forces. To quote part of the article: It isn’t an easy thing,” Bob Hope explained, “to tour the camps, especially if you’re a fellow. I know how it is. On our Alaskan tour, the day after I came so near to death up there that I don’t want to think about it, some boy from the audience heckled, “Yeah, you’d be funnier, fellow, if you were in a uniform.” It hurts. And, what’s more, you can’t explain about age or family or why you’re not in – mostly because the government says No. You gotta take it. But that’s only one fellow amount thousands who will never forget what you’ve tried to do. So please, please, friends, forget self and pride and inconvenience and get out there and do your stuff.
Dear Diary,
Bob and Dottie Lamour were on the Screen Guild Theater tonight in the radio adaptation of “They Got Me Covered.” The sounded as though they were having more fun than a barrel of monkeys. At the end of the play Dottie, said, “Well, Bob, this is the spot when the hero kisses the heroine.” Bob said, “Yeah, but it’s usually Bing Crosby you end up kissing. All, tonight we’ll see whole the better lover, Hope or Crosby.” There was a lovely smack, the audience cheered and applauded, and Dottie said, “Yes, the best kisses of all are at the Kraft Music Hall.” An odd thing came up when Bob announced next week’s play. He said, “‘Louisiana Purchase,’ starring William Gaxton.” Gaxton was in the original stage version which Bob later made into a motion picture.
Dear Diary,
To get back to Bob’s show yesterday, after he said, “Me big jerk,” he added, “Me stink in this part.” Dottie replied, “I found that out in ‘Road to Morocco’.” In his scene with Paulette Goddard, Bob played Charles Boyer, and I might add, he played heck with Charles Boyer. He started, “I’m bored with women. Leave me, Paulette. What silly lines I have!” When the girls first come on they said, “Why, Bob, we really wanted to come tonight. We would have come even if you didn’t have a brother in the wholesale meat business.” Bob said, “Leave my brother Fred out of this.” As a matter of fact, Bob’s brother, Fred Hope, actually is in the meat business. Bob used to work for him in his butcher shop before he helped kill vaudeville.
Dear Diary,
Paulette, Dottie, and Veronica were Bob’s guests tonight as announced, but they didn’t sing their “Star Spangled Rhythm” number. They had all been insulting Bob with such remarks as, “He’s such a wolf Paramount gave him a cave instead of a dressing room.” However, they decided to apologize. Each one kissed him, they they asked him how he liked it. He said, “Girls, I’m ashamed of you. This is meatless Tuesday, and you just cooked a ham. Bob did a skit with each of the girls. Since Veronica Lake plays with Alan Ladd in pictures, Bob was a gunman in his skit with her. In his death scent (naturally he got sho) he was so corny he stuck in a little note of his own. He said, “A-a-agh! They got me. I’m dying. (This is Alan Sadd.).” With Dottie he was Tarzan. Dottie told him to kiss her, but he said, “Kissing is baby stuff. Me Tarzan. Me no kiss. Me big man. Me big jerk!”
Dear Diary,
I went to the dentist today thinking I would have to have a tooth pulled. He took an x-ray of it Friday. The x-ray showed, however that there’s nothing wrong with it except a small cavity. The thing that gave me a little trouble is an impacted widen tooth. I never heard of such a thing at my age. I guess I’m just unusually wise. Ahem! Pardon my smoke.
I was listening to the Screen Guild players tonight, and since I’d heard the story before, I wasn’t listening very hard. I went into the kitchen for a something, but for some reason I couldn’t tell you, I rushed back to the radio just in time to hear the announcer say the play next week will be “the year’s funniest–’They Got Me Covered’,” starring Bob and Dottie of course.
Dear Diary,
On the way to school this morning Jean handed me a great big picture of Bob Hope from “Road to Morocco.” It was the scene in which Bob, Bing Crosby, Dottie Lamour, and Dona Drake were preparing to abandon Morocco for the good old U.S.A., but their plans were thwarted by “Murder, Inc.” in the person of Mullay Kasim the shiek, or Anthony Quinn. I don’t know who selected the cast but I think they were in a rut– the two B’s, Bob and Bing, and the two D’s, Dona and Dottie.
I’m afraid I’m in for it for a few days, because I have an awfully sore throat and I feel a cold coming on.
Dear Diary,
I got twenty-two pictures of Bob Hope today. Two of them were from “The Road to Morocco,” one was an old one from the premier of “Knute Rockne.” at which Bob presided, and nineteen were from “The Got Me Covered.”
Dottie Lamour was on Bing Crosby’s show tonight. Naturally they talked about “Road to Morocco,” and just as naturally, they talked about Bob, or, as Bing called him, Orson Hope. Bing and Dottie tried to think of a new destination for a “Road” picture. They wound up with “Road to Poopah Doopah.” They sang a song of the same name, to the tune of “Road to Morocco,” and there was a lot about Hope in that too.
Dear Diary,
I thought I could cut out my newest pictures of Bob Hope tonight during the first half of Bing Crosby’s show. I was just going to listen to Bing the second half, and do my home-work after the program was over. However, my plans didn’t pan out so well, because fifteen minutes after Bing went off the air, I was still cutting out pictures of Bob. That’s how many I had.
Bing sang two songs from “The Road to Morocco” tonight. After each one he said, “That’s one of the tunes from the Bob Hope picture, –” of “from the Bob Hope – Dottie Lamour picture –” According to him, he’s not in it.
Muriel Windham's Diary 