BOB HOPE - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 980

BOB HOPE. Photograph inscribed and signed: "To/Margie/Nichols/My Best/Bob Hope". B/w, 4½x6¼. Legendary entertainer Bob Hope (1903-2003), born Leslie Townes Hope in London, moved to the U.S. with his family when he was four. A popular vaudeville performer from the 1920s, he starred in several Broadway musicals of the 1930s, including Roberta and Red, Hot and Blue. Among the most popular of his 53 films were the "Road to ..." movies with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, beginning with The Road to Singapore (1940). Hope was honored with three honorary awards from the Academy of Motion Pictures (1940, 1944, 1965). His success as a comedian had continued unabated from radio to television with the long-running Bob Hope Show (1950-1967) and with guest appearances continuing through 1992. Seven months before Pearl Harbor, Hope appeared in the first of his shows for American servicemen, a tradition he would continue through a Persian Gulf tour in 1991. A well known philanthropist, friend to Presidents and avid golfer with his own tournament (the Bob Hope Desert - later Chrysler - Classic, begun in 1960), Hope is listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the most honored entertainer. His over 1,500 awards include the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Congressional Gold Medal (both 1962), the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award (1965), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1969), the Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award (1985) and the National Medal of Arts (1995). Hope, who has four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was also named the first "honorary veteran" by Congress in 1997, the year before he received an honorary knighthood. Fine condition. Framed in the Gallery of History style: 11½x17.