Many Memories, Little Thanks -- Hope: Entertainer of the Century, By Richard Zoglin

Here is something rare and wonderful: a celebrity biography that is not only balanced, nuanced and impeccably researched, but deeply human and moving.  Richard Zoglin (born 1948) has managed all of this in his indispensable Hope: The Entertainer of the Century, which is simply one of the very best books of 2014.

It should be noted that we here at The Jade Sphinx think Bob Hope was a wonderfully funny man.  I saw him live at Madison Square Garden in 1989, where he played with George Burns.  Though the show itself was quite bare-bones, it was a great joy to see them both, and Burns was in particularly good form.  Hope’s Road films, with frequent costar Bing Crosby, were the only comedy series that paired two comic actors of equal caliber; and also remarkable were the number of standards in the Great American Songbook introduced by Hope throughout his film career.

Though alternately forgotten or reviled today, Bob Hope was one of the great comedians of the 20^th century and a legitimate hero, as well.  Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope in England in 1903.  His family moved to Ohio in 1908, where they led a fairly hardscrabble existence.  Though things were difficult, Hope (and his many brothers) did remember this time with affectionate nostalgia.  However, despite the haze of Norman Rockwell reminiscence, it seems clear that Hope lived in a fairly rough environment, and was something of a rough kid himself.  Zoglin’s research uncovered some time spent in reform school (most probably for shoplifting), which Hope in later years either deflected with an offhand joke, or sought to expunge it from memory for good.

Hope loved attention and was a born entertainer.  He moved from street busking to the vaudeville circuit where he honed his craft as dancer, comedian and monologist.  Most important – he created the man known as “Bob Hope,” the brash, confident and urban wise guy.  Here was a comic who did not rely on baggy pants or ethnic tropes, but, rather, was the new All-American model; it is one of America’s greatest acts of assimilating while defining the national character.  Hope ascended quickly, conquering Broadway, early movie shorts, and radio before becoming a comedic leading man in films, a legitimate radio star and Broadway name.  The age of Hope had arrived.

In a book of deft touches, one of the many things that Zoglin conveys wonderfully is Hope’s seemingly inexhaustible well of energy.  His capacity for work would deplete a platoon of men.  Most comfortable onstage, where he could inhabit his created persona, Hope would move from film shoot to radio show to personal appearance or charity event in stride.  No wonder he lived to be 100.

The defining moment of Hope’s career was his stint entertaining the troops during World War II.  Not content with setting up camp shows and providing song-and-dance perilously near firing lines, Hope and his entourage went from hospital to hospital visiting the wounded, would scrupulously return messages home, and provide a much-needed morale boost.  Zoglin peppers his account with several hair-raising moments (Hope’s plane nearly crashed outside of Alaska), along with heart-felt reminiscences from the ground-forces comforted by Hope.

Following the war, Hope was a juggernaut – he made many of his finest films, his radio show was immensely popular, he would go on to host the Academy Awards more than any other celebrity, and the well of goodwill he created seemed nearly inexhaustible.  He would go on to conquer television, the only star of his generation to continue to work regularly in the medium (and to good ratings) well into the 1990s.

Sadly, things would crumble around him during the 1960s.  It was a decade that was not only a public catastrophe for the United States (from which we never recovered and are still reeling from the effects), but a personal one for Hope as well.  The social, cultural and political changes effectively ended the American Century, and the sneering dismissal of the left and the political disconnect of the right rendered Hope, the first great comic to deal in current events, rudderless.  He would continue to do what he always did – entertain the troops – but in a polarizing war; Hope became a tool of the right and an object of scorn to the left.  He never fully understood what happened.

It is part of the power of Zoglin’s book that Hope emerges from his life a tragic-hero.  Here is a man who achieved not only the absolute pinnacle of success in his profession, but was a beloved national treasure.  Then, suddenly, the public turned on him, leaving Hope bewildered, unsteady and resentful.  Despite the multiple millions Hope made during his career, it was adulation and applause that he needed most.  When it stopped, the protective shell that he created – the Bob Hope persona – became redundant.  The personal man, the interior Hope, was insufficiently developed; retirement wasn’t an option, and Hope overstayed his welcome, tarnishing his once-sterling reputation.  He deserved better.

Zoglin does not sugarcoat Hope’s many personal failings.  He was a chronic philanderer, often villainously cheap, occasionally high-handed and filled with a sense of entitlement.  But Zoglin also details the many, many acts of simple kindness, his generosity to family and friends, and his untiring civic service (there is not a charity event that Hope would not play).  In addition, Hope defined what it meant to be a celebrity and a comedian – inventing the standup monolog, harnessing the power of his fame for good causes, and his deep connection to his fans.  (The book includes a wonderful story of Hope and frequent costar Bing Crosby leaving a hotel with Hope carrying a pillowcase of his fan mail to answer; an incredulous Crosby said he threw his out.)

After spending four days in Hope’s company while devouring this book, I was reluctant to let him go.  While it is possible to quibble with Zoglin on some of his assessments (Zoglin dismisses Son of Paleface rather airily, while your correspondent thinks it one of the greatest comedies of the 1950s), it is impossible to disregard the achievement of this book.  Your correspondent confesses to actually crying at the end … and how many celebrity bios can produce that effect?

Hope: The Entertainer of the Century is required reading for anyone interested in American Pop Culture.

The Homesman, By Glendon Swarthout

One of the most successful western novels of the latter part of the last century was The Shootist (1975), by Glendon Swarthout (1918-1992).  This fine novel was later made into an even better John Wayne film of the same name in 1976, which would prove to be not only Wayne’s last western, but his last film, as well.  It was a fitting coda to a career in the saddle.

Needless to say, it was with some excitement that I found his book The Homesman (1988) at my local bookshop.  It was, however, a significant disappointment.

The setup is wonderful:  during a crippling winter, three women living hardscrabble pioneer lives go insane.  The opening chapter includes a graphic moment when one of these unfortunates murders her new-born baby by dropping it into the outhouse pit.  The book struggles to recover its grounding after this brutal opening.

It is decided that the three women need to be taken back east to a religious institution that deals with unbalanced women.  Their husbands – a fairly brutish lot – abrogate their responsibilities, so someone else must escort these women through dangerous Indian country.  But who?

Enter Mary Bee Cuddy, an ex-teacher, spinster and independent woman.  She volunteers for this perilous mission, but realizes that she cannot do it alone.  Fortunately, she saves from lynching George Briggs, a sidewinder and general hard-case who is getting his neck stretched for claim jumping.  Saving his life, she makes a bargain with him to take the deranged women back east.

Of course, they meet every expected plot complication: storms, Indians, rampaging cattlemen and dwindling supplies.

The Homesman won both the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award and the Western Heritage Wrangler Award, and I sure had high hopes.  However, The Homesman is a failure in almost every regard.  Though it may sound as high-concept as Little House on the Prairie Goes to Hell, it’s never quite that good.

First, Mary Bee Cuddy never really comes alive – she is simply a walking cliché.  Imagine the wonderful Marjorie Main (1890-1975) in buckskin, and all the character development you need is already in your head.  It is almost as if Swarthout was merely notching things on the standard checklist for salty western women: homely?  Check.  Brassy and tough?  Check.  Spinster and ex-teacher?  Check and check.  Worse yet, and I will spoil this for you to save reading the book, Cuddy hangs herself midway through the novel after Briggs rejects her attempts to seduce him.  This is a plot point that comes completely from left field, and once Swarthout kills his point-of-view character, what little there was to savor is gone. 

Briggs, of course, is a western lowlife according to the standard template: bad man with inherent decency.  He is never believable for an instant. 

Swarthout commits his greatest sin by leaving the three, poor madwomen nothing more than ciphers.  Here is an opportunity for any novelist to really shine … but aside from glazed stares and greatly internalized suffering, there is nothing there.  

Perhaps your correspondent is sadly warped, but slogging through this turgid potboiler, I could not help but wait for the funny part.  It never came.

And then – it dawned on me.  In other hands, what a delicious comedy this would be!  Keep almost the same set up, but think Bob Hope as Briggs, and someone like Ethel Merman as Mary Bee Cuddy.  Throw in Phyllis Diller, Martha Raye and Zasu Pitts as the madwomen, and you have something.  At least it would be more interesting (if certainly not more enjoyable) than The Homesman.

My paperback copy says that this is Soon To Be a Major Motion Picture With Tommy Lee Jones.  It would seem that the story of my life is that I’m waiting for Bob Hope and instead I get Tommy Lee Jones.  I hope that he may be able to raise a few laughs, but we are not optimistic….

The Art of Alfredo Rodríguez, Part II: American Indian

We are spending this week looking at the work of Mexican-born artist Alfredo Rodríguez (born 1954), who currently lives in California. 

Rodríguez, like many of his generation, grew up to be obsessed with the American West.  It’s important to remember that though Westerns are few and far between today, that the 1950s and 1960s were a boom time for Western films and television shows; comedian Bob Hope once quipped that NBC meant “Nothing But Cowboys.”  While a boy growing up in Mexico, Rodríguez got a steady diet of American television Westerns playing in reruns.  Like many of his generation, he was marked for life.

Rodríguez’s work has been covered in such books as Western Painting Today by Royal B. Hassick,  and Contemporary Western Artists by Peggy and Harold Samuels; he has also been covered ins such magazines as Art of the West, Western Horseman, and International Fine Art Collector. He has illustrated textbooks and histories, as well, and the prolific artist is one of the most successful contemporary painters in the Western genre.

We at The Jade Sphinx wax and wane on our admiration for Rodríguez.  His efforts to keep the American West alive are met here with riotous applause.  So, too, are his abilities as an artist.  We just wish he had better taste.

Today’s picture is a case in point.  It is quite striking – Rodríguez’s skill at drawing is in full display here.  Look at the network of fine lines etched into the subject’s face, let alone the shadow of his long hair playing against his cheek.  More impressive still are the feathers atop his head, created with such complete control of line and contour as to be surprisingly lifelike.

His sense of coloration is more subdued here than yesterday’s picture – though the dramatic sky, dotted with clouds and merging into the wooded background is perhaps a bit too calculated.  And there, in short, is our problem with the work.  This is a picture calculated to its every brushstroke.  Not that all great pictures are not planned – that’s not exactly what we mean here.  Instead, it seems as if Rodríguez were checking off a list of tropes necessary or expected for this type of picture, and delivering them without comment or insight.

Is our Indian stoic and insightful?  Check.  Brilliant blue sky and wide-open spaces?  Check and check.  Peaceful village rendered in desert colors?  Check.  Water, grass and teepees?  Check, check, check.  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with this picture – it is actually quite splendidly done – it’s just that there is little-to-no point of view and composed by route.  One cannot help but wish that Rodríguez harnessed that remarkable technical ability into a more personal statement on the West.

It makes a superb cover for a paperback Western; as a finished work of art that stands alone on its ability to move us, it falls short.

More Rodríguez tomorrow!