Bob Hope and Family

The Hope Family.
Photograph, ca. 1906.
Bob Hope Collection,
Motion Picture, Broadcasting and
Recorded Sound Division (1A)

The Hope Family,
ca. 1915. Copyprint.
Bob Hope Collection,
Motion Picture, Broadcasting
and Recorded Sound Division (1)

(Above): Avis Townes Hope, with six of her seven sons. Bob Hope, born Leslie Townes Hope, is standing in the front center.

(Above): William Henry Hope and his wife, Avis Townes Hope, are shown with six of their seven sons at their family home in Cleveland, Ohio. Bob Hope, is seated in front of his father.

The Hope family, ca. 1920.
[Bob Hope is second from the right.]
Photograph.
Bob Hope Collection,
Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (1A.1)

Bob Hope's Birthplace

Bob Hope was born in a suburb of London on May 29, 1903. The family of William and Avis Hope lived in many places in England, wherever stonecutter William Hope could find work. In 1906, William followed two of his brothers to Cleveland, Ohio, and the rest of his family came in 1908.

Bob Hope's birthplace,
44 Craighton Road, Eltham, England.
Copyprint.
Bob Hope Collection,
Motion Picture, Broadcasting
and Recorded Sound Division (2)

The Alhambra Theater, Cleveland,
ca. 1906.
Copyprint. Courtesy of the
Cleveland Public Library (3)

Vaudeville Theater Young Hope Attended

The neighborhood of Cleveland where Bob Hope's family settled, Doan's Corner, included several vaudeville houses, including this theater. Hope's mother, Avis, took her sons to see vaudeville shows often. In the building of this theater is the billiard parlor where Bob Hope hustled pool as a young boy.

Luna Park, Cleveland

Bob Hope spent many hours at this Cleveland amusement park. He often earned money singing on the trolley on the way to the park and won more money at the park by winning footraces. Hope recalled in 1967, "We'd have been called juvenile delinquents only our neighborhood couldn't afford a sociologist."

The Circus Ring,
Luna Park,
Cleveland, Ohio, 1905.
Copyprint.
Prints and Photographs Division (4)

J. W. Sandison.
Charlie Chaplin Look-Alike Contest,
November 5, 1921.
Copyprint.
Courtesy of Whatcom Museum of History and Art,
Bellingham, Washington. (4b)

Charlie Chaplin Impersonators, 1921

When Charles Chaplin's "Little Tramp" was a popular motion picture character in the 1910s, Chaplin imitation contests were common. Bob Hope won one in Luna Park in the summer of 1915. Hope purchased a stove for his beloved mother with his winnings.

Lester Hope Business Card

Dancing was the work Bob Hope found most interesting after he dropped out of school at the age of sixteen. He studied dancing with two professional entertainers in Cleveland and began teaching dancing himself in the early 1920s.

Business card,
ca. 1920.
Bob Hope Collection,
Motion Picture, Broadcasting
and Recorded Sound Division (5)

Bob Hope and Mildred Rosenquist.
Photograph, ca. 1923.
Bob Hope Collection,
Motion Picture, Broadcasting
and Recorded Sound Division (6)

Hope's First Dancing Partner

In the early 1920s, Bob Hope dreamed that he and his Cleveland girlfriend, Mildred Rosenquist, would achieve the success of the dancing sensations of the 1910s, Vernon and Irene Castle.