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Books

Did anyone ever really love Bob Hope?

A review of Hope by Richard Zoglin suggests that the ‘entertainer’, who lived to be 100, was a mean womaniser and neglectful father, who was never even very funny

22 November 2014

9:00 AM

22 November 2014

9:00 AM

Hope: Entertainer of the Century Richard Zoglin

Simon & Schuster, pp.486, £20, ISBN: 9781439140277

Why does everything these days have to be a superlative? Why must writers scream for our attention, yelling that the guy in their book blows everyone else out of the water? Bob Hope, claims Richard Zoglin in this biography, was the most important entertainer of the 20th century. In fact, he adds, you could argue that Hope was ‘the only important entertainer’.

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