A ‘swell fellow’: Wheaton museum shows how Bob Hope brought laughter, home to WWII troops

The letter, dated Nov. 27, 1944, and now on display in Cantigny’s First Division Museum, started like much of his fan mail: “Dear Bob Hope.”

Mrs. A.A. Stumpf shared a note she received that August from her son Andy after the Marine, then on a small island called Pavuvu, saw Hope and his troupe of fellow entertainers on a “crude stage.”

“Soon after this letter was written, this boy was killed in his first battle, at Peleliu. He was only nineteen, had never been away from home before and was lonely and homesick as most of the boys are,” his mother recounted, “and I can never thank you enough for having brought him those two hours of fun.”

By that time, Hope had been starring in the “Road” movies with crooner Bing Crosby. Hope and his snappy, deadpan brand of humor would appear in films opposite Lucille Ball and on late-night television. He held court as a longtime Oscars host.

But it’s not the Hope in a big bow tie tuxedo who features prominently in a traveling exhibit that’s landed at the First Division Museum on the Cantigny campus in Wheaton. “So Ready for Laughter: The Legacy of Bob Hope” shows the comedian in a wartime, on-the-ground role.

‘Zip and zing’

Hope helmed a hit Pepsodent-sponsored NBC radio program airing Tuesday nights. In May 1941, Hope performed his first military show at March Field in California. It became the cause of his life. Hope, the exhibit notes, headlined 57 tours for the USO between 1941 and 1991.

“We had no idea we were going to discover an audience so ready for laughter, it would make what we did for a living seem like stealing money,” Hope recalled of entertaining troops during World War II, a quote displayed near the museum gallery entrance and the basis of the exhibit’s name.

While there are images of Hope next to JFK and sharing a stage with Raquel Welch, “So Ready for Laughter” — on loan from the National WWII Museum — focuses on his morale-boosting tours in that era. A well-worn suitcase, military travel orders and a Paris hotel receipt give a sense of the mileage he logged. You’ll see him near the bedside of the wounded.

“It's important to us to connect with that broad history of everyone who remembers the Bob Hope legacy from television and film, and then, of course, to relate to our military abroad and at home, and how much he did for them for decades at a time,” said Jessica Waszak, the curator of the museum dedicated to the Army’s Big Red One.

Hope kept a diary — also on display — of his summer 1944 tour of bases and hospitals across the South Pacific in which he jotted down jokes and GI slang. That year, Stumpf got the letter from her teenage son.

Hope, Jerry Colonna, a sidekick with a walrus mustache, singer Frances Langford, dubbed the "GI Nightingale," and dancer Patty Thomas put on the show. Between Hope and Colonna, “they were a scream,” Andy wrote.

In the museum’s digital archives, Waszak found a historical account of Hope’s first visit with the 1st Infantry Division in Sicily in 1943.

A 16th Infantry Regiment historian wrote, “A close look at the four entertainers revealed how tired they were, but they put the same zip and zing into the show that they would have done before the highest priced audience of a theatre.”

“He just kind of got into the mind of your everyday soldier,” Exhibit Specialist Hank Wilcox said. “He would joke with them about the monotonies of service life, everything from cleaning the latrines to having to repair parts on jeeps, or he'd talk to them about the obvious lack of women.”

‘Congratulations, men’

There are also tributes to the home front. Bette Davis fans will appreciate the look at the Hollywood Canteen. The screen legend and a volunteer crew — a who's who of stars — ran the club for servicemen. Hope is pictured washing dishes in an apron with singer Dinah Shore. A uniform his wife, Dolores Hope, wore with the American Women’s Voluntary Services is in another glass case.

A gift to Hope in December 1944 by the personnel of Minter Field in California was a not-so-small token of appreciation — a propeller — for a “grand show and a swell fellow.”

A documentary also plays in the intimate gallery space on a loop. “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is Bob ‘don’t ask me where I am because I don’t know and even if I did know I couldn’t tell because it’s a military secret’ Hope,” he says in a recording.

Watch it till the end to hear and absorb Hope’s broadcast on Victory in Europe Day and his salute to the “men who made this day possible.”

“That was their promise to humanity, to sacrifice, and the world knows how completely they've kept their promise,” Hope said. “We’ve been headed for this day for three and a half years of war. Three and a half years is a long time.

“For many Americans, it’ll be forever. A terrible menace to civilization has been erased. Congratulations, men.”

“So Ready for Laughter”

Where: First Division Museum at Cantigny, 1S151 Winfield Road, Wheaton

When: Now through Dec. 7, the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor

Details: The exhibit is on loan from the National WWII Museum and sponsored by the Bob & Dolores Hope Foundation. Visitors also can fill out museum postcards with their memories of Hope and drop them in a “Mail Call” box.

Info: fdmuseum.org