This is On Me. Bob Hope (Hardback) VINTAGE

THIS IS ON ME by Bob Hope.

Bob Hope, supreme clown and burlesquer, gentle master of parody and inconsequence, wide-eyed victim of Bing Crosby in a round dozen of films, quick repartee specialist, "topper" of the jokes of a host of adversaries, defeating his many histori costumes by slitting them with funs rapiers, here reveals his life from humble beginnings in England.

There is no concealment in these hilarious memoirs of the hundred shames, humiliations and perils of the young beginner seeking audience favour. Rarely has the comedian's inner world been so revealed:  yet Comedy pursues the reader through every episode. This is the story of an ascent, from the very bottom of the theatre to first place in the world of television and cinema. But after he "arrived2, beginning with his unforgettable singing of "Thanks for the Memory". the discovery of his comic empire in "The Cat and the Canary", and the emergence of his long Civil War with Crosby in the Road pictures, he never forgot the claims of others.

Hope's arsenal of fun is here brought into full play - an artillery of jokes, subtle double-talk comic episodes, and fantastic happenings, some tragic, are fired at the reader.

This is the tale of an affectionate man, adroit, master of timing, grateful to those who help him and work with him, devoid of jealousy or rancour, intimate, and highly intelligent. No court fool ever mingled worldly cleverness so deftly with a humane message.

 

This VINTAGE hardback (undated but I would say latr 1950s or early 1960s) Published by Frederick Miller Ltd