Reich Silver
The Bob Hope Museum: Smithsonian or Show Biz Garage Sale?
(Ed. Note: The author was a script writer for Bob Hope from 1977 to 1992.)
At his home in Toluca Lake, Bob Hope had a display-room in the gate house where the writers sometimes met with him prior to a special. In the adjoining display-room were glass cases chock full of memorabilia — dancing shoes that had belonged to vaudevillian Eddie Foy whom Hope had played in “The Seven Little Foys”; the NBC microphone he had used on radio covered by a sheepskin sheath; the over sized cowboy hat he’d worn in “The Paleface.”
A vial of crude oil from the well in which he and Bing had invested; a silver money clip autographed by Richard Nixon; golf scorecards signed by opponents such as Dwight Eisenhower, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan; ID cards he’d been issued by the Defense Department to tour the war zones; honorary Academy Award statuettes; Peoples Choice Awards; and myriad plaques, engraved cups and commemorative plates.
But the most interesting items were souvenirs that he’d been given by Allied forces at the end of World War II — personal property confiscated from captured Nazis that included an S.S. officer’s ring with a skull-and crossbones; a Nazi general’s dress uniform hat; ID cards, insignia and medals taken from members of the Gestapo; daggers with markings of the Third Reich and assorted machine guns, rifles and Lugers.
He even had stationery used by Hitler and his staff with a swastika embossed at the top. (which he’d sometimes hand out to guests as souvenirs). But Hope kept the most valuable Nazi artifact in a walk-in vault off the secretaries’ room where filing-cabinets filled with jokes and scripts dating back to radio were stored.
It was a solid-gold liquor decanter caddy about the size of a small mailbox — with remnants of brandy, vodka and scotch still in the bottles — an ornate jeweled handle and hooks on which hung small glasses embossed in gold leaf. The story was that the caddy had been discovered in Hitler’s bunker seconds after Allied troops overran it. Two glasses were beside the decanter, partially filled as though they had been used just before the Nazi officers escaped.
As impressive as the decanter was, it wasn’t Hope’s favorite wartime gift from the military. That honor went to a faded, black-and-white photograph that he kept under lock- and-key and brought out proudly for any guest getting a personal tour of the display room. It was a torn and faded black-and-white photo of General George Patton using the Rhine as a urinal — a gift from the pearl-handle pistol-packing general himself.
The title of this article is not entirely facetious — many of the documents stored in the walk-in vault are now on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington; some reside in the National Archives. Much of the show business memorabilia has been auctioned off both in the united States and England by the Hope Estate.
Excerpted from THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope’s Incredible Gag Writers (c) 2009 by Robert L. Mills and published by Bear Manor Media. To order: http://bobhopeslaughmakers.weebly.com
About the Author
A native of San Francisco, Bob Mills served in the Navy after high school, graduating from San Francisco State University in 1962 and the University of California Hastings Law in 1965. He practiced in Palo Alto, CA for ten years before moving to Hollywood to write for television. He worked on the Dinah Shore Show, the Steve Allen Show and the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts before joining Bob Hope as a staff writer in 1977. He traveled the world with Hope for the next seventeen years. In 2009, his book The Laugh Makers: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope’s Incredible Gag Writers was published by Bear Manor Media and was named one of Leonard Maltin’s “Top 20 Year-End Picks.” To order: http://bobhopeslaughmakers.weebly.com
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