Bob Hope

Speaker 10:01

Hi, I'm Lauren Laverne. Welcome to this archive edition of Desert Island Discs. This is the only extract we have of Bob Hope's programme, which was broadcast at Christmastime in 1961. The presenter was Roy Plumley. You can find the complete list of the tracks Bob chose on his castaway page on the Desert Island Discs website. The music has been shortened for rights reasons. We hope you enjoy listening.

Bob Hope0:30

Desert Island Disc

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Each week, a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you?

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As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

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How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

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Castaway on our desert island this week is an international star who really must have expected to be shipwrecked in the end because through the years he's been taking the road to various places such as Thinkapore and Rio and Utopia with some fairly unreliable company. It's Bob Hope.

Bob Hope1:12

Thank you, Roy.

Speaker 11:12

Thank you.

Bob Hope1:13

Here it's you're reading my line.

Bob Hope1:16

Here at Shefford and Studios you're making another real picture. That's right. We're doing the road to Hong Kong, Dad and myself. Okay, beautiful record and of course it's a very sentimental record with me because

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Judy started on my toothpaste show uh years ago when she was about sixteen or seventeen and we had uh

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two great years and I used to hear her just

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Kill audiences with this wonderful song.

Bob Hope1:40

The way she can do it. So that's one of my favorite records of all time.

Speaker 21:58

But I couldn't.

Speaker 22:01

Once and a half.

Bob Hope2:13

Judy Garland singing over the rainbow. What's the second one you've chosen, Bob? It's a sort of a novelty record.

Speaker 32:19

Each time I see a little girl of five or six or seven,

Speaker 32:24

I can't resist the joyous urge to smile and say thank heaven.

Speaker 32:30

All in the girl.

Speaker 32:34

All little girls get bigger every day.

Speaker 32:39

Thank Heaven, poor little girl.

Speaker 32:43

They grow up in the most delightful way.

Bob Hope2:48

Maurice Chevalier singing, Thank Heaven, the Little Girls. Now what have you chosen as your sixth record? My sixth record is White Christmas, a very obvious choice because I've been connected.

Bob Hope2:57

With this fellow that's going to sing it, mister B. Crosby, the father of our country.

Bob Hope3:02

And uh

Bob Hope3:03

I think that uh in view of the fact that he's just had another child,

Bob Hope3:08

making his seventh child. And what scares me, after seven comes eleven, you know.

Bob Hope3:13

But uh

Bob Hope3:14

I think it's just wonderful. This record's a beautiful record, a very sentimental record. It's one of the most popular. And of course, I think Bing's performance, I think he's almost as good as Perry Como doing this, don't you feel?

Bob Hope3:26

No, I love it. And uh this is one I want.

Bob Hope3:32

Really?

Bob Hope3:33

Love a war.

Speaker 33:49

Where the tree tops glisten

Bob Hope3:54

Yeah.

Speaker 33:54

Um

Bob Hope3:55

Children

Bob Hope3:57

Lewis, Bing Crow's be singing White Christmas. And while this is playing, it'll all kind of flash through my mind about the wonderful summer I've had here, playing golf and living in the country, which is a new experience for me. But this will also bring back, well, you can understand, all of the experiences in my show business career.

Bob Hope4:18

All my family and the whole thing.

Speaker 24:22

Say

Speaker 24:23

For the memory of faults that you forgave.

Speaker 24:29

Rainbow Gone Away

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And stockings in the basin when a fellow needs a shave

Bob Hope4:37

Thank you so much.

Speaker 24:43

For the memory of tinkling temple bells, Armamata Yell.

Bob Hope4:50

And Cuban rum and power. Bob Hope and Shirley Ross in that great old record, thanks for the memory.