Two more tales of Hope

I knew you Bob Hope fans were out there I just didn’t know where to

find you.

Luckily, the readers keep me on my toes and let me know when there

is more reporting to be done on a subject. Apparently, Hope is still

alive in the memories of Newport-Mesa residents.

When we first heard Bob Hope had died, my editors assigned me to

do a reaction piece from residents with fond memories of the actor

and comedian. It was a Monday afternoon, and I was on a hunt for Hope

fans. I found a few at the Costa Mesa Senior Center, but struck out

at the American Legion in Newport Beach (Monday is a slow day there)

and also at the Santa Ana Country Club, which is closed Mondays. Man,

it sure would be nice if the news happened when it is convenient.

So I wrote the stories, with great memories from a few people, but

knew there were so many more stories out there. Thanks to Betty

Porter -- a former Daily Pilot reporter -- and reader Maudie Whyte, I

found two more.

“I first heard the happy voice of Bob Hope in the mid-1930s, when

my father, mother, six siblings and I gathered in around a

battery-operated radio on an isolated cotton farm, near Fayetteville,

Tenn.,” Porter wrote in a letter to the Pilot.

She had no idea, at the time, she would come face to face with the

actor twice in her adult years.

Much later, after marrying Mervin Porter, a Bob Hope look-a-like

and Marine colonel, and moving with him to California, Betty saw Hope

in 1971 at a military fund-raiser at the Beverly Wilshire. Too shy to

go up to his table and talk to the larger-than-life celebrity, she

sent him a simple note, which read:

“Dear Mr. Hope, Folks say that my husband (in the Marine uniform)

looks like you, do you agree?”

Hope, who was then 68, turned, looked, smiled and wrote back:

“Yes, he looks like me, but I am younger and much better looking.”

Mervin Porter was 50 then.

Betty was so excited, she wrote home about it, but her mother was

not impressed.

“I’ve told my friends you would meet Bob Hope, and all you did was

write a note,” her mother wrote back.

In 1985, Betty had a chance to make it up to mom while covering

the Bob Hope Marine Air Golf invitational for the Daily Pilot. Hope

wore a Marine Corps dress uniform and was named an honorary general

during the banquet at the Meridian Hotel in Newport Beach. Porter was

there watching it all.

At the end of the night, she made good on her promise to meet Hope

face to face and talked with Bob and Dolores Hope as they walked to

their car. Hope told her that day had been “one of the best in his

life.”

Porter, who now lives in Newport Beach, said that was true for

her, too, and she could hardly wait to get home and call her mother.

Maudie Whyte, a Costa Mesa resident, was nice enough to stop by

the Daily Pilot office and to tell me about seeing Bob Hope host the

Academy Awards in 1965 and 1966. She showed me the original programs,

signed by various celebrities, such as Steve McQueen, Dick Van Dyke

and Jimmy Stewart. While Hope’s signature did not grace the pages,

his role as master of ceremonies was one of the highlights.

The charismatic Hope filled the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium with

side-splitting laughter, she said.

“Oh, he was just wonderful,” Whyte said, with a large grin on her

face. “He was his casual, wonderful, delightful self.”

* LOLITA HARPER writes columns Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and

covers culture and the arts. She may be reached at (949) 574-4275 or

by e-mail at lolita.harper@latimes.com.