I just ordered Richard Zoglin's new, exhaustive biography of Bob Hope…and you can, too. You can also read Frank Rich's review of the book which suggests that while the Hope estate cooperated in its writing in order to burnish Bob's legacy, they may not be happy with the resultant portrait.
I am surprised that they apparently sanctioned mention of Rapid Robert's womanizing, which was one of those things everyone in Hollywood knew about and no one dared mention. One time on Larry King Live, Bill Maher mentioned it as an example of how the press loves to dump on certain people and protect others. Mr. King hurriedly changed the subject. He couldn't deny what Maher said about Hope but he couldn't not deny it, either.
Rich's review says Zoglin credits Hope as the first prominent comedian to acknowledge he had a writing staff. I'd be curious to hear more about that because I've always heard that was Jack Benny. In fact, I seem to recall reading somewhere that when Benny started crediting his writers, Hope was among those who asked him to stop because, just like the public didn't really want to know that Douglas Fairbanks had a stuntman, they didn't want to know their favorite comedians didn't think of all that funny stuff themselves. But who knows? Maybe Hope was first.
I've written here about my few brief encounters with Mr. Hope. I certainly never saw anything that went against the image of him as a joke hustler who didn't think too deeply about anything except pleasing the next audience. Once upon a time, that was all a comedian had to be. It's not his fault that he lived into an era where that was not enough.