BOB HOPE : SO MANY WOMEN SO LITTLE TIME - WHO WAS HIS MISTRESS? SANDY VINGER FOR ONE

 

Simon and Shuster HOPE BOOK Richard Zoglin Video Interview

 

Bob Hope in what appears to be midlife. 

He lived to be over 100 years old. 

Photos of him as a young man are indeed handsome

and one thing that never faded was his smile.

Back in May of 2009 I wrote a post titled "BOB HOPE'S GIRLFRIENDS."  That post got near 3000 hits by July of this year, and I knew this was a topic my readers were eager for.  Back in 2009 I read one book about Hope by Arthur Marx and in 2015 I've finally read Richard Zoglin's new book (above) about Bob Hope.   

I'm not sure if the woman my friend told me about, who lived in walking distance of the Hope's house, is in either book...  I know some of you were hoping I would identify her.  I tried!  It's possible that there was more than one woman living in walking distance from the Toluca Lake home that Hope kept over the years.  Marx reported that Hope had a brother who delivered cash money to various women for their rent.  However, I have a suspicion that the woman was Sandy Vinger, the woman Zoglin identifies as his "last girlfriend" in the 1980's when he was in his 70's, who sued Hope due to promises that he would support her for life. The case was settled out of court in 1994 and Vinger is, well, probably keeping her part of the bargain in not discussing it.  (Didn't I once say that the best Mistresses are the one's you don't hear about?)

Read more: DAILY MAIL - ARTICLE ON BOB HOPES AFFAIR WITH A BEAUTY QUEEN   (This article is a good summation of the contents of Zoglin's book.  Doris Day by the way denies she ever had an affair with Hope.)

Image from Google Images

Be it Zoglin's book or Marx's (and Zoglin disses Marx's book), there is no doubt that Bob Hope was not faithful to his wife Dolores during the 69 years of their marriage but she certainly outlasted and outlived most of her competition - and Bob.  They are buried side by side at the Mission San Fernando Rey De Espana cemetery in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County.

Bob was certainly loyal to her and she him. 

Here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot we're not so interested in flings, affairs, sexting, hook-ups, "Friends with Benefits," or "Relationships" that are NOT Relationships. We're in the process of defining the word (or label) "Mistress," which I think is incorrectly overused to identify any woman who has an affair with a married man.

So if a star, be it a rock star, or a man who started out in vaudeville like Bob, a man who travels for work, in this case an outstanding career in entertainment, is entertained along the way by even hundreds of women over time, be they groupies or show girls, well, that may be sex, it may be fun, it may be cheating, but it's not the same as that man having a Mistress. 

A Mistress is a Relationship!

My opinion is that if Bob Hope had been born in 1983 instead of 1903, he would be diagnosed today as a hyperactive adult and a sex addict, perhaps even a risk addict.  But maybe all that psychology talk is worthless.  For a high school drop out, who was called "Hopeless" by the other street urchins, who even spent some time in a boy's Reformatory for shoplifting, possibly because of the poverty of his immigrant family home, he certainly learned as he went and turned out to be a superb businessman who became wealthy with investments in undeveloped land.  His career included radio, television, movies, the stage, traveling shows to entertain American troops, hosting the Academy Awards, and accepting very many Honorary Doctorates!

Bob Hope is one man who could have said, "half of success is showing up."   HE SHOWED UP and kept doing so in his senior years.  His schedule would have put most people in their graves years younger than his 100, so I have to ask "WHEN DID HE HAVE THE TIME TO FIT SO MANY WOMEN INTO HIS LIFE?  How much of it, be it via Marx or Zoglin, is even true, granted some of the people who talked a lot to these authors were working with or near Hope?  Bob himself was not one to get too personal with reporters or book authors.

A comparison between the Marx book and the Zoglin book would be that Zoglin is writing years later and at a time when far fewer people alive have a memory of Bob Hope as an comedian who is credited with having invented stand up comedy.  For the reader who is unfamiliar with Hope's sense of humor, I appreciated that Zoglin included some of his lines and his act as the story went so you get a feel for the man as an entertainer   Hope was considered to be a naturally funny man, a positive high energy person who kept things professional by avoiding discussions of too personal issues with clever quips, but someone who acted as a gentleman and happily engaged with his fans wherever he went.  Would not that personality and outlook on life be appealing to women?

Dolores, I suspect, was a whole lot like Bob's mother, Avis, who kept the grim reality of their existence bright with an immaculate house, welcomed guests, and by singing and playing the piano.

Although these days the term "denial" is applied to people such as Avis and Bob and Dolores, I challenge that.  Lots of people have come to terms with how life was or is and acknowledge that; you don't have to live in the past or confess all your private business so people won't think you're in denial!  What is the point if you're going forth and living each day to the fullest?  It takes strength and courage and a commitment to go on at times.

Bob, and all his brothers, had to start supporting themselves and contributing to the family young.  And when Bob met Dolores, he met a young woman whose father had died when she was sixteen who had also quit school and worked to support her family, as a fashion model, as a Broadway Chorus girl who appeared in a 1929 Ziegfeld musical in the chorus line, and as a singer.

That's right.  Dolores Hope was once a showgirl and had a show business career!

Bob pursued her madly.  But Zoglin presents a mystery that all you genealogy buffs can work on.  It seems that Bob and Dolores privately hid his first marriage and divorce and there is no record (yet found) of their marriage, though wedding guest Milton Berle remembered a church wedding in New York about a year after they met.  In the previous pre-digital era, there were so many burned up and thrown away paper archives I think it's going too far to say that the actually never married.

While it seems that Bob Hope, his employees, reporters and media, in general, may have kept secrets from the public and his wife, I wonder how much Dolores did or didn't know or understood. For it turns out that Bob and she were in touch with his first wife, Louise Troxell, his vaudeville circuit partner, for years!

While we feel confident that Bob Hope had lots of sex outside of his marriage, the KNOWN women who most qualify to be called his Mistress, are very few.  Sandy Vinger is one of them, and this month I'll keep poking around to identify more!


Missy

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