2003 LOCAL: IN DARKEST TIMES, WE ALL HAD HOPE CENTURY-OLD FUNNYMAN DIED IN JULY.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

TOLUCA LAKE - When Bob Hope died last summer, the world mourned a locomotive of laughs.

Veterans mourned the legendary comedian who entertained an estimated 10 million servicemen and servicewomen overseas - and never refused an autograph.

TV watchers, movie buffs and old-time vaudeville and radio fans mourned nearly a century of seamless wisecracks.

The royalty of Hollywood mourned the Toluca Lake entertainer, humanitarian, patriot, workaholic, keen investor, philanthropist, beloved boss, self-styled lady killer, golfer and perhaps the most awarded guy on the planet.

And after a dawn funeral Mass, Bob Hope was given a final ovation by his family and dearest friends while being laid to rest at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills.

For Hope, who had turned 100 on May 29 and who died of pneumonia on July 27, was as quick with a kind word or gesture as he was with his famous one-liners.

``He was one of the sweetest, dearest human beings you've ever met in your life,'' said Mort Lachman, a writer and producer whom Hope plucked from obscurity in the 1940s. ``He was a somebody who cared about nobodies, and I was one of those nobodies.''

Bill Ramsey, a self-appointed Hollywood guide, recalled the day he appeared at a Hope rehearsal as a 7-year-old boy in Austin, Texas, hoping to get an autograph.

Hope, putting his arm around the boy, handed him two tickets and asked him to be his special guest.

He had been world's most famous funnyman - and when Bob Hope died, a nation mourned a patriot without peer.

Not long before the invasion of Iwo Jima, 21-year-old U.S. Marine Sgt. Charlie Moon sat waiting for the chuckle - and charge - of a lifetime.

For Bob Hope would soon dash across a makeshift USO stage on Hawaii to earn his stripes during World War II as America's No. 1 comic inspiration.

In front of Moon, Marine Corps officers saw Hope's eyes glitter with every gag. Next to him, noncoms saw teeth flash with every punch line. And behind him crowded 25,000 battle-ready Marines, rolling with every Bob Hope joke.

``Overwhelming,'' recalled Moon, 80, of Simi Valley. ``He come out and done his jokes. I tell ya ... everybody stood up and hollered and clapped. I remember all the laughing and hollerin' going on.

``It give you a feeling like the cause wasn't lost, fightin' for somethin' and along comes a man who lifted your hopes and give (you) the strength to do what you had to do.''

The day Hope died, flags flew at half-staff. In coming weeks, veterans reminisced at VFW halls. A Burbank post office and the Burbank Airport were named in his honor. Memorial services, public and private, invited warm remembrances - and pungent one-liners.

``He really was the king of the Valley of the Stars,'' said Los Angeles Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents Toluca Lake. ``He gave great glamour to Toluca Lake and the San Fernando Valley.''

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2 photos

Photo:

(1) Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores, were in fine spirits in 1993 when they appeared at KNBC studios in Burbank. They took part in the comedian's 90th birthday bash.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(2) Bob Hope entertains a sea of American servicemen at an airstrip in the Pacific in this Oct. 31, 1944, file photo.

U.S. Signal Corps