Bob Hope was one among the many vaudeville performers working in the 1920's. Hope was an immigrant who saw a vaudeville career as one of the few ways to succeed as a foreigner in America. Bob Hope practiced the arts he learned in vaudeville and perpetuated variety entertainment traditions in stage musical comedy, motion pictures, radio, television and live performances he made around the world to support the American armed forces.
Bob Hope started his career in 1914 when he entered a Charlie Chaplin imitator contest. He entered into vaudeville in the 1920's with his first tours as half of a two man dancing team. The act appeared in small time vaudeville houses where tickets were ten cents and the performances were continuous. Within five years Bob Hope was in big time playing in the expensive houses where only the most popular acts were played. In 1924 Bob Hope began to go on tour performing in vaudeville houses all over the world.
When Hope found out that he had a knack as masters of ceremonies, he split his act and was booked as an M.C. at the Stratford Theater in Chicago. Hope was responsible for entertaining the audience between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment did not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such as success that his booking was extended from two weeks to six months.
Bob Hope conquered the radio medium at nearly the same time as he found success in motion pictures. Hope was featured regularly in several radio series throughout the 1930's. His success in the film the big broadcast of 1938 brought him to NBC's The Pepsodent Show which aired for over ten years as the highest-rated program on radio during WWII. Much of Bob Hope's success on radio can be attributed to the hard work that the writers and Hope himself put into each broadcast. Hope was one of the only Radio and film stars to make a transition to television.