By then the host of one of the country's most highly rated radio
programs, Hope reluctantly agreed in May 1941 to broadcast a show
from the March Field military base near Riverside,
California. The
reception was overwhelming - Hope and the G.I.'s formed an
immediate, almost spiritual bond. He would later call the day one
of the most important in his life.
"The feeling we got from the G.I.'s in World War II, who were
fighting what has been called 'the last good war' and made the
world's greatest audiences, is something we'll never forget," Hope
wrote in his 1990 autobiography, Don't Shoot, It's Only Me. "We all
felt we were doing something worthwhile, not just making a buck."
Along with other big-name celebrities -
Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart,
Glenn Ford - Hope's immediate reaction after the outbreak of war
with the bombing of
Pearl Harbor was to enlist. But President
Franklin Roosevelt ordered deferments for a select few entertainers
deemed essential to the morale effort.
"They said, 'Look, just do what you're doing and entertain troops,
because you're valuable doing that," Hope says.
With music, television, movies, radio, and the Internet,
celebrities today are never more than seconds away from us, making
it almost impossible to comprehend the power Hope's traveling shows
generated in the 1940s. In 2003 celebrity currency, the effect of
having a star of Hope's stature show up in a tiny military
backwater, bringing pictures of the soldiers' babies and loved ones
from home (a personal touch Hope often included in his shows),
might be comparable to having
Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston
unexpectedly dropping by your house for dinner. Then paying off the
rest of your mortgage by way of saying thanks.