Latest in Bob Hope

The Bob and Delores Hope estate in Toluca Lake, California has been sold to supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, who reportedly is planning on preserving and restoring the main residence. Real estate reports said the 5.2 acres estate was sold for $15 million, far below its initial asking price of $27.5 million when it…

It was a very funny, sometimes touching, but mostly uproarious tribute Sunday afternoon at the Writers Guild Theatre in Beverly Hills. The WGA West and the Writers Guild Foundation along with the Kanter family held a well produced and attended memorial for one of their most illustrious members, Hal Kanter, who passed…

OSCARS: Billy Crystal Set As (New) Host Tom Sherak On Oscar Drama HAMMOND: Oscars Post-Ratner – What Now? This past Monday morning, Brett Ratner was producing…

Veteran screenwriter, producer and director Hal Kanter died Sunday of complications of pneumonia in Encino, his daughter Donna Kanter told the Los Angeles Times. He was 92. “He was considered one of the wits of the industry,” said Carl Reiner, upon learning of Kanter’s death. “He was a funny elder statesman, and there…

Dolores Hope, the widow of Bob Hope, died of natural causes at her Los Angeles home today. She was 102. Born in Harlem in New York on May 27, 1909, Dolores DeFina was a singer at Manhattan’s Vogue Club when she met Bob Hope in 1933. The couple married the next year and later adopted four children. She often…

Eddie Murphy Agrees To Host Oscars; Producers Tell Film Academy It’s Official When you are an Oscar producer I guess it pays to have a film coming out co-starring someone who just might be the perfect Oscar host. That’s the enviable position Brett Ratner found himself in as he landed the Oscar gig just as he was…

MONDAY PM  UPDATE: As you know, Brett Ratner is producing the Oscar show with Don Mischer and emailed me tonight with his reaction to Billy Crystal’s statements regarding possibly hosting the Oscars again. Ratner says: “I didn’t see what Billy said. I’m really focused on finishing my film Tower Heist right now. [But]…

James “Jim” Bacon, the last of the colorful chroniclers of Hollywood's Golden Era, died today of congestive heart failure in his sleep at his Northridge home. He was 96. In his many decades as a Hollywood journalist, columnist and author, Bacon traveled Vietnam battlefields with Bob Hope, sipped Jack Daniels with Frank…