Bob Hope’s 69-Year-Long Marriage Survived Despite His Notorious Infidelity

May 31, 2022

Entertainer Bob Hope who is known for captaining countless award ceremonies, hosting his annual Christmas show, and becoming the face of the USO performances, is also remembered for his inspiringly long marriage to singer-turned-philanthropist Dolores Hope (née DeFina.)

The two met in 1933 when Hope saw his future wife perform "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?" at the Vogue Club in New York City. Hope, who was then just a rising star on Broadway, fell in love with her “low, husky voice… soft and sweet."

The couple married shortly thereafter in February of 1934 in Erie, Pennsylvania. It was a match that the legendary Lucille Ball called, "the smartest thing Bob Hope ever did." The match would last decades, with the two remaining together until Bob Hope's death in 2003 at the age of 100.

Dolores would live eight more years until she too would die in 2011 at the age of 102. Together, they had raised four adopted kids- Linda, Anthony, Eleanora Avis "Nora," and Kelly- and shared a home in Los Angeles' Toluca Lake neighborhood.

Their union, in a way, set the standard for high-power Hollywood marriages. Together, they mixed charity and entertainment, raising funds for numerous causes, including medical charities as well as institutions focused on providing aid to the poor.

Dolores also contributed to her husband's star-studded appearances, singing alongside him throughout his career. However, despite finding in Dolores both a partner on stage and in life, Bob Hope notoriously cheated on his devoutly Catholic wife throughout their sixty-nine-year marriage. 

Hope's womanizing was an open secret with most of Hollywood privy to his parade of actresses, beauty queens, costars, and sometimes decades-long trists. Recent biographies detailed just how sprawling many of Hope's infidelities were, leading to him being referred to in more modern times as an infidelity "machine" as opposed to a legendary entertainer.

In particular, journalist Richard Zoglin's "Hope: Entertainer of the Century," which was released in 2014, outlined Hope's notorious line-up of short-lived romantic partners, particularly in the late 1930s when he was definitely already married to Dolores. Sherwood Schwartz, a television screenwriter who wrote for Hope, was quoted in the book as saying, “We’d go to a hotel, I swear to you, outside his room were three, four, five young, beautiful girls, waiting to be picked by him to come in … He was a star enjoying his stardom.”

The biography also discussed Hope's affair with actress Doris Day during their tour for March of Dimes, a benefit for medical research, in 1949. In "Entertainer of the Century," Zoglin wrote, “Hope claimed to a friend years later that he and Day had a brief romantic fling while they were touring together."

Hope's behavior was not, however, confined to the lonely months on the road. Zoglin continued, relaying how when Hope and Day "returned home to Burbank, Dolores was at the airport to greet them, giving Bob an ostentatious welcome-home hug. According to Hope, Day saw the gesture as a wife’s symbolic marking of her territory, and she ended the relationship then and there." 

While Hope may have ended it with Day at the airport, he was soon linked to actor Barbara Payton that Spring. According to Zoglin, the "Bad Blonde" starlet “followed Hope around the country, [and] moved into a furnished apartment that he rented for her in Hollywood."

More than that, Payton "when the affair ended in August, was paid off by Hope to keep quiet about [their relationship.]" However, Hope's hush money "didn’t stop Payton . . . from selling her story to Confidential magazine in 1956." 

Payton's reveal was "a rare breach in the wall of secrecy that surrounded Hope’s" romantic life. After her, Hope was also linked to Ursula Halloran, a member of his publicity staff. Then it was Mis World 1961, Rosemarie Frankland, whom Hope took "on his 1961 Christmas trip to the Arctic," and supported "when she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a film career." He also "gave her a small part in his 1965 movie ‘I’ll Take Sweden.’" Their affair lasted "nearly 30 years." Next, was commercial writer Sandy Vinger, whom Zoglin described as Hope's "frequent companion in the 1980s.’’

However salacious these trists were, the most shocking of Zoglin's reveals was his proof of Hope's first marriage to his vaudeville partner, Grace Troxell. Zoglin found "a divorce decree documenting Hope’s 1933-34 marriage." Historically, "Hope’s publicists denied [the marraige] ever took place" ever since it was first revealed in 1993. Whether this makes Hope a bigamist or not, Zoglin also proved that Hope “quietly sent [Troxell] money’,’ a gesture that only someone very close, if not a husband, would do. 

What do you think of Bob Hope’s double life? Let us know — and be sure to pass this article on to friends, family, and fellow comedy fans!