DELORES HOPE PASSES

 

Dolores Hope, the sultry-voiced songstress who was married to Bob Hope for 69 years, has died aged 102.

Hope family spokesman Harlan Boll said she died on Monday of natural causes at home in Los Angeles.

Bob Hope died aged 100 in 2003.

In 1933, when Bob Hope was appearing in his first Broadway show, Roberta, his friend and fellow cast member George Murphy persuaded him to visit the Vogue Club to "hear a pretty girl sing".

She was Dolores Reade, a dark beauty whose singing of It's Only a Paper Moon entranced the young comedian.

They married in 1934, and she quit nightclubs to join his vaudeville act. Then she retired.

"Bob was the hot thing in New York then," she recalled in 1997. "I thought I'd better stay home and take care of Bob."

When they moved to Hollywood in 1938 for the beginning of his film career, Dolores stayed home and devoted her time to raising the four children the Hopes adopted: Linda, Anthony, Kelly and Nora.

She continued singing at parties, and in the 1940s she began accompanying Hope on his Christmas trips to entertain US troops.

She was born Dolores DeFina in 1909 in New York's Harlem to an Italian father and Irish mother, and grew up in the Bronx.

She began singing early, worked as a model and a Ziegfeld showgirl and at 20 sang with George Olson's band.

She adopted the name Dolores Reade, borrowed from stage actress Florence Reed.

In her 80s, Dolores revived her singing career, recording three albums of old and new standards and appearing at New York's Rainbow and Stars as guest with Rosemary Clooney.