‘American Masters’ highlights legendary entertainer Bob Hope

This holiday season, “American Masters” brings us a new look at a legendary entertainer in “This Is Bob Hope.”

Airing Sunday, Nov. 26, at 9 p.m. and again on Friday, Dec. 29, at 8 p.m., the program features Hope’s writings voiced by Billy Crystal as well as new interviews with Conan O’Brien, Kermit the Frog, Tom Selleck, Brooke Shields, Dick Cavett, Margaret Cho and others. Watch the program online here.

During his eight-decade career, Bob Hope (1903-2003) was the only performer to achieve top-rated success in every form of mass entertainment: vaudeville, Broadway, movies, radio, television, popular song and personal appearances, including his annual USO Christmas military tours and hosting the Academy Awards more times than anyone else. A comedy innovator, Hope invented the topical monologue that later became a late-night TV staple and comedy tropes like talking while backing up. He refined a spontaneous, conversational, improvisational style of comedy as a vaudeville master of ceremonies that created a blueprint for acerbic standup comics.

Written, directed and produced by John Scheinfeld (“Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary”), the new “American Masters” film “This Is Bob Hope” presents a candid look at a remarkable life. With unprecedented access to Hope’s personal archives, including writings voiced by Billy Crystal and clips from Hope’s body of work, Scheinfeld reveals a gifted individual who recognized the power of fame, embraced its responsibilities and handled celebrity with extraordinary wit and grace, becoming a model for public service in Hollywood.

“Alongside an examination of Bob Hope’s extraordinary career achievements is a portrait of a gifted man with enormous personal contradictions,” says filmmaker John Scheinfeld. “I barely scratched the surface of his huge impact and influence.”

“American Masters: This Is Bob Hope” features new interviews with Woody Allen, Dick Cavett, Margaret Cho, daughter Linda Hope, Kermit the Frog, film critic/historian Leonard Maltin, Conan O’Brien, Tom Selleck, Brooke Shields, Connie Stevens and biographer Richard Zoglin (“Hope: Entertainer of the Century”). Edited to evoke the fast, fun pace of Hope’s classic monologues, clips include highlights from numerous TV specials, his Pepsodent radio shows and classic films like “The Cat and the Canary,” “My Favorite Blonde,” his iconic “Road” pictures with Bing Crosby, and “The Big Broadcast” of 1938 featuring his signature song “Thanks for the Memory.”

Get the Bob Hope DVD set here and support quality programming on Arizona PBS.