By Frank Worth

Bob Hope tussling with Marlon Brando over an Oscar, 1955.

Bob Hope, KBE (1903-2003), was an English-born American entertainer who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, on radio and television, in movies, and in performing tours for US military personnel. He was well known for his good natured humour and long career.

His trademark song was Thanks for the Memory.

Of his 66 films, hhe was best known for My Favourite Brunette and the highly profitable ‘Road to...’ movies in which he starred with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour.

He hosted the Oscars a memorable eighteen times and was presented with two honourary Oscars.
He received the Congressional Gold Medal (June 8, 1962), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (awarded by Lyndon B. Johnson, January 20, 1969), the Sylvanus Thayer Award, United States Military Academy at West Point, 1968 and the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award, 1997.

Bob Hope has four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in motion pictures, radio, television and theatre.

Marlon Brando, Jr. (1924-2004) was a two-time Academy Award-winning actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. Brando is best known for his roles in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront and his Academy-Award winning performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather and as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

His acting style, as well as his public persona as an outsider uninterested in the Hollywood of the early 1950s, had a profound effect on several generations of actors revolutionizing acting techniques. It became known as the American form of method acting.

Brando's first screen role was as the bitter paraplegic veteran in The Men in 1950. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for A Streetcar Named Desire, and again in each of the next three years for his roles in Viva Zapata! in 1952, Julius Caesar in 1953 as Marc Antony, and On the Waterfront in 1954. These first five films of his career established Brando as perhaps the premier acting talent in the world, as evidenced in his winning the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role three consecutive years, 1951 to 1953.

Other films include Guys and Dolls, The Teahouse of the August Moon, Sayonara, The Young Lions, Mutiny on the Bounty, One-Eyed Jacks and Last Tango in Paris. He also played Jor-El, Superman's father, in the first Superman movie.

Marlon Brando was also an activist, lending his presence to many issues, including the American Indian Movement. He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.