An Interview with Mort Lachman, head writer for Bob Hope in the late 1940s

Mort Lachman was Bob Hope's top writer from 1947-1949. He also was a writer and producer for Hope from 1951-1975. After leaving Hope, Lachman went on to become the executive producer of "All in the Family" and "One Day at a Time." Lachman recently shared his thoughts with APT about his Bob Hope days

Q: Tell me about how you first started working with Bob Hope.

A: I saw an article in the paper that said Bob Hope's agent was reading scripts. So I called an agent, George Rosenberg, (who had thrown me out of his office six months earlier) and I said, "Could I write some monologue jokes that you would submit for me?" And he said, "You are wasting your time." I said, "I know, but what else am I going to do with my time?"

And so that night I wrote 12 jokes (that shows you how naïve I was) and submitted them. Two days later he says, "They have made you an offer at $75 a week for seven years but they have options every four weeks." He said, "I have to tell you, you shouldn't do it and it is not enough money." And I said, "I am going to take it. I mean, it sounds wonderful to me."

Q: That is how you got the job?

A: And that is how I got the job!

Q: What was it like to work there?

A: When I went in there the first time, there were 12 other writers. I was number 13. They were all from New York, all experienced writers, and I was the quiet introvert. I had never spoken out loud that I remember. And the meetings! You have no idea what they were like. All the writers were trying to ad-lib jokes and nobody was listening to anybody else.

Q: When did you first meet Bob Hope?

A: I met him during the meeting and the first show after the first show audition. He sat next to me by accident, and you could tell he was the star when he walked into the room. It was like he was surrounded by solid gold or something — the aura about him. When he walked into the room it was as if he was in charge of the world.

During the meeting, everybody was pitching jokes until we were stuck on one line. I didn't know what to do. I [grabbed] a used envelope out of my pocket. On the back of the envelope I wrote a line, (I didn't know Hope was watching) and [Hope] reached over and grabbed the envelope out of my hands and read it and then he crumpled the envelope and handed it back to me. I waited and waited and then he said,"I have an idea."

Q: Did he perform the line on the envelope?

A: He did the line I had written, yeah, and everybody laughed because he was the boss and of course, that went in the show. He understood me. And then when they were going to the next line he leaned over to me and said, "You didn't know I was that funny, did you?" And we had that kind of relationship ever after that.

He understood me. He knew I would brag and I knew he was forgiving and understanding. He was always very kind and wonderful, with writers especially. He really understood what we went through.

Q: What was it like to work on the Academy Awards?

A: Before [Hope] would go on, I would sit with him in his room and go over the changes with him — who was there, what staff was there, what order it would be, what jokes would be changed etc., and he was not even hearing what I was saying. He was absolutely in a frenzy before he went on. And then the curtain opens and the band strikes out and a whole different person walks out there. Once again, he was the man in charge of the world.

Q: How about the overseas shows, what were they like?

A: I did the first show overseas on television ... and it was unbelievable. I did all of Vietnam. I did the Moscow show as a writer, producer and director. I did the whole show. They were wildly adventurous and very difficult. But we had the best team. The crew from NBC was the same every year: all of the stage; the writer, Al Gordon; the prop man, Arch Schneider; the editor, etc. There was a group of guys who was there at every part of every show, every year. We would do two or three shows a day at different camps and then on top of that we would then do hospice and that was all part of the camp.