The joke was on Bob Hope at a celebrity roast in Beverly Hills, Calif., benefiting a hearing-loss institute.
More than 800 people attended Thursday night's black-tie affair at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where friends such as Norm Crosby, Phyllis Diller, Sid Caesar and Tom Poston took turns poking fun at the 92-year-old Hope.The language-mangling Crosby pronounced Hope "an insulation to all of us, and he certainly deserves to be raised to a pinochle."
Hope's wife, Delores, said the roast was particularly poignant because of the recent deaths of George Burns and Gene Kelly.
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God "must want us around for something," she said. "So many other wonderful people have gone and here we are. I guess maybe we haven't earned heaven yet."