Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre

Overview

Bob Hope’s anthology series mixed drama, comedy, and musical specials. One episode adapted Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich with Jason Robards. Another, The Seven Little Foys, featured Mickey Rooney, Eddie Foy Jr., and the Osmond Brothers. Fred Astaire and Barrie Chase starred in the musical Think Pretty, and Groucho Marx appeared in Time for Elizabeth, a TV version of a play he co-wrote with Norman Krasna in 1948.

Most episodes ran an hour, but NBC occasionally stretched special presentations to 90 minutes. Hope earned $25,000 weekly for episodes he only introduced and $500,000 for those he headlined. His own segments were typical Bob Hope specials: rapid-fire jokes and celebrity-packed blackout sketches, often called Chrysler Presents a Bob Hope Special. Each Christmas, he traveled to Vietnam to perform for troops.

The show’s guest actors included Phyllis Avery, John Cassavetes, Broderick Crawford, Angie Dickinson, Peter Falk, Sean Garrison, Sam Levene, Jack Lord, Carol Lynley, Ida Lupino, George Maharis, Darren McGavin, Dina Merrill, Hugh O’Brian, Suzanne Pleshette, Cliff Robertson, William Shatner, Robert Stack, Robert Wagner, Stuart Whitman, Shelley Winters, and Robert Young. Directors included Sydney Pollack, Stuart Rosenberg, John Cassavetes, Sam Peckinpah, Ida Lupino, and Daniel Petrie.

From 1968 to 1972, reruns aired under different titles—NBC Adventure Theatre, NBC Action Playhouse, NBC Comedy Playhouse, and NBC Comedy Theater—with Hope’s introductions cut and replaced by hosts like Peter Marshall, Art Fleming, Ed McMahon, Monty Hall, and Jack Kelly. In syndication, the series became Universal Star Time or Theatre of the Stars, again without Hope’s bookends. Some dramatic episodes also ran in Britain on BBC2 as Impact, sharing that slot with episodes of Kraft Suspense Theatre.

Awards and nominations

The program collected seven Primetime Emmys and six more nominations. Shelley Winters took the award for outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or movie for her role in "Two is the Number." Simone Signoret also won for outstanding lead actress, starring in "A Small Rebellion" alongside Sam Levene and George Maharis. Cliff Robertson won outstanding lead actor for "The Game," and Rod Steiger won the same category for "A Slow Fade to Black." Sydney Pollack earned a directing nomination for "Something About Lee Wiley" and won for "The Game." Rod Serling won for writing the episode "It's Mental Work." The series also received two nominations from the Directors Guild of America and two from the Edgar Allan Poe Awards.