May 30, 2003	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 27,1424

LOS ANGELES, May 29: Hollywood and generations of US troops joined to salute legendary comic Bob Hope on his 100th birthday on Thursday as America celebrated a century of laughs by saying: “Thanks for the Memory.”

Funnyman, actor, dancer and singer Hope was born into a poor family in a suburb of Edwardian London 100 years ago and went on to become one of the greatest icons of US entertainment history.

In Hollywood — which was a small desert town in the Western United States when Leslie Townes Hope greeted the world on May 29, 1903 — hundreds of fans, family members and former colleagues were gathering to grant him a unique honour Thursday.

After proclaiming him Citizen of the Century last month, Tinseltown was poised to rename its historic Hollywood and Vine intersection Bob Hope Square as a flotilla of World War II-era warplanes thunders overhead.

The ceremony was to be attended by Hope’s wife of 69 years Dolores, his daughter Linda and other relatives as well as by showbusiness colleagues such as Mickey Rooney.—AFP