A Political Assassination Prime Time

During my two years as a writer for Bob Hope, full of unforeseen problems each concert, to some extent, but for now the hope of most mortals on the clock produced special was recorded at the Theatre Academy in Stockholm by the Swedish king Carl Gustav and Queen Silvia in February 1986.

Hope had agreed to emcee the gala black tie entitled "Bob Hope Royal Command Performance from Sweden", the proceeds would go to the king's favorite charity, Children's Village International Summer. Hope is the host of the show and in turn, would retain the U.S. rights, which it had licensed to NBC. It was a potentially profitable arrangement (not unlike a lot of hope that the course of the year) because most of the production costs would be taken up by the Swedish government.

But even before the 747 Scandinavian Airlines is loaded with luggage at LAX airport, the hexagon kicks in. As a writer Gene Perret colleagues and I were sitting in the executive lounge to put the finishing touches on a draft of the Vikings were confident that the Swedish Lapland hysterical Goteborg, producers and Dick Arlett Elliott Kozak came and knocked on the front with the news that Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was killed while walking her dog was on a street in Stockholm.

Room was silent. Guest Glen Campbell, who was sitting across noodling a few licks from us, put down his guitar and staring straight ahead. A few moments before, had become a living room full of excited anticipation of what promised to be a fun and exciting journey the country very few of us had visited.

Two other troubadours, which appear on the show, Shirley Jones and Lewis Emanuel, watched in shock as the transatlantic phone calls were quickly made to decide whether the show will be canceled. Our start was pushed ahead one hour when we were all biting our nails show business community.

Soon the word came straight Palace - because of the preparations for the gala has been set and invitations sent, the performance of delay, ruled by a monarch, it would be a world-class headaches around. Shows, as they say, must go on. If this is an old sawmill started, I have not the faintest idea, but there are cases in which the flies in the face of common sense, and this was definitely one of them.

Picture if you will, taping, "Colgate Comedy Hour", just three days after the death of John Kennedy. The same problem - the same reaction. The whole Swedish nation was in mourning. Just drive from the airport, we saw people lining the street, carrying candles and placing flowers on the ice on the sidewalk with a popular prime minister was killed.

A veil hung over the city - literally and figuratively. Port vessel was anchored, rigid and trapped in the ice - trapped in a climate that almost half of the shivering years, the bones and a suspicion, no small contributor to the suicide rate in Scandinavia.

But forget all that. The famous meeting applauded dutifully as the king and queen were escorted to the royal box. The show started with a walk, the introduction largely incomprehensible to the hope for the Swedish actress Liv Ullman. It was obvious he would rather be somewhere else, and who does not?

Hope makes every effort to deliver his monologue, but I had so many chances of laughs as an atheist in a Southern Baptist Convention. The list of performers for the night - Boy George and Culture Club, Omar Sharif, Dolf Lundgren and Scott Grimes Glen, Emmanuel and Shirley - performed like the professionals they are, but the project was doomed to failure

from the start. It was like watching the lounge act on the Hindenburg. It was a wake-up with entertainment.

We had written a draft that cast Hope and Emmanuel Lewis, dressed in a reindeer skins and horned helmets, because the Vikings a couple of Rob Annual Spring. As Gene Perret, and I was behind the scenes, we were puzzled because the jokes about the looting of drawing gasps, one of the Swedish engineers said that we had a character named Hope, Olaf. In the confusion, no one has been closed, what now appears to be an insensitive joke.

During the coffee break, Hope told what had happened and immediately called to cancel the process and apologized to the public. When the Swedish fiasco finally completed and we were flying home much hotter than Los Angeles, I remember thinking back, I

should have known all along that the trip was coming to be bad luck. Excited by my first tourist trip to a Scandinavian country, who came to Los Angeles without my passport!

Messenger has been sent to the place of production to deliver, but to avoid delays in the production of the representative of the airline as soon as it arrived and announced that my license in California would do the trick! My passport would be followed on the next flight - without me. I learned later, that Sweden has declined to the normal requirements of duty, because I

has a specific mandate for the king, once again demonstrates that it is worth working for someone who is close to the king.

But even if the problems of Stockholm, I have a great travel memory. One evening, after a long day of testing, we returned to the hotel around nine. It 'been about 40 degrees outside, and there was a comfortable lounge with a fire, so that Glen Campbell and Gene asked me if you want to join him for a drink. It 'been a pretty good jazz quartet - drums, two guitars, bass - he was there every night. We had noticed them before, but was always too busy to stop.

We sat at the bar for a few minutes and is reminiscent of our days in Birdseye City where

one of the guitarists Glen asked if he would sit in a song. Normally, professional musicians are reluctant to take someone on an offer that while it is what they do for a living and is a bit like asking Picasso to draw something on a towel bar.

But Glen is not your usual pro. He likes to practice the agreements with his own guitar and often do - in airport lounges, television studio dressing room, and perhaps even in the shower. Glen just love the guitar. I guess the guy in the quartet was a big fan, knew this and knew that Glen would be hard to refuse. He was right. "Ok, just a number." Glen took the instrument, tweaked a few strings and began to pluck the melody of "A Foggy Day" - the musicians were British house.

Now the bartender is on the phone - "You will not believe it ..." Swedish, of course, but you could say what he said, the emotion in his voice. Many of the couples who was sitting in the lobby, went through and grabbed a table near the stage. Like the other guests arrived, they could see and feel something special was happening at the bar.

No way upstairs, and no one. Glen, as usual, made some amazing riffs. I asked him how he was so damn good, and he told me that as a child, he dreamed of guitar chords and play them as soon as he awoke. That, my friends, is genetic. Even the owner of the guitar Glen played could not believe the sounds that came out of him.

Glen "number one" was the first of three and then five. The crowd had grown to thirty or forty people - some sitting, others standing, all hypnotized. When Gibson finally delivered back to its owner, the applause was enough to wake up guests in their rooms, which had been improvised concert Glen. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments are almost never forget. And the best part was, took away all thoughts of murder.