Bob Hope leaves hospital

Bob Hope: Discharged a day early

Veteran comedian Bob Hope has been discharged from hospital a day early, after recovering from gastro-intestinal bleeding.

I'm up, I'm dressed, I might as well go home

Bob Hope

Hope, 97, went downstairs to wave at television cameras in the foyer of the Eisenhower Regional Medical Centre in Rancho Mirage, California - and then decided there was no point in returning to bed, his publicist, Ward Grant, said.

"I'm up, I'm dressed, I might as well go home," Hope told his wife, Dolores, 91.

Doctors agreed he was well enough to leave the hospital, and discharged Hope about 1700 local time on Wednesday (0100 Thursday GMT).

"There's still a period of recuperating, but he doesn't need to be in the hospital any longer, and he'll be getting some home cooking - not that he didn't like the hospital food," his spokesman said.

'In amazing shape'

Hospital spokeswoman Lea Goodsell said the comedian would stay in the Palm Springs area, where he has a home, for now.

"An ideal patient"

"He will have a nurse with him to help in terms of the physical therapy, and to monitor his vital signs," Ms Goodsell said. "Then perhaps he'll go to home to Los Angeles. Obviously the doctors don't want him to have the stress of travelling for a little while."

She said doctors had declared Hope to be in "amazing shape, everything considered" and were happy with his progress.

"At this point he's more awake and alert than he has been in a while," she said.

"He's been an ideal patient - not a troublemaker at all - and I think the staff is going to miss him."

Transfusion

Hope received a blood transfusion before the bleeding in his colon was stopped, but there was no surgery.

His wife has remained at his side, reading to him and talking.

Bob Hope was born in London in 1903, but he became an American legend for his comedic talents, his Road to... films, and for the decades he spent entertaining US troops.

On the stage he set great store by his topical gags - a team of writers kept them up to the minute - but he ad-libbed with a great sense of timing in his throwaway punchlines and lethal pauses.

As the original fast-talking wisecracker, he has inspired generations of comedians.