Milton Ivor Hope

Bob Hope's nephew, Milton Hope, dead at 87 CLEVELAND(AP) - Milton Hope, nephew of Bob Hope and the entertainer's hometown contact for decades, has died at a nursing home in suburban Cleveland. He was 87 and died Oct. 6. Milton Hope lived in suburban Gates Mills for many years and moved to Aurora in the late 1990s. He worked for the building products distributor founded by his uncle and his father, Ivor Hope. Bob Hope sold his share to his brother in the late 1940s.

Milton Hope represented the family in May 2003 when Cleveland marked Bob Hope's 100th birthday by renaming a theater district street "Memory Lane Bob Hope Way."

Milton Hope led the singing of "Happy Birthday" and offered some advice Bob Hope might provide: "He would say, 'Keep it sweet and short and don't try to be funny.'"

Bob Hope, who died two months later, was born in London in 1903 and moved to Cleveland with his family as a 4-year-old.

A memorial service for Milton Hope is planned Friday at St. Christopher's-by-the-River Episcopal Church in Gates Mills.

Hope is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, sons David of Chagrin Falls, Robert of Bainbridge Township and Douglas of Las Vegas, daughter Barbara Anthony of Aurora, and nine grandchildren.