It must be difficult for the modern generation to comprehend the extent of Bob Hope's fame or his inexhaustible appetite for work.

At various points in the 1940s, the British-born comic was the most popular Hollywood film star on the planet as well as host of the top-ranked radio show in America.

His wartime memoir I Never Left Home sold 1.6 million copies and became the best-selling non-fiction book of 1944. The year before he spent 11 weeks entertaining American troops overseas, performing 250 shows to an estimated 1.5 million men.

Add to that his countless personal appearances and charity work and you still only scratch the surface of a career that stretched over seven decades and recorded phenomenal success in every form of popular entertainment from vaudeville to prime-time television.

One of his television specials in early 1970 achieved the largest audience for any entertainment show in the history of the medium.

The brash, irreverent Hope matured into the establishment's court jester, hosting the Oscars a record 19 times and hobnobbing with world leaders and presidents. His staunch patriotism, hawkish stance on the Vietnam War and loyalty to President Richard Nixon eventually tarnished his reputation and made him a more divisive figure in the autumn of his career.

In later years, failing health and a stubborn refusal to retire gracefully left him like a faded relic from a bygone era long before his death in 2003, weeks after his 100th birthday.

Time magazine theatre critic Richard Zoglin comes in praise of Hope with a biography determined to prove why he mattered. He makes a persuasive case for regarding him as the "most important entertainer of the twentieth century", who handled his celebrity with grace and was revolutionary in the way he transformed his talent into an amazingly successful global brand.

Zoglin has been given access to surviving friends and family and to Hope's papers, and is clearly an admirer without being blind to his subject's flaws.

He locates Hope's place in a comedy spectrum stretching from Will Rogers to Woody Allen, suggesting Hope invented modern stand-up comedy as he became the master of monologues built around quick-fire gags, topical observations and carefully rehearsed ad-libs that invested every routine with a reckless spontaneity. Everyone from Lenny Bruce to Michael McIntyre can probably trace their comedy roots back to him.

Zoglin is a thorough biographer and is generally spot-on in his judgement of Hope's achievements, noting the bouncy, quick-witted energy he brought to his best film roles in the 1930s and 1940s and his weary indifference in the almost unwatchable films at the end of his career. Contemplating Hope's latterday ability to coast through live appearances on automatic pilot, Zoglin notes he became "Mount Rushmore with cufflinks".

Zoglin acknowledges Hope may have been the least introspective man in Hollywood, suggesting his "superficial bonhomie hid no inner demons". He uncovers evidence of his indiscriminate philandering, reputation for stinginess, and may surprise fans with his assertion that his on-screen chemistry with frequent co-star Bing Crosby did not extend to any great fondness.

Zoglin's biography has an admirable appetite for detail and takes a fair-minded approach to its subject, never suggesting he has any axe to grind. He leaves you with fresh admiration for what Hope achieved, especially in his unstinting commitment to entertain American troops in many of the most dangerous and inhospitable corners of the Second World War. As Zoglin writes: "He grabbed the moment, and the mission, as no other entertainer ever had."