bellhop

Robert Walker as a bellboy in the 1945 film Her Highness and the Bellboy

A bellhop, also bellboy ( pronunciation (help·info)) or bellman, is a hotel porter, who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform (see Bell-boy hat), like certain other page boys or doormen. The job's name is derived from the fact that the hotel's front desk clerk rang a bell to summon an employee, who would "hop" (jump) to attention at the desk to receive instructions.

This employee traditionally was a boy or adolescent male or an alcoholic to carry luggage, hence the term bellboy. Today's bellman must be quick witted, good with people, and outgoing. Duties often include opening the front door, moving luggage, valeting cars, calling cabs, transporting guests, giving directions, performing basic concierge work, and responding to the guest's needs. In many countries, such as the United States, it is customary to tip such an employee for his service.

Famous bellboys

• Brandon Richard Flowers (born June 21, 1981) is the American frontman, keyboardist and primary lyricist of the Las Vegas-based rock band The Killers. He was a bellboy.
• Ted Serios was a Chicago bellboy, who gained notoriety in the 1960s by producing "thoughtographs" on Polaroid film, which he claimed were produced using psychic powers.^{[citation needed]}

In popular culture

Bellboy from a hotel in Kyoto, Japan

The bellhop character is common in popular culture, having been referenced in a number of occasions, such as the following:

• Bughouse Bellhops is a 1915 short comedy film featuring Harold Lloyd.
• Hop, the Bellhop is a 1919 film featuring Oliver Hardy.
• The 1929 Marx Brothers musical/comedy film The Cocoanuts featured an early, if unwitting, foreshadowing of gender equality in the job. The dialogue portion of the musical play featured a number of bellhops, all of them male. In fact, one of the opening songs was called The Bellhops. There were also a couple of chorus-line dance numbers featuring bellhops, all of them female. In case the viewing audience missed that subtlety, Groucho commented about it on-screen.
• The bellhop task of paging guests was referenced in a famous long-running series of radio and print advertisements for the Philip Morris tobacco company. They featured a young man with a strong tenor voice announcing, "CALL... FOR... PHILIP MORR-E-IS!"
• The famous Belgian comics character Spirou started as a bellhop in 1938, and is still mainly dressed in the apparel.
• In the video game Hotel Mario a species of Goomba appeared as an enemy character who was dressed as a bellhop.
• In the episode I Are Bellhop, from the animated television series I Am Weasel, the character I.R. Baboon works as a bellhop in a hotel.
• In the Disney television series, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody a character named Esteban works as a bellhop in the Tipton Hotel.
• In the 1942 cartoon short Bellboy Donald, Donald Duck is a bellhop. This short is notorious as it marks the first appearance of character Pete Junior, with whom Donald has to deal despite the kid's attempts to enrage him.
• The cast members of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attractions at Disney theme parks are dressed as bellhops of The Hollywood Tower Hotel.
• The Bellboy and the Playgirls is a 1962 film by Francis Ford Coppola, Fritz Umgelter, and Jack Hill.
• Bell Boy is a song by The Who released on their 1973 album Quadrophenia.
• The bellhop is the main character in the popular missing dollar riddle.
• A bellhop had a small but humorous role in the film Home Alone 2.

Notes

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2009)

External links

• Media related to Bellhops at Wikimedia Commons

This job-, occupation- or vocation-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e