Posted on 02/26/2016 11:41:53 AM PST by Borges
Born 100 years ago (today), Jackie Gleason rose to the top of comedy thanks to his larger than life personality and rigorous work ethic.
The mood of the photo essay is a strange one: Jackie Gleason’s soon-to-be hit show The Honeymooners was about to hit the airwaves, but the star’s look in the pages of that 1955 issue of LIFE was melancholy. The entertainer, as the magazine explained, had “just become, by financial standards at least, history’s greatest comedian.†He was raking in millions between his weekly Jackie Gleason Show and new contracts with Buick and CBS for The Honeymooners. “No other actor in the world,†the magazine declared, “ever had it so good as this 39-year-old, Brooklyn-born comedian with a 265-pound body, a bellowing voice and a superb instinct for theater.â€
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Most people under 50 have never heard of Jackie Gleason, or don’t know how famous he once was. I enjoyed his tv shows in the 60’s and 70’s. Jackie G. was similar to Lucille Ball, in that both had a public persona of being funny, wild, maybe less than bright onstage, while in private they were both very serious, pragmatic business people with a job to do and a schedule to keep.
One day, Alice!
One day!
Pow!
Straight to the moon!
Agree completely. Also “Soldier in the Rain” with Steve McQueen.
Almost all TV sit-coms are variations of “The Honeymooners” and “I Love Lucy.”
“Until that time...”
Soldier in the Rain seemed to me to be a stage play set to film. Very existentialist, philosophical. Very provocative; it drew me in even though I don’t care for the existentialist position. Genius.
To this day I get a nice warm feeling hearing his theme.
He would almost always end a skit with a line something like 'Baby, you're the greatest' (to his stage wife.)
NO ONE could handle a live audience like Gleason!
That film, I believe, was an enormous bomb. He did do excellent work in films, but some of them, such as “Gigot” and “Papa’s Delicate Condition”, I believe, both performed rather poorly at the box office.
And he thought so much of Johnny Olson’s announcing work, he personally arranged to have Johnny flown to and from Miami to announce for his show when it was taped there.
The Flintstones were a clone of the Honeymooners. I picked up on that from the get-go. Love it.
About 10 - 12 years ago, Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond played Jackie Gleason in a made for TV biography called “Gleason.” He did a fantastic job in this role. If you watch Garrett on ELR, you’ll see a lot of Ralph Kranden’s facial expressions and mannerisms come through in Garrett’s character, Robert Barone.
I heard years ago (in my teens) that he’d carry a sizeable bottle of whisky out onto the golf course and consume most (if not all) of it during a round. I bet playing a round of golf with him would have been an interesting experience, lol.
See what is written on his headstone.
His performance as Minnesota Fats is one of the great screen characters - gripping, relentless, legendary.
Kids in NYC remember him. On New Year’s Day, a local station runs a Honeymooners marathon. Helps with the hangover.
A great talent and a part of every baby boomer’s childhood.
Great photo! So dapper.
Can you tell us exactly how you know that role was not a challenge? We’re all fascinated.
Gleason used to play golf with Nixon.
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