How do you define cool? Luckily, when it comes to people, we Hoosiers have a strong list to choose from: James Dean, Steve McQueen, Kurt Vonnegut. Other answers would vary: Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Greta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart, Thelonius Monk, Marlon Brando, Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, Rosa Parks, Paul Newman, James Brown, Carlos Santana, Malcolm X, Madonna, Bruce Lee. Lists like that can be a fun challenge and no two would be alike. My list would chase most towards a Google search looking for everyone from Josephine Baker to Jonas Salk to Mulalla. Another on my list would have turned 100 years old last month and cool might not be the first thought that comes to mind when I tell you his story.
John Herbert “Jackie” Gleason was born on February 26, 1916. Some folks remember Gleason as a Big Band leader, others as the star of The Honeymooners TV show and more recently from the Smokey and the Bandit films. Wait, you say. Jackie Gleason — cool? You must be kidding. Nope, Jackie Gleason was way cool. Gleason’s life story reads like a Hollywood screenplay. He was born at 364 Chauncey Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. If the address doesn’t ring a bell, it should. It was the same address used for Ralph and Alice Kramden’s apartment on The Honeymooners.
In 1916 New York City was America’s largest metropolitan area and experiencing a rapid growth in population fueled predominately by a surge in immigrants from Southern Europe. Jackie’s parents were Mae “Maisie” Kelly from Farranree, County Cork, Ireland, and Herbert Walton “Herb” Gleason, an Irish-American insurance auditor. Gleason was one of two children; his brother Clemence, always frail and sickly, died of spinal meningitis at age 14 when Jackie was only three. Just before Christmas of 1925, Herb Gleason gathered up any family photos in which he appeared, grabbed his hat, coat, and paycheck, and left his family forever. When it was evident he was not coming back, Mae went to work as a subway attendant for the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT).
After his father left, young Gleason began hanging around on the streets with a local gang and hustling pool. He attended (but did not graduate from) John Adams High School in Queens and Bushwick High School in Brooklyn. Gleason left high school and landed a job as master of ceremonies at a Brooklyn theater that paid $4 per night. In 1934, during the Great Depression when unemployment wavered between 21 and 23 percent, Gleason had steady work. Not lucrative, but steady. His early resume included gigs at The Majestic, The Central, The Folly and The Halsey Theatres in Brooklyn, while he played Club Miami and the famous Empire Burlesque in Newark. Jackie often worked two or three theatres at a time, skipping from Brooklyn to Jersey and back again in a single night.
Just as Jackie’s star was on the rise, his mother’s life was on the wane. She developed a large carbuncle on her neck, but because of an inordinate fear of any and all doctors, she refused to seek medical help. Defined as a “severe abscess or multiple boil in the skin, typically infected with staphylococcus bacteria,” Jackie tried to ease his mother’s suffering by lancing the boil himself. Two months after his 19th birthday, his mother died of sepsis resulting from the bacteria and toxins infecting the wound and invading her bloodstream. It was 1935 and as Gleason himself once said, “I was 19 with nowhere to go and 36 cents to my name.”
Finding himself alone in the world, “The Great One” (named so by Orson Welles) headed into the heart of the city. There he couch surfed with friends in Manhattan. Money was so tight that a meal often consisted of cafeteria soup: a mixture of hot water and all the free condiments he could find. Gleason’s big break came when he landed a one-week job in Reading, Pennsylvania that paid $19, more money than he could imagine. The booking agent had to advance Jackie bus fare for the trip against his salary. This was Gleason’s first solo job as a professional comedian, and he worked regularly in a number of small clubs from then on. Within a couple years of his mother’s death, Gleason was a regular on NBC radio.
In 1949, the portly, energetic 33-year-old Gleason was offered the starring role in the sitcom The Life of Riley in the new TV medium. He left after one season, and by 1953 was starring in his own hit variety series. The Jackie Gleason Show introduced several characters based on neighbors he had known growing up in Brooklyn, including bus driver Ralph Kramden, Joe the Bartender, Reggie Van Gleason III and The Poor Soul. The ratings soon soared to 42 percent. Jackie became “Mr. Saturday Night.”
In 1955, Gleason’s format changed to accommodate the wild popularity of The Honeymooners. Gleason’s show was split into two half hour shows: The Honeymooners, and Stage Show, a music and variety combination hosted by the Dorsey Brothers. Both shows were owned by Gleason. The 1955-56 episodes of The Honeymooners became known as the “original 39.” By filming the episodes with Electronicam, Gleason later could release the series in syndication, building its popularity over the years with new audiences.
He was also a successful Big Band leader. The Jackie Gleason Orchestra recorded 43 albums of mood music and Gleason himself wrote the theme songs for The Jackie Gleason Show (“Melancholy Serenade”) and The Honeymooners (“You’re My Greatest Love”). And Jackie Gleason couldn’t read a note of music: He simply dreamed up melodies in his head and then described them vocally to assistants who transcribed them into musical notes.
He starred in nine films and garnered an Oscar nomination for his role as Minnesota Fats in The Hustler opposite Paul Newman. Gleason made all his own trick pool shots in the film. He won a Tony for his Broadway performance as Uncle Sid in Take Me Along, hosted or performed in 30 television specials, and moved his new television show (American Scene Magazine) and its entire entourage via train to Miami, Florida thereby kick-starting the Florida family vacation trend to follow.
Gleason had a dread fear of flying and traveled everywhere by train. These coast-to-coast train trips often turned into all-night, alcohol fueled parties that became legendary in the industry. For the most part, Gleason’s train parties were filled with music, jokes, stories and laughter. They were bawdy and slightly raunchy, but rarely degenerated into anything more. If you can imagine the Vegas Rat Pack on wheels, you get the idea.
Gleason was so big in the mid-1950s that he signed a deal that included a guaranteed $100,000 annual payment for 20 years even if he never went on the air. Jackie became legendary for his dislike of rehearsing. Blessed with a photographic memory, he read the script once, watched a rehearsal with his co-stars and stand-in, and shot the show later that same day. If he made mistakes, he blamed the cue cards. When Gleason famously moved his TV studio from New York City to Miami Beach in the mid-1960s, it led a seven year real estate boom and boosted Florida tourism for over a decade.
Gleason purchased a tremendous mid-century 9,250 square foot home in Miami that included 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a swimming pool and screened-in pool deck along with a sizable guest house. The house looked over the edge of the Country Club of Miami golf course; Gleason was a prodigious golfer.
Gleason smoked four packs of Marlboro cigarettes a day and in 1978, while on tour in the play The Sly Fox, he went to the hospital for chest pains and was treated and released. After suffering another bout the following week, it was determined that triple-bypass heart surgery was necessary. He remained active though, creating the role that many fans remember him for today: Buford T. Justice in the Smokey and the Bandit series from 1977 into the early 1980s, in which he co-starred with Burt Reynolds.
Gleason’s last film was Nothing in Common with Tom Hanks in 1986. During production he was suffering from terminal colon cancer, which had metastasized to his liver. “I won’t be around much longer,” he told his daughter at dinner one evening after a day of filming. Gleason kept his medical problems private, although there were rumors that he was seriously ill. A year later, on June 24, 1987, Gleason died at his Florida home.
Still not convinced that Gleason was all that interesting, let alone cool? Well, wait until you read Part II… UFO’s, ghosts and mysterious objects in the closet.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest book is “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
