How Sweet it is

Posted by Jim on June 24, 2019

THE IRISH ROOTS OF JACKIE GLEASON

John Herbert “Jackie” Gleason was born in Brooklyn, New York on 26 February 1916. His mother, Mae Agnes “Maisie” (née Kelly) came from Farranree, Co. Cork. His father Herbert’s father was an Irish immigrant, while his mother had English and Dutch ancestry. Jackie had one older brother named Clement, who died of meningitis when he was fourteen and Jackie was three.
Gleason grew up at 328 Chauncey Street in Brooklyn, an address later made famous by his Ralph Kramden character. His father had a drinking problem and his mother was very overbearing. She raised him strictly catholic and never wanted him out of her sight. He once said the other kids would make fun of his Irish accent. His father, an insurance auditor; abandoned the family in December 1925 when Jackie was nine, forcing his mother to go to work as a subway attendant.
After his father left, Jackie then began hanging around with a local gang, and hustling pool. He became interested in performing after participating in a school play at John Adams High School in Ozone Park. He put together a comedy act with his friends and got jobs as a master of ceremonies in local theaters. His mother died of sepsis in 1935, when he was nineteen. Jackie then began work as a professional comedian, working small clubs steadily. In 1936 he married Genevieve Halford, whom he met on the stage show circuit known as “vaudeville”.
Gleason appeared in several films beginning with “Navy Blues” in 1941, while still doing standup as a sideline. He appeared in several shows including the hit musical “Follow The Girls” in 1944 on the Broadway stage in New York. His big break would come in 1949 in the new medium known as television.
“The Life of Riley”, a radio comedy program was transplanted to this new medium. William Bendix, who originated the role was not available at that time, so in 1949 the role fell to Gleason. The show ran only a few months. Bendix would later revive the show in 1953 for a five-year run. Later in 1949, Gleason was then hired to host the DuMont Television Network “Cavalcade of Stars” on the strength of his nightclub performances.
Gleason was so successful with “The Cavalcade of Stars” that he was contracted by the CBS television network in 1952 to move the show there and it was renamed “The Jackie Gleason Show”. His success came from presenting a good variety of entertainment. The comedy came from sketches performed with Gleason portraying several characters he had developed, many based on people he knew or observed growing up in Brooklyn. He would introduce the show with “…and away we go…”
In 1955, Gleason had the idea to make a separate series of a popular recurring sketch on his show about a Brooklyn bus driver and his wife and friends known as “The Honeymooners”. The show was centered around Ralph Kramden; an everyman who works hard and dreams of “getting rich quick” to provide for his long-suffering wife Alice. She is quite sensible and often brings him back to reality, for which he idly threatens to send her “…to the moon, Alice!” before he realises “Baby, you’re the greatest!”. In these schemes, he often involves his dizzy neighbor Ed Norton; played by fellow Irish-American Art Carney. Norton is married to the kind and patient Trixie.
“The Honeymooners” show and its characters are among the most iconic and beloved in the history of television. That year thirty-nine classic episodes of the show were recorded. Years later, Gleason released them in syndication and they are still widely shown today. In 2000, installed outside the Port Authority in New York City is a statue of Gleason’s Ralph Kramden, the bus driver from Brooklyn.
Although the story lines in “The Honeymooners” drew a lot from Gleason’s experiences and observations in his Irish neighbourhood, the characters on the show are not “ethnic” characters. Their unseen neighbours and friends have Irish names like Grogan and Geraghty and also Italian or Jewish names. It is Brooklyn, after all.
Earlier shows with identifiably ethnic main characters, including “The Goldbergs” (Jews), “Life With Luigi” (Italians), “Amos and Andy” (Blacks), even “I Remember Mama” (Scandinavians) and Bendix’s “The Life Of Riley” (Irish) were on the decline.
Such shows were seen to have limited audiences. The push was for the broad appeal of shows like “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It To Beaver”. This also came with the push to move the show business industry away from the ethnic identities of New York. Carl Reiner’s proposed program about a Jewish comedy writer ended up becoming “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, starring a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
The Jackie Gleason Show ended in 1957. In 1959, Gleason returned to the Broadway stage in New York to star in “Take Me Along”, a musical based on “Ah, Wilderness” by Irish-American playwright Eugene O’Neill. The original stage adaptation of the play was by Irish-American show business legend George M. Cohan. One night at the Shubert Theater where the show ran for fourteen months, he met famous Irish writer Brendan Behan. The role won Gleason a Tony award for Best Performance By a Leading Actor In a Musical.
In 1960, Hanna-Barbera’s animated prime-time TV series “The Flintstones” premiered. The show juxtaposes modern situations against the prehistoric Stone Age when it is set in the fictional town of Bedrock. The show is a conscious parody of various TV sitcoms (situation comedies) of the time, but is quite noticeably based on “The Honeymooners”. Even down to Fred and Barney’s men’s club or lodge being like Ralph and Norton’s. Gleason considered suing. When his lawyer asked him: “Do you want to be known as the man who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air?”, he relented.
In 1961, Gleason appeared in a serious dramatic role as professional pool player Minnesota Fats in the movie “The Hustler” which starred Paul Newman. Gleason made his own pool shots in the film, utilising skills he learned in his Brooklyn Irish neighbourhood.
In 1962, Gleason starred in the film “Gigot”, a screenplay he wrote himself about a mute, simple, misunderstood Parisian janitor. The movie, of which he was very proud; was directed by fellow Irish-American Gene Kelly.
Throughout the 60’s, he had a secondary career releasing long-playing record albums of instrumental “mood” music. He believed and insisted that there was an audience for this. Gleason couldn’t read or write music, but he came up with melodies that were transcribed and arranged for orchestras. He had composed the themes to his show and “The Honeymooners” in that way. His first album “Music For Lovers Only” stayed in the Billboard charts for 153 weeks.
He revived The Jackie Gleason show in 1962 with a new catch phrase “How sweet it is!”, which became his trademark. It reflected his reputation as a bon vivant. He was known as a man with huge appetites; for food, especially drink, and sex. He was also a heavy smoker and a notorious spendthrift. The show ran until 1970.
That same year his wife divorced him. Ten days after his divorce was final, he married Beverly McKittrick. In 1975, he married a third and final time to Marilyn Taylor. Her sister June Taylor was the choreographer for the dancer’s on Gleason’s variety shows.
Gleason’s next big movie role was in 1977’s “Smokey And The Bandit”, starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field. Gleason played Sheriff Buford T. Justice of Texas. Sheriff Justice takes the law itself and The Bandit absconding with the woman who jilted his son at the altar quite personally. His efforts are endlessly frustrated by the Bandit’s craftiness and wide popular support and his own dimwitted son, “Junior”. Director Hal Needham encouraged him to improvise, which results in him stealing all his scenes. He also starred in the movie’s two sequels.
In 1985, Gleason starred with his old friend Art Carney in “Izzy and Moe” about two famous Prohibition Agents in the ‘20’s when alcohol was illegal in the US. In 1986, he starred with Tom Hanks as his character’s estranged father in the movie “Nothing In Common”, a critically acclaimed performance that would be his last. Jackie Gleason, dubbed “The Great One” by Orson Welles died 24 June 1987 at his home in Florida.
Kevin Rooney