About Jackie Gleason
Comedian, actor. Born Herbert John Gleason, on February 26, 1916, in New York City (some cite Brooklyn), into a poor Irish-Catholic immigrant family living in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. His father, John Herbert Gleason, an insurance clerk, abandoned the family when Jackie was eight. Subsequently, his mother, Mae Kelly Gleason, worked as a subway token booth agent; she died when Jackie was 16. His only sibling, Clemence, had succumbed to tuberculosis in early childhood, when Jackie was three. Gleason attended Public School 73 in Brooklyn but dropped out of high school before his 16th birthday. He spent much of his time with the Nomads, a Brooklyn "athletic club," an organization that differed little from a street gang. He was a familiar figure in the neighborhood, well known for a sharp tongue, "dandy" dressing, and virtuoso pool playing, qualities that would be features of his professional persona. Though a voracious eater as a teenager, he excelled at football and boxing and did not then sport the heavyweight "spare tire" that would eventually become his trademark.
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Early in life, Gleason displayed a flair for the rough verbal play of the Brooklyn streets, and he seems to have set his sights on a career built around that talent. After appearing in several grade school and church plays, he took first prize with an original comedy routine in a neighborhood talent contest; this in turn led to a stint as master of ceremonies at the Folly Theatre, a Brooklyn vaudeville house. Upon leaving school in 1932, he began traveling around the New York metropolitan region, finding work as an emcee at amateur shows, as a carnival barker, and as a house comic at resort hotels in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
n 1935, now known as "Jumpin' Jack" Gleason for the frenetic style of his presentation, he was hired to work as both an emcee and a bouncer at the Miami Club, a rough-and-tumble Newark saloon. There he gained notoriety for handling hecklers, both verbally and physically. He also got his first job in broadcasting, working as a part-time disc jockey at the Newark radio station WAAT.
Gleason married Genevieve Halford, a dancer, in Newark in 1936; the couple had two daughters, Linda and Geraldine, his only children. The marriage was a rocky one, resulting in several legal separations and reconciliations. A permanent separation agreement was made in 1954; a final divorce would not take place until 1971.
The pace of the young comedian's career accelerated in 1938, when he won several bookings at Manhattan nightspots. This exposure brought a role in the 1940 Broadway musical Keep Off the Grass. In 1941, the film mogul Jack Warner caught Gleason's act at the Club 18. Responding to the comedian's loudmouthed, off-color performance, Warner signed him to a contract on the spot. At age 25, Gleason pulled up stakes and headed for Hollywood.
This early encounter with the movies proved disappointing. Warner could not even remember who the 250-pound comic was, attributing his signature on Gleason's contract to drunkenness. During a year as a studio player at Warner Brothers, Gleason was cast in minor roles in three films: Navy Blues (1941), Larceny, Inc. (1942), and All Through the Night (1942). His option was not renewed. Signing on with Twentieth Century Fox, he appeared in Springtime in the Rockies and Orchestra Wives during 1942 but was again let go. This bitter experience in Los Angeles was never quite forgotten. Gleason would prefer to live and work on the East Coast, first in New York and later in Florida, for the balance of his career.
Returning to nightclub work, he took whatever stage roles he could get, and also tried his hand at radio, several times substituting for host Bob Crosby on the Old Gold Hour, a National Broadcasting Company variety program. Broadway appearances included Artists and Models (1943) and Follow the Girls (1944). In the latter he won some notice for his drag impersonation of a Navy Wave. He nonetheless found himself unable to gain a starring role on Broadway, and though he worked regularly at Manhattan cabarets, his career had reached a kind of plateau. As the New York Mirror columnist Jim Bishop wrote, "He was not big enough for the $5,000-a-week places."
In 1948, George ("Bullets") Durgom took over management of Gleason's career, thus beginning a mutually profitable long-term association. Within a year he had placed Gleason in a featured role with Nancy Walker in the musical Along Fifth Avenue (1949). But Durgom was looking beyond Broadway. At a time when many show business pundits had doubts about television, he saw the medium, with its overabundance of close-ups, as a natural showcase for the comic's extravagant mugging and gesturing.
Gleason's first encounter with television, however, was less than auspicious. In 1949, he was cast in the title role of the TV adaptation of a popular radio situation comedy, The Life of Riley. The Riley character was something of a kindhearted blockhead, a role very much out of character for the quick-witted smooth talker. The show received poor notices and the series was quickly canceled, marking another West Coast failure. (It was later revived successfully with its radio star, William Bendix, in the title role.)
A far more advantageous genre for the display of Gleason's talents was the comedy-variety format. Vaudevillians and nightclub stand-ups, such as Milton Berle, Jack Carter, and Eddie Cantor, were achieving spectacular TV successes with this type of programming. Gleason got a key break in 1950 when he was signed by the Dumont Network as summer host of Cavalcade of Stars. Here he began to find a path to the stardom that had thus far eluded him. Making grandiose gestures at the camera, gawking at a continuous parade of long-legged showgirls, he moved seamlessly between stand-up sets and comedy blackout sketches, exhibiting what the critic Gilbert Seldes saw in him as "the traditional belief of heavy men in their own lightness and grace." After two episodes he was signed as permanent host of the show.
It was during his two years on Cavalcade that Gleason created and developed the repertoire of famous and beloved characters that he would reprise throughout most of his career. These included Ralph Kramden, a boisterous, blundering déclassé bus driver, eternally frustrated in his twin efforts to get rich quick and to assert dominance over an implacable wife; Reginald Van Gleason III, a vainglorious millionaire, conspicuously flaunting his worldly advantage with every facial expression and body movement; and the Poor Soul, a pantomime character wandering the streets of the city, inviting the world to make him its doormat. Lesser Cavalcade creations included Joe the Bartender, the fussbudget Fenwick Babbitt, and Loudmouth Charlie Bratton.
Dumont soon found itself hard-pressed to compete for the services of its biggest star. Gleason began to moonlight as an occasional host for other shows, including NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour. In 1952, the chairman of the Columbia Broadcasting System, William S. Paley, personally courted the star and signed him to an exclusive contract. The network agreed to cover production costs for a new Saturday night comedy-variety hour, The Jackie Gleason Show, and to pay the star a salary of $10,000 per week, which put Gleason among the elite performers in the new medium. CBS also built him a circular mansion in Peekskill, New York, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars; this was just one of a number of extravagant residences Gleason owned during his lifetime, reflective of his generally extravagant tastes. He would enjoy an exclusive relationship with CBS for the next 18 years.
Given full authorial control of the program and a lavish budget to mount it, he honed the formula that had worked so well for him. Each week the star's royal entrance was preceded by a chorus-line number performed by the June Taylor Dancers, featuring a signature overhead kaleidoscope shot. His opening monologue included a visit from one of the "Glea Girls," who delivered his cup of "coffee," one sip of which would lead him to exclaim, "How sweeeeeeet it is...." Asking the bandleader for "a little travelin' music," he danced wildly across the screen, freezing stage right to announce, "And awa-a-ay we go," leading the viewer off into an hour of sketch comedy and guest appearances by top musical acts.
"The Honeymooners" was the show's most popular sketch. Ralph's closed-fisted threat to send wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) "to the moon" during the couple's ritualistic arguments became a household phrase. The pairing of the nervous, quick-tempered Ralph with his dim-witted upstairs neighbor Ed Norton (Art Carney) yielded one of television's first great original comedy teams. The radical contrasts between Gleason's ostentatious, volatile gyrations and Carney's methodical, deliberate stylings suggest comparison with Laurel and Hardy.
During the 1955-56 season, Gleason repackaged the sketch into a filmed half-hour situation comedy format so that he could reduce his hectic production schedule and pursue other projects. The 39 episodes made for that season became one of the most successful commercial properties in show business history, continuing to air widely in reruns a half-century later. In 1985, dozens of the old "Honeymooners" skits from the Gleason comedy-variety shows were re-edited and released as The Honeymooners: The Lost Episodes.
As a television superstar Gleason attempted to rectify what he felt had been his less-than-grand treatment as a stage and screen performer. In 1959, he won a Tony Award for his performance in the stage musical Take Me Along. In the film The Hustler (1961) he was cast opposite Paul Newman as the legendary pool player Minnesota Fats, performing his own pool shots for the camera; the role earned him an Academy Award nomination. Gigot (1962) was his most artistically ambitious project. He wrote, scored, and starred in this Chaplinesque film about an unkempt, deaf-mute Parisian street tramp who befriends and protects a prostitute and her young daughter. He also starred in Papa's Delicate Condition (1963). Gleason's finest dramatic work, however, was in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), in which he portrays Maish Rennick, a boxing manager caught between gambling debts to the mob and loyalty to a punch-drunk fighter.
Several new television projects were attempted as well. A 1961 game show, You're in the Picture, designed as a Groucho Marxlike showcase for his off-the-cuff wit, was canceled after just one episode, forcing the star to make an on-air apology. He then tried a half-hour prime-time talk program, interviewing such stars as Mickey Rooney and Jayne Mansfield, but it too failed in the ratings.
Gleason's least remembered but perhaps most remarkable achievement was in the record business. Although he did not read a note of music, he composed many songs (including his trademark television theme, "Melancholy Serenade"), humming the melodies for transcribers. In 1955, at his own expense, he assembled a large orchestra and, personally wielding the baton, recorded his syrupy arrangements of such standards as "I'm in the Mood for Love" and "My Funny Valentine." Unable to sell the album to a major company, the comedian paid Capitol to manufacture it for him. For Lovers Only sold more than half a million copies and became the first of some 35 popular Gleason "romantic music" LPs.
In 1962, after a short hiatus, he came back to television with Jackie Gleason's American Scene Magazine, which was supposed to break new ground in topical satire. This innovation, however, never materialized. Instead, Gleason returned to his comedy-variety formula, complete with the opening dance number and his old repertoire of sketch characters. The title soon reverted to The Jackie Gleason Show. In 1966, he was rejoined by Art Carney and Audrey Meadows for new hour-long episodes of The Honeymooners. These had little of the verve of the originals, but their nostalgic appeal to older viewers kept the show on the air through 1970, making Gleason one of the longest-lasting of the pioneer TV comedy stars. A second marriage, to Beverly McKittrick, in July 1971, ended in divorce in 1974. The next year Gleason, wed choreographer Marilyn Taylor, the sister of June Taylor.
After spending much of the 1970s in enforced retirement, Gleason successfully returned to feature films as Sheriff Buford T. Justice in the Burt Reynolds comedy Smokey and the Bandit (1977), reprising the role in the 1980 and 1983 sequels it spawned. A new generation was introduced to Gleason as a cantankerous, drawling redneck lawman in a squad car. If Ralph Kramden had been culled from Gleason's Brooklyn childhood, Sheriff Justice was a comparable product of his later years in Florida. Following the success of these films, he began to work regularly in movies again, appearing in The Toy (1982), The Sting II (1983), Nothing in Common (1986), costarring Tom Hanks, and Izzy and Moe, the latter a 1985 television movie that reunited him with Art Carney. Gleason died of heart failure on June 24, 1987, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
About Art Carney
Some players make their marks in leading roles while other excel in secondary parts. In the annals of TV history, Art Carney will be listed as a--if not the--premiere second banana. Over a period of close to two decades, he charmed and delighted audiences as Ed Norton, the subterranean sanitation engineer and comic foil to Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden, in "The Honeymooners" sketches on "The Jackie Gleason Show".
Carney was the youngest of six sons born in Mount Vernon, NY to an insurance salesman and his musician wife. A born mimic, he began his career as a singer and comic with the Horace Heidt Orchestra in the 1930s and went on to become a regular on Heidt's radio program in the 40s, partnered with Ollie O'Toole or playing straight man to Fred Allen and Edgar Bergen. Carney served in the US Army during WWII and was struck by shrapnel during the landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy. The resulting leg wound left the actor with a slight limp. After the war, he landed his first regular role in the nascent medium of television on "The Morey Amsterdam Show" (CBS, 1948-49; DuMont, 1949-50). Carney first teamed with Gleason and Pert Kelton and introduced the Kramdens and the Nortons in sketches on DuMont's "Cavalcade of Stars" in 1951. When Gleason landed his own variety series on CBS the following year, Carney joined him as a supporting player, playing Norton in sketches. When Gleason tired of the hour format, "The Honeymooners" was born. Although it ran for only one year, it has become one of the best-loved situation comedies in TV history and like the contemporary "I Love Lucy" has seemingly continued to air in reruns. The chemistry between Carney and Gleason was ineffable. His Norton was always a willing participant (and sometime spoiler) to Kramden's moneymaking schemes. Even the duo's physical differences played into the joke; Gleason's heft versus Carney's lankiness. With his vest over a white T-shirt and porkpie hat, Norton was a figure of deceptive simplicity, an honest, not-too-bright optimist. Carney became the first performer to earn three back-to-back Emmy Awards in 1953, 1954 and 1955.
Despite his small screen fame as a comedian, Carney had also shown his dramatic abilities on such Golden Age programming as "Studio One" and "Suspense". His post-"Honeymooners" career in the 50s and 60s further displayed his versatility. He made his Broadway debut in "The Rope Dancer" (1957-58) and headlined a small screen version of "Harvey" (CBS, 1958) and played the Stage Manager in a 1959 NBC adaptation of "Our Town" and headlined several variety specials. Carney was cast as Franklin Roosevelt in "The Right Man" (CBS, 1960) and essayed a character that would prove eerily prophetic, an alcoholic depressed over his divorce in "Call Me Back" (NBC, 1960). Carney has been open about his own battle with the bottle and his own mental problems which reached their apotheosis during his run on Broadway as Felix Unger in Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" in 1965. Depressed over the end of his marriage and his drinking problem, the actor entered a mental health facility for treatment of a nervous breakdown.
When he left the hospital, Carney rejoined Gleason to reprise Ed Norton for four years (1966-70) on Gleason's variety series. A return to Broadway in Brian Friel's comedy "Lovers" yielded a 1969 Tony nomination. Carney had made occasional feature appearances in the 60s (e.g. "The Yellow Rolls Royce" 1964), but it was his strong turn as an elderly man who sets out on a road trip in Paul Mazursky's "Harry and Tonto" (1974) that propelled his feature career. He proved to be the sentimental favorite winning the Best Actor Oscar for his work and followed with a number of cantankerous old codger roles. Perhaps his best film role was as an aging detective hired by, and reluctantly partnered with, a flaky Lily Tomlin in Robert Benton's overlooked gem "The Late Show" (1977). He also shone alongside George Burns and Lee Strasberg in "Going in Style" (1979), as one of a trio of retirees who decide to rob a bank to relieve their boredom.
Carney returned to the series grind for the short-lived "Lannigan's Rabbi" (NBC, 1977), playing a police chief assisted by the titular clergyman. He won his sixth Emmy Award as the long-time friend of a wheelchair-bound former boxer (James Cagney) in "Terrible Joe Moran" (CBS, 1984) and partnered with Gleason for the unfortunate "Izzy and Moe" (CBS, 1985), a fictionalized version of the true story of a pair of vaudevillians who worked as Prohibition agents. While they worked gamely together, both actors were too old for their roles. Carney went on to have a recurring role as lookalike actor Barnard Hughes' weaselly brother in the CBS sitcom "The Cavanaughs" (1986-89) and made his last screen appearances to date in a 1991 TV tribute to Michael Landon (who had directed Carney in the 1990 NBC TV-movie "Where Pigeons Go to Die") and with a small role in "The Last Action Hero" (1993). Having evaded stereotyping and carving a multidimensional career after Ed Norton, Carney was at peace with his best-known role before his death in 2003 at age 85. "Ed was friendly and outgoing, and nothing seemed to bother him," he told People magazine in 1985. "For me, that was all acting."
Also on this webpage: Pert Kelton, Audrey Meadows, Joyce Randolph biographies + Honeymooner Episode Voting Poll, The Retorts
About Pert Kelton
Born 1907 in Great Falls, Montana, Pert Kelton was an American stage and film comedienne, who played the stool pigeon in Mary Burns-Fugitive in 1935 and played Alice Kramden for the first few episodes of "The Honeymooners" television series,
on DuMont's Calvacade Of Stars hosted by Jackie Gleason.
Yet another victim of the McCarthy Era, she was named as a supposed Communist sympathizer in the unscrupulous publication Red Scare, and her career was ruined. She married actor Ralph Bell and was the mother of actor Brian Bell.
Earlier in life, at age 17, Pert Kelton, eccentric comedienne," was featured in a Broadway musical comedy, "Sunny," in 1926. In 1949, Pert provided the voices for all five women on the Milton Berle radio show. She played the sharp-tongued Irish widow in the film version of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" in 1957.
She was married to the actor-director, Ralph Bell. They had two sons. She died October 30, 1968, in Westwood, New Jersey.
About Audrey Meadows
Born February 8, 1926, Audrey Meadows will be forever immortalized as Alice Kramden ("Alice, you're the greatest!"), wife of bus-driver Ralph Kramden on The_Honeymooners (irregularly from 1951-1971). Despite its later popularity, The_Honeymooners actually began as a series of sketches, just one part of The_Jackie_Gleason_Show (1952-1970). The show had only one real season of 39 shows, in 1955, and it wasn't a success. Later, the original sketches were re-edited into episodes in the '80s, which is when the show finally became a success. Born in China, the red-haired actress is the older sister of Steve Allen's wife Jayne_Meadows. She also appeared on Bob and Ray (1951-53), Club Embassy (1952-53), Too Close for Comfort (1980-83), and several game shows. She won an Emmy Award for The_Jackie_Gleason_Show in 1955. Her film appearances include Lady in the Lake (1946). Meadow's feature film credits include character roles in That Touch of Mink (1962) and Rosie! (1967). In 1995, Meadows was diagnosed with cancer, but she told no one, not even her sister, until she was admitted to the hospital on January 24, 1996. Meadows passed away on February 3, 1996.
About Joyce Randolph
Born Joyce Sirola in Detroit, Michigan in 1925, who we endear as Joyce Randolph was only nineteen when she joined a road company of Stage Door. From there she went to New York and a revival of Abie's Irish Rose, and later, a Broadway run of A Goose for rhe Gander with Gloria Swanson. Although she continued to appear in Broadway musicals through the 1940's and into the 1950s, she became increasingly active in early TV, appearing with such superstars as Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Danny Thomas, and Fred Allen. From appearances on General Electric's early experimental television programs, she went on to roles on Four Star Revue and Colgate Comedy Hour. Even before The Honeymooners, Joyce Randolph worked with Audrey Meadows in a summer-stock production Of No, No, Nanette. She first worked with Jackie Gleason on Cavalcade of Stars in a serious role, and was later called back to play Trixie Norton -- a role which she continued to play until The Honeymooners left New York. In 1993, Mrs. Randolph was named U.S.O. Woman of the Year for her dedication to the organization and its cause
We lost Joyce, the last remaining original Honeymooner's cast, in 2009. She lived in retirement along the
South Jersey coast
AND COMMENT ON THE SHOW & IT'S STARS
(*Just describe sketch if you don't know the episode title)
# votes/title/description
192 votes Ralph The Golfer Ed goads Ralph into impressing his boss as a golf expert, classic "Hello, Ball gag!"
102 votes Chef Of The Future Ralph and Ed do an infomercial live on TV
072 votes Maid Service The Kramdens hire a maid when Alice decides to work in a bakery "career"
042 votes The $99,000 Answer Ralph becomes a contestant on a big money quiz show
038 votes Blabbermouth Ralph starts wars after his mother in law puts the spoiler on a stage play
026 votes My Fortune Ralph thinks he's inherited a windfall, all he gets is the bird.
015 votes My Love Song Ralph and Ed write a song (Honeymooners" sketch on the CBS variety show)
015 votes The Blue Tongue Ralph mistakenly believes he is dying of a rare disease, sell story to a tabloid
014 votes Big Money Ralph finds a suitcase full of money, not knowing it's counterfeit
013 votes TV Or Not TV Ralph and Ed go halfsies on buring a TV set. Watch out, Captain Video!
012 votes The Bensonhurst Bomber Ralph get's into a pool room confrontation which leads to a fight
012 vote Man From Space Ralph is sure he'll beat Norton in the lodge's costume party.
010 votes Roller Rink The Kramdens & Nortons recapture their youth. George & Gracie's kid Ronnie Burns guests.
006 votes Kramden Christmas Story Ralph's Christmas gift giving becomes an embarrassing ordeal
005 vote The Sleepwalker Ed's sleepwalking becomes Ralph's nightmare, is Ed searching for Lulu, his lost dog?
005 votesCarry Me Back Ralph and Ed get handcuffed together on a train headed the wrong way. Boomph!
004 votes Give Me Liberty Ralph declares marital supremacy ; he, Ed celebrate by getting drunk on
Grape Juice.
003 vote My Aching Back Ralph wrenches his back the night before the bus company
physical
003 vote Mambo Lesson Ralph rages jealousy when a mambo dancer gives lessons to Alice, Trixie & Mrs. Manicotti
002 vote The Talent Show Ralph & Ed do a psychic reading act at the Racoon Lodge talent show
002 vote The Election Norton has the deciding vote for Ralph's Raccoon Lodge candidacy
001 vote The Lay Off Ralph is laid off; when Alice gets a job, Ralph becomes jealous of her boss
001 vote Ralph The Thespian The Kramdens & Nortons in a play,
001 vote The Superintendant Ralph takes the job as building janitor and get;s stuck between steam pipes
001 vote Ralph The Entrepreneur Ralph mistakes dog food for Alice's dip recipe and asks his boss to sample it.
001 vote Ralph's Physical Ralph injures his back bowling the night before the company physical, Dr. Ed takes his temp
001 vote Gone Fishing Ralph and Ed try to thwart the wives from going along on the Raccoon fishing trip.
001 vote The Layoff Ralph is laid off from work, Alice becomes the breadwinner, hubbie becomes homemaker
001 vote Ralph's Home Run Ralph goes to the Yankee's World Seriies game (from the CBS lost episodes)
001 vote The Man With The White Glove Ralph thinks a home decorator is having an affair with Alice
001 vote Dead Men Tell No Tales Ralph witnesses an armed robbery
001 vote Thespian A director wants to put on a show at the Lodge, cons Ralph into thinking he's a great actor.
001 vote The Worry Wart Ralph is called in for an audit by the IRS
001 vote The Horse Race When Ralph gets involved horse racing, the consequences are explosive
Keep the votes coming! And watch for something special here at OTV New Years Eve!!! (see below)
Our Favorite Honeymooners' Punch Lines
Alice (pretending to be a sexy wife): I call you killer, because you slay me.
Rakph: And I'm calling Bellvue, because your nuts!
Ralph (selling Alice on a business scheme): Alice, this is the biggest thing I've ever gotten into.
Alice: The biggest thing you ever got into was your pants.
Ralph (after Alice doesn't laugh at his joke): You don't have a sense of humor.
Alice: Oh, yes I do. I married you, didn't I?
Ralph (threatening to leave Alice because she wouldn't give him money): Just remember this, Alice. You
can't put your arm around a memory.
Alice I can't even put my arm around you.
THE HONEYMOONERS
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