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Jackie Gleason
Age: 71 (passed away Jun. 24th, 1987)
Height: 5' 9 1/2"
Birth Place: Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Born: Feb. 26th, 1916
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Jackie Gleason's Main TV Roles
NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at
IMDB
BIOGRAPHY: Comedian, actor, composer and conductor, educated in New York public schools. He was a master of ceremonies in amateur shows, a carnival barker, daredevil driver and a disc jockey., and later a comedian in night clubs. By the mid-1950s he had turned to writing original music and recording a series of popular and best-selling albums with his orchestra for Capitol Records. Joining ASCAP in 1953, his instrumental compositions include "Melancholy Serenade", "Glamour", "Lover's Rhapsody", "On the Beach" and "To a Sleeping Beauty", among numerous others.
TRIVIA:
- He was legendary for his dislike of rehearsal, even in the early days of live TV. Yet he was equally renowned for his total mastery and control over each production detail and insisted on the show credit: "Entire Production Supervised by Jackie Gleason."
- He designed his own fantastic round house that was built in Peekskill, New York, in the 1950s and remains a modern marvel. The precious wood interior took special crafting by Swedish carpenters who were brought to the U.S. for a year to work on the house. It contained a basement disco and one of the very first in-home video projection systems. Despite the enormous cost, the Gleason dream house long suffered from a leaky wooden roof.
- Inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, 1986.
- Was a mentor and frequent drinking buddy of 'Frank Sinatra' (qv). It was Gleason who first introduced Sinatra to Jack Daniels whiskey, which became Sinatra's signature drink.
- Despite his iconic stature as a TV-comedy giant, Gleason never won an Emmy.
- Recorded a number of albums featuring instrumental "mood music" (what is now known today as "lounge music"). Gleason served as producer, band-leader, and (on occasion) vibraphone player, despite the fact that he couldn't read sheet music. Several of the albums included original compositions by Gleason. One album, "Lonesome Echo", topped the charts in 1955, and featured an album cover with original art by 'Salvador Dalí' (qv).
- The Miami Beach Auditorium was re-named the Jackie Gleason Theater and is located on 17th Street and Washington Avenue on South Beach.
- On January 20, 1961, a game show he co-developed, "You're In the Picture" (1960), premiered on CBS. The premise was to have celebrity guests place their heads into a cutout scene and ask the host questions as to guess what picture or historical scene they were in. The show's concept was ill-conceived, especially for co-creator and host Gleason, and was blasted by critics and viewers alike. On the next week's broadcast Gleason apologized to the viewers, saying, "Honesty is the best policy. We had a show last week that laid the biggest bomb! I've seen bombs in my day, but this one made the H-bomb look like a two-inch salute." The time slot was filled with a variety program; _"The Jackie Gleason Show" (1961)_ (qv).
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