Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
How could you get angry with Jackie Gleason?
You can compare Fred and Barney Rubble with Gleason and Carney.
Gleason used to rack balls for me when he was a kid in Brooklyn and in Long Island.
Gleason became like a mentor of mine. I had Gleason helping me on television, Godfrey on radio.
I did the Ed Sullivan show four times. I did the Steve Allen show. I did the Jackie Gleason show.
Gleason was a rough guy. Like all of these comics, I have never known one who is a sweetheart all the way through.
Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter.
My first job at Gleason's Bar in Cleveland was $800 a week, when I was making $92 a week with overtime at the automobile plant.
What makes a comedian has nothing to do with religion. Think of Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, who were all Catholics.
In terms of comedians, I loved, growing up, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, Carol Burnett, all those people.
I used to watch the 'Jackie Gleason Show' and Phil Silvers, those early TV things. And a lot of them were patterned on the silent comedies of the '20s.
When you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, your condition is ranked on the Gleason Score, which measures its level of aggression. Mine is graded at seven out of 10. But this doesn't tell me where I stand in general.
Look at Gleason in The Honeymooners. He was humorous but the way he lived wasn't really humorous. He was a bus driver. Who wants to be a bus driver? He didn't have any money and he was not famous. But despite that, the show is humorous.
I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he'd be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies - George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra.
Things that make me laugh range from a wonderful stand-up like Jerry Seinfeld, Louis C.K. and Chris Rock to my son Gabe, who does great improv work. I also look backwards to the great comedic actors like Jackie Gleason, Paul Lynde and Phil Silvers.
I was training in Gleason's Gym on 30th and 8th Avenue, where it was the Mecca of boxing, and a guy walked in who couldn't rub two quarters together and said, 'Did you ever think of being on TV?' And somehow I ended up in 'Taxi,' which is the craziest thing of all.
While prepping 'Smokey,' I saw a picture in a magazine of a Pontiac Trans Am that gave me a product placement idea. I could picture Burt Reynolds behind the wheel with Jackie Gleason on the chase. I called Pontiac and asked if they would like to have the car in the movie.
I was in love with a lot of people, because I was a student of the game of comedy - Carol Burnett, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Don Rickles, Red Foxx, Moms Mabley - who gets no credit, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, George Kirby. I loved them all, and I used to just take a page out of all of them.
During my senior year, I was supposed to spend a semester student teaching, but decided I couldn't be a teacher. My aunt Beth's friend was Jackie Gleason's daughter, Linda Miller. She encouraged me to talk to her. After doing that, she recommended Catholic University's M.F.A. acting program. So that's what I did.
Stars wide of belt often cultivated a gentlemanly grandeur, a groomed refinement that filtered through their fingertips - the dainty fidgets of Hardy's plump digits, Orson Welles performing magic tricks with nimble dexterity, Jackie Gleason lofting a teacup to his lips as if he were Lady Bracknell - or through a fine set of twinkle-toes.
