Zitat des Tages über Gleason:
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.
Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter.
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.
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.
How could you get angry with Jackie Gleason?
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.
Gleason used to rack balls for me when he was a kid in Brooklyn and in Long Island.
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.
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.
What makes a comedian has nothing to do with religion. Think of Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, who were all Catholics.
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.
