TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

Why Everyone Loves Jackie Gleason (Continued from page 30) with the big Saturday-night TV show. And who plans for next season a complete filmed series of "The Honeymooners," plus a live half-hour musical and variety show — a show which he will produce (with the expert help he always gathers around him) and on which he will frequently perform. Plus a half dozen other projects — another TV program, a plan for a Television City in New York, more personal appearances, and who knows what else! Jackie's sensitivity to other people and his quick reaction to their moods is almost uncanny. If he knows you at all well, he knows without your telling him whether you are happy or whether you are brooding over something. I found that out a long time ago. 1 went to rehearsal one day with a problem on my mind that I couldn't seem to solve. Automatically, I pushed it back, because I have always believed that, when I'm hired to do a job, my personal life should never get in the way. To everyone else that afternoon, I'm sure I was the same carefree, gay Audrey, always ready to go along with a gag and to join in the laughs. But during rehearsal, when there was a short wait, Jackie stood next to me and asked quietly, "What's the matter, Aud? What's bothering you?" I was too surprised to do anything but shake my head and say "Nothing at all — " quite convincingly, I thought. But Jackie went on, "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help." Just that, but it was enough to tell me he knew and sympathized, whatever it was. Only he had sensed some subtle difference in my mood. Being a sensitive person himself, he gives other people credit for being sensitive human beings, with feelings that can be wounded. He never gets off in a corner and whispers to someone on the set, a thing some directors do that ends up by making the whole cast jumpy, wondering whose work is being given a going over. Jackie is fair, and kind, to everyone. Almost from the first, he has done little more than direct the action for Art Carney and Joyce Randolph and me — like suggesting that, on a certain line of dialogue, we move in closer, or, on another, we walk to the door — and this mainly for camera angles. As soon as he found out we knew what we were doing, he respected that knowledge. But more than that, he never directs the actors who play incidental roles on the show as if he were telling them what to do, although he knows how every least little thing should be done to keep the whole sketch right. Jackie will say to a newcomer something like this: "What you are doing is fine, but on television that won't get across. This way, it will." Actors understand that he knows this medium inside out, and they respect that kind of direction. Jackie never takes things so big that he forgets to be considerate. Many others in our business — people who are generally nice, well-meaning citizens — feel that lapses from their usual code are justified when they work under pressure. But not Jackie. It can be close to air time, but he will stop everything and carefully explain his reasons for wanting something done in a particular way. Next to his terrific sense of humor, I think most people would agree that kindness is one of his most outstanding qualities. T This shows in so many ways. Art Carney V tells how he got a call to be on Jackie's r show when Jackie was doing Cavalcade Of Stars, for Du Mont. Art met him for the first time at the studio. "Gleason 86 looked me over — none too hopefully, I thought," Art says. "I could tell he was wondering if I would do, but he didn't say anything. When I came down in make-up, with the little goatee I wear as Reggie Van Gleason's father, the role I was to play that night, he said okay. The next week, I had a call to come back, but I still wasn't sure Jackie was satisfied. Then, one day, I got home to find he had telephoned. When I called back he said, 'Oh, it was nothing special. I just wanted to say how much I like working with you.' " It was Jackie's way of letting Art know that he was in the show and doing fine. But not many stars would have bothered personally to call up a supporting player to say something nice like that. Before I got the job of playing Jackie's patient but loving wife Alice, my manager, Val Irving, took me to see Jackie. Jackie tried hard to be kind, all the time he was saying that I was too ladylike -looking for the part, too pretty, too sweet, to play the slatternly and acid-tongued Alice. It was the nicest turn-down any actress ever had and I wouldn't have minded, except that I wanted the part very much. I felt I was right for it. Val felt I was right, too, and laid plans to prove it. He told me not to get up until he arrived with a photographer at my apartment the next morning. "I don't want you to do a thing to your face before we get there," he said. "I want your hair to look exactly as it does when you first get out of bed, tousled and a little limp. I want you to look a little sleepy. And to wear an old kimono or a housedress you have been meaning to throw away but haven't got around to it yet." That's the way they took the pictures. When Jackie saw them, they tell me he gave out a whoop and said, "That's Alice!" He couldn't have been kinder about admitting he had been wrong about me. And he has been wonderful ever since. I can't begin to say how much I have learned from working with him. 1 here's a standing joke on the show that, whenever I make a fuss about anything, or want to take a vacation, Jackie will say, "That's all right, Audrey. We have this girl who is dying to come on the show and she's really perfect for the part. I think her name is — what's that name, fellows? Oh, yes — Jayne. Meadows, I think the last name is." My sister Jayne gets a kick out of this, too, I might add! It took Jackie two years to learn how he could break me up on the show. He does something funny with his face — he crosses his eyes or makes them stare, he twists up his mouth and tucks in his chin — I don't know exactly what it is, because I have learned I can't look at him and keep a straight face. I discovered this "face" of his when we were playing the Paramount. One night, in the middle of our "Honeymooners" sketch, he started it. I leaned back in my chair, trying to suppress my laughter, when a leg of the chair cracked and I yelled as I regained my balance. Fortunately, the leg held. But, by this time, Jackie was in top form and not to be restrained. He kept putting on that look again, and asking, "Alice, what are you laughing at?" And the more he asked, the more I broke up. Then he ad-libbed: "I think you're drunk, Alice. I think you had a little drink when you were up on the roof getting the wash." By this time, the audience was in on the joke, too. I was almost choking to keep from getting completely hysterical. It was one of the funniest things that ever happened to me, but nobody enjoyed it as much as Jackie. On one of our television shows, Jackie slammed the door as he was leaving, and it stuck tight. Art, as Ed Norton, was supposed to come in, and Jackie suggested— after a few hopeless tries at opening the door — that he climb in the window. "I hope this breaks Audrey up," he was telling everyone backstage. It did, because as Art hopped over the sill he gave me that wry look and said, "There's more than one way to skin a cat," and I just about flipped. Then a messenger was supposed to deliver a telegram and Art wished me luck as I tried again to open the stuck door, while Jackie, backstage, was roaring with laughter at my predicament. When we finally got the door open, you should have seen the look he gave me. Naturally, none of this would be as funny if ours were not a comedy show where anything can happen and be woven into the script or laughed off. Neither would Jackie try any of his tricks if he weren't sure we could catch the ball and run with it. As it is, when he's feeling particularly gay and ad-libbing so brilliantly, I almost think sometimes that I can see sparks of electricity playing around him. There's a real charge in the man at such times, an excitement that everyone in the theater feels and that gets across to the home audiences. .Making your work fun, having fun in your life, is Jackie's remedy for practically every ill. For him, a party is a panacea for everything from physical pain to heartbreak. If anyone feels sick, or dispirited, Jackie says, "You're not having enough fun. You need to laugh more." Once, when I had a bad cold and the doctor had warned me to get home early and go to bed, Jackie insisted that a party would do me more good. He rounded up the gang and we had a wonderful time. I never felt better than I did that next day. Jackie likes to turn everything into a laugh, especially the difficult things. When one of the June Taylor girls was having eye trouble and came in wearing dark glasses, he turned up with pairs of dark glasses for all the other girls, just to make her laugh and feel better about it. If you tell him anyone is ill, his hand is on the telephone to order flowers before you have finished talking. He hunts for amusing cards, selected just to cheer the person up, or funny little presents to make each one forget his aches and pains. If you tell him someone is in trouble, he's trying to figure out a way to help while you're still in the middle of the story. He's wonderfully loyal to old friends, and wonderfully appreciative of the smallest kindness. I sometimes think that, when a performer becomes as big a star as Jackie is now, other people forget he, too, might sometimes need a little sympathy and help now and then. I have a theory that people forget celebrities are human beings, even as you and I. When we were playing the Paramount, for instance, Jackie came down with a bad case of laryngitis and, even with all the doctoring and dosing, it hung on. I finally decided a hot cup of tea, just • before he went on, would soothe his throat, so I brewed it backstage and brought it to him. Next day he sent his dresser up for his tea, and after that I made tea for him every day until he got well. You never saw such pleasure for such a small attention. Maybe he didn't always have time to drink the tea, but he liked being the one who was indulged, for a change. Most of the time, the Gleasons of this world are on the giving— and not