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aid. “They set up a bar ight next to my dressng room— so I don’t ave to smuggle.
“And what a bar, pal, t’s gorgeous ! Beautiful, ust the size of Toots’ Id place.” (Toots, to he uninitiated, is Toots Ihor, Jackie’s favorite .rinking companion and ' wner of Jackie’s favorte saloon.) “It’s all flush velvet, in red, and legantly appointed in lay 90’s decor. It’s furbished, you see, all in excellent Nouveau Booze.
“Why, I even have a at guy standing at one md of it— playing Toots ind drinking, of course. Ne had the entire Paranount office scrounging ;or an actor who looks ike Toots, just so I vouldn’t be lonesome. Maturally, we cast the guy from the zoo.
“Since the bar opened, I’ve done away with the 3offee wagon out here and instituted a thing sailed the boozecycle.”
Yes, these are the Great Days for the Great Gleason. He’s got
his own “boozecycle” with a boy assigned by the studio to do nothing all day but push it from the bar to Jackie and back to the bar again for refills. He’s got a truckful of money coming in each week. And he’s got the right to exercise the privileges of stardom by showing up on the set in this outfit : an orange pith helmet decorated with an orchid, a multi-colored striped shirt, plaid walking shorts, knee length black stockings, spats and black shoes. Clearly, he’s got it made.
But it wasn’t always like this. And Jackie remembers those days.
“The last time I was out here they wouldn’t even buy me a drink, much less my own bar. But I’ve got to go along with them. I wouldn’t have a drink with me then either. ...”
That was back in ’42. Film producer Jack Warner had seen him at the Club 18 in New York and decided that
he was the funniest man alive. He signed Jackie to a film contract, and away to the Coast the comedian went.
His self-induced problems started even before he reached California. He has said: “Gambling? Let’s not even talk about that. The guy who invented playing cards cost me a lot of money.” But back in 1942 Jackie was convinced that anything anyone else could do he could do better— and that included card playing, of course.
As Gleason recalls it, “I started out for the Coast. In Chicago I found out I could change my ticket and stay overnight. I ran into Red Skelton, Danny Thomas and a couple other guys there and I did some gambling ... I lost everything but about six bucks. I knew I couldn’t eat in the dining car all the rest of the way to Hollywood on that, so I got off at some clamtown stop, bought me ( Continued on page 87 )