Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

JACKIE GLEASON Continued from page 51 j a big box of Baby Ruths, and Baby Ruthed myself all the way to Hollywood. I was so hungry when I got there I could have eaten wheat germ.” He didn’t have, to try wheat germ — at least not right away. But he had to munch on something far worse, for Gleason. Hollywood forced him to eat crow. As Jackie tells it, “They wanted me because I was so funny. Then they forgot why they brought me out. Or if I did get a role the assistant director always said, ‘Gleason, hold this pistol.' ” Now he tried wheat germ— a steady diet of it. He pared down to one hundred eighty-five pounds — perhaps they’d take notice of him if there wasn’t so much of him to notice. But the studio big-shots said a thin Gleason just wasn’t funny. So he started stuffing himself during the day and sneaking down to the ice box (and the bar) at night (resembling, therefore, a “Volkswagen in pajamas”), and his weight shot up. Fat and funny again, he was miscast in “All Through the Night,” “Springtime in the Rockies,” “Navy Blues,” “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” and “Orchestra Wives.” Blue-eyed Arab Jackie’s facility for opening his mouth wide and then putting his foot in it is fully illustrated by what happened when he made his last picture during that first trip to Hollywood. “It was called ‘Desert Hawk,’ and it was a lulu.” Gleason says. “I went to see the producer, and while I’m there lie's having a pedicure. I want you to know. He was saying, ‘Watch out, Mildred, how you cut the big toe.’ and I was telling him what a great Arab I would make. “Finally he said: ‘Can you ride?’ I said I could ride like the wind — I had never been on a horse in my life. He said : ‘Can you duel?’ I said I was a whiz at fencing— I didn’t know the first thing about it. “Then he said, ‘You can’t have the job.’ I said why not, and he said: ‘Because you got blue eyes, and Arabs don’t have blue eyes.’ “I said: ‘Then you're in trouble, bud, because your leading man has two of the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.’ “The guy was really worried and he called up Research and said : ‘See if there are any Arabs with blue eyes.’ The answer came back that there may be two or three Arabs somewhere with blue eyes. So he told me I could have the job.” Now it was up to Jackie to make good on his boast that he could ride and fence. And he did just that. He proved he could ride a horse right into a fence. He didn’t have to put his own foot into his mouth, the horse’s hoof — after he was thrown the second time — did it for him. And for an encore, the steed threw him again. Gleason’s bruises, fore and aft, grounded him for the duration of the picture. And it turned out that the color of his eyes just didn’t matter. As the comic puts it, “I never got close enough to the camera for anyone to see my eyes. Most of the time I was peeking around somebody’s back.” If Jackie’s troubles were piling up during the days, they were nothing compared to what was happening to him at night. In an attempt to supplement his income of $250 per week from Warners and to hear some of the applause he needed so badly — and which was denied to him as a bit-player in pictures — he doubled as a comedian at Slapsie Maxie’s, an LA night club. His income did increase — at first Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom. the onetime middleweight champ, paid him $150 a week, and this was subsequently raised to $325. And better than that, the nightly applause was music to his ears. But soon he was in hot water with the ex-champ. Rosenbloom was trying his hand at being a funnyman and was a little unsure of himself. Jackie didn’t help. One night Maxie was doing an impression of Noel Coward when Gleason interrupted, with the lines the ex-fighter had learned to dread, “You poor soul. I feel sorry for you.” That did it. Jackie had opened his mouth once too often and Maxie was determined to put his own fist in it. He rushed at Gleason; and the fat man — remarkably fast on his feet for one carrying so much weight — backpedaled furiously, jumped off the stage and dashed up the aisle with Maxie right at his heels. The audience roared. But Jackie, ducking out into an alley, barely escaped. Maxie had hardly cooled down when, a few nights later. Jackie baited him again. Rosenbloom had a sure-fire laugh line that drew attention to his own ugliness. “1 had four hundred and fifty fights,” he’d say to Gleason. “What’s your excuse?” This time Jackie couldn’t hold his tongue — and almost had it slammed down his throat. “Betting on you ,” he ad-libbed. The ex-champ clenched his fists, moved towards Gleason, and again the fat man backpedaled. But Maxie. perhaps remembering his fruitless dash a few evenings before, let his hands fall to his sides and walked off the stage screaming. “I’m not gonna work with that guy any more. You can’t depend on him.” Jackie strikes out This was not the first time that Jackie Gleason had stirred up the wrath of a ploy. Back in the late ’30's the comic served a three-year stint at a roughhouse joint in Newark, known affectionately by its customers as “The Bucket of Blood.” His main activity, outside of introducing the other acts and doing impersonations of famous celebrities, was insulting the customers. the management and the help. Sometimes his needling induced more than laughter. Take the morning after he married dancer Genevieve Halford, for instance. (He was twenty and she was nineteen at the time.) 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