TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

Fine and Dan-Dan-Dandy (Continued from page 53) too much. He never lets down, and he never lets us let down. It's always a ball." Right now the place looks more like a mob scene than a ball, however. People mill up and down the aisles. You wonder how so many of them ever got past the challenging stage doorman who guards the entrance as if it were a combination of Fort Knox and the Nevada Proving Grounds. (Actually, the Gleason fans don't even try to crash. They stand patiently out on the sidewalk, waiting to yell: "Hi, Jackie" — or such characteristic expressions as "M-m-m, boy!" — as he dashes past them to the stage entrance, yelling back: "You're a dan-dan-dandy bunch," or, "One of these day-a-a-ys!") To one side of the theater's auditorium is the orchestra, with shining-pated Ray Bloch putting the boys (and the one lone girl, the harpist) through their paces. They're going over and over a phrase which is giving them trouble, smoothing it out for the evening performance. Jack Lescoulie, the smiling announcer who is now a definite part of this program, and Jimmy Blaine and Bill Nimo, the other announcers who have rapidly become closely identified with it, are mumbling over their lines in separate corners as the sets for the commercials are being checked and lights and cameras placed. A little girl actress, who will be in one of the commercials, sits quietly by herself studying a schoolbook. The shapely girls who will announce the imminent arrival on home screens of Mr. Gleason and his show, and who will parade again before the cameras as the show leaves the air, are moving into their places for a camera run-through. The June Taylor dancers are still scattered around the theater, knitting, reading, chattering, as they wait for their call. You feel like a child at a three-ring circus, trying to watch everything at once. "Places, everybody," an assistant calls, and the dancers now swarm out of the half-dark and onto the brightly lit stage. Ray Bloch signals with his baton and they start their routines, making a stunning pattern of outstretched legs and arms as seen from an overhead camera and recorded on the monitor sets scattered around the theater. Suddenly you are aware that Gleason has come in, quietly and without the welcoming fanfare you might expect for a guy with a new contract that goes 'way, 'way up in the millions. Already his eyes are focused on the monitor nearest the stage, so close to the front row of girls that he could reach out and grab a kicking foot. But Jackie pays attention only to what he sees on the screen, as the home viewers will see it later. That's what counts. He is wearing one of his favorite plaid shirts, a bright pink and black, with a gray and black t eed suit loosely fitted to his bulk but somehow giving the impression of a stud ed neatness. (He has that knack of looking neat, not common to most men of his size — and this is at the beginning of his now-famous public reducing regime, while he's still up there around the 260-pound mark.) He nods his head to the music of the dance, nods it more emphatically when the pattern of legs and arms in the overhead camera hits the screen again. He's T pleased, and June Taylor, who has been ' standing next to him, now sways con* ten ted ly to the music as she indicates to the girls that the kicks must be kept high, high, higher. 78 Certainly there was no fanfare when Jackie arrived indoors, but something electric ran through the theater, the performers, the orchestra, the technicians, the control room — as if everything were keyed to a higher pitch than it had been before. Details have sjiddenly become more important. When one of the announcers runs through a commercial, it is Jackie, standing by and seemingly paying no attention, who notices that one phrase sounds like the brand name of a competitive product when it's said fast and slurred a little. "Just switch the words around so no one will get confused," he suggests. No one else had noticed. Only Gleason, the perfectionist. "Jackie doesn't miss a thing," Art Carney says. "Even when you think he's not watching or hearing, he knows exactly what's going on. And it isn't always an error, or a fault, that he notices. He's a guy who's quick to tell you when he's pleased." Art, who plays Ed Norton, Ralph Kramden's neighbor — Jackie, as everybody knows, plays Ralph — is far better-looking than he appears in the get-up of Norton on the show. Like Jackie, he likes brightcolored or plaid shirts for rehearsals, and today his is blue and black, set off by a gray suit. The girls, Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph — the ever-lovin' but barbed-tongued Alice Kramden and Trixie Norton of "The Honeymooners" — are casual but chic in their street clothes. Audrey is wearing a gray cashmere sweater over a white silk sports shirt and an embroidered gray skirt. Joyce is in black shirt and skirt, topped by a bright orange vest. Suddenly you notice that Audrey and Jackie are on stage, quietly rehearsing. This is it, you realize. This is what passes for "dress rehearsal" on this show, although the lines are still not completely committed to memory — certainly not Jackie's. He holds a script in his hand while he goes through Ralph Kramden's gestures, with producer Jack Hurdle acting as prompter from the sidelines. (Later, there will be a complete reading in Jackie's dressing room and the script will be timed and cut, and Jackie will do some "cramming" and know exactly what he's about, when he steps out before the cameras at eight o'clock.) But now he is still feeling his way, throwing in some ad libs, and still worrying over technical details — if a window is supposed to stick when he tries to open it, he wants to be sure he can count on that when he's doing the show. If a faucet is supposed to come off in Audrey's hand, Jackie worries about whether it will break off when the right moment comes. He is always the combination producer-director-actor-boss man, no matter how many people surround him — and plenty always do, for this is a big show. When "The Honeymooners" was just a short skit, instead of the practically fulllength program it is now, Jackie used to rehearse it even more casually. Sometimes he would stand on the stage and call out to Audrey, resting out in the theater, "Aud, what's your opening line?" Audrey would throw it back at him and they would be off, Jackie mumbling part of his lines, substituting "la-la-la-la-la" for words he couldn't remember, and Audrey calling hers out. They still laugh about the day when sister Jayne Meadows (now Mrs. Steve Allen) came visiting for the first time. "Is this what you call 'rehearsal' on this show?" Jayne asked Audrey. "This is it," Audrey answered. "What do you think of it?" For once, Jayne — who is one of television's most articulate panel members — was speechless. She never went to a rehearsal again. "The mere thought of our going on, with only that kind of preparation, scared her," Audrey says. "She preferred not to know anything about it. Now we rehearse some on Thursdays and Fridays, because to sustain characters all through a show does require more preparation, but Jackie is not one to over-rehearse at any time. It keeps the show more spontaneous, his way." The fact that Jackie not only has a wonderful memory, but has a marvelous gift for ad-lib, makes this arrangement possible. The fact that Art Carney is Jackie's match, and that Audrey has had to learn fast, contributes to it. When Jackie and Art get to throwing in lines at rehearsals, some things are so good they stay in. When they ad-lib on the air, only those close to the show know what a battle of wits goes on, how fast Art has to pick up the ball when Jackie throws it to him, and the other way around. "There's a charge in the man when he gets started," Art explains. '"You feel it the moment he pushes the curtains aside and comes out every Saturday night." This element of the unexpected adds a lot to the program and some people wonder if the filmed "Honeymooners" will be as much fun for everybody, including the viewers. Jackie is sure it will be, if only because the people involved in it will be more relaxed. "Saturday rears its ugly head as soon as Saturday is over," he says, meaning that as soon as one live show is finished, the next week's show begins to pressure him. Perhaps as many as two programs can be filmed in a week,' beginning sometime in midsummer, and that will leave the rest of the time more free for some of Jackie's other activities. He can concentrate more on each show, too, as it's filmed, knowing there is always something ready to go on and that this one need not be hurried. He has ideas for personal appearances later on — like the show he put on at the Paramount Theater in New York last year, and his successful engagement at the famous night club, La Vie en Rose. He wants to do more composing and recording, like his Capitol album, "Music for Lovers," and a new one, "Music to Remember Her." He wants to play an occasional straight role in a dramatic play on television. There is a plan revolving in his mind for a TV program based on the investigation of psychic phenomena, a subject that interests him deeply. He has bought the movie rights to a book satirizing television, and there is a possibility he will star in a feature-length film for theater showing, a project still in the discussion stage. Added to all this, he will personally supervise the half-hour live variety show, featuring the Dorsey Brothers and their musicians, and the June Taylor dancers, the group he inspired June to create. ("When he told me, for the first show, that he wanted sixteen dancers — an unheard of number at that time — to appear at one time on television," June says, "I thought he must be mad. But, as usual, he knew exactly what he was doing.") The variety half-hour will precede the "Honeymooners" half-hour on all next season's schedules. There will be guest stars, approved by Jackie, and he will appear occasionally on the show himself, perhaps re-creating some of his famous characters — such as Reggie Van Gleason, the Loudmouth, the Poor Soul, with Art