Jim Bishop - The Golden Ham: A Candid Biography of Jackie Gleason

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Text originally published in 1956 under the same title.

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Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

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THE GOLDEN HAM:

A CANDID BIOGRAPHY OF JACKIE GLEASON

BY

JIM BISHOP

Contents

To

Two Ladies

Elinor Dunning Bishop and Margaret Dunningmy wife and her mother

THERE ARE several Jackie Gleasons. I know some of them. There is Gleason the comedian. Millions know him, and hes a great talent. Then there is Gleason the serious actor and Gleason the director and Gleason the producer and Gleason the writer. Some people know these Gleasons, and each of these differs from the other Gleasons in substance and size and quality. Then there is Gleason the businessmansecond-rate, but he thinks hes good at itand then there is Gleason the thinker ( apt and fast ) and Gleason the man ( fat, out of shape, but light on his feet and quick on the conversational draw ) and Gleason the tenement-house kid from Brooklyn ( nervy and not a bit surprised that hes on top ) and Gleason the lover, Gleason the musician, Gleason the moody and Gleason the lonely, tormented soul.

Thirteen Gleasons. There are more. But these are the thirteen I have written about. They add up to a complex and fascinating character. Gleason the lonely, tormented soul is the thermostat who heats or chills the remaining twelve. The tormented soul believes in heaven and hell and in divine grace and damnation, Sometimes it does not approve of the other Gleasons. All souls come equipped with built-in consciences. The conscience, in some cases, blackmails the mind of the malefactor, and the sinner finds himself doing all sorts of good deeds for strangerseven giving away large sums of moneyto still the whispered indictment.

Gleason, I am convinced, has a king-sized soul. And a loud conscience. These, coupled with a body which was intended to enjoy all of the sensual pleasures, makes for a disparate, sometimes desperate, character. He has a gargantuan appetite for food, women, camaraderie, music and charity. They do not all pull in the same direction.

Is he a genius? I dont know. Ive never met a genius. He is brighter mentally than some who are called geniuses. He can, and often does, read two books in one lonely, sleepless night. They may be the wrong books, by intellectual standards, but he reads them and he blots up what they have to tell him. I have never seen Jackie Gleason at a point where he could not understand the subject under discussion. He is a nervous thinker, cocking his head and nodding to the speaker, anticipating what is going to be said and saying it first, or adding to it. Jackie has enormous powers of comprehension plus a sharp assessment of his own weaknesses.

He is as honest and as courageous as an urchin the night before First Holy Communion. In looking over the finished manuscript of this book, for example, he did not ask that anything be omitted or altered, and yet there are parts of this biography that made him wince. He lives by a code which says that a big boy doesnt cry when hes hurt. That probably accounts for the overly callous I-dont-care letter from Jackie, which is printed below. A fighter who is hit hard, and hurt, often grins and dances a little. Gleason is like that too.

In his art, he has the grace and exquisite timing of a Chaplin. He is a good actor because he loves to act and he studies acting. And yet he never immerses himself in a part. Once, after a hilarious scene in The Honeymooners, he came offstage mopping his face, walked up to a stagehand and said: I was thinking of your problem while I was out there, and I think I have the answer

Gleasons memory is, in a way, his greatest single asset. He remembers almost everything he ever learned, including the bad things. He remembers that he once had to split a fifty-nine-cent dinner with two other actors because all three were broke, and so today he overpays all who work for him. Nor do you have to remind him that success is a bubble which can be reduced in a trice to a little mound of suds in the palm of the hand. He is aware of this. He has watched others go to the top and he has seen the day come when some of them were glad to accept a one-night booking as guest stars on his show. For twenty years he had been boasting that some day he would pass them all by, including Milton Berle. When the time came that Berles sponsors switched to Gleason, the Fat One was the only person in the Gleason office who wasnt jumping for joy. Somewhere, he knew, there was a young unknown, skinny and hungry perhaps, who was feeling his way in the night-club smoke and who would some day come along and pass Gleason by. It had to be.

In his personal relationships Jackie is as sensitive to affection, or the lack of it, as a schoolgirl. His lawyers, his producers, his agents must not only be good in their chosen fields, but there must also be full confidence in each of them. They must be pals. It is not necessary that they love one another; in the hurly-burly of show business it sometimes helps if there is a little jostling for position under the star. He delegates practically no authority; Gleason makes the decisions, great and small. His manager cannot promise that Gleason will make an appearance; his executive producer cannot okay a script; his choreographer cannot approve costumes for the chorus of Stage Show; his director cannot authorize anyone to build a set. When the new office was completed, and a man arrived with palette, brushes and gold leaf, it was Gleason who paused in his multimillion-dollar industry to tell the man what names to put on each office door and what to hand-letter on the Gleason office: The Elephant Room

Jackie claims that he is hammy or conceited as an actor. He isnt. He stages a relentless war against hamminess and it shows up in amusing ways. He signs his name in lower casejackie gleasonand his corporation is listed properly as jackie gleason enterprises, a sort of uncapital gains. Onstage, he will always give the preferred spot to a subordinate player, and, as Sammy Birch says, hell make you a bigger actor than you are He is as aware of his stature in his craft as his most suppliant fan, but, now that he is there, he fears the stigma of the swelled head and, to offset it, he insists that his valet take the big car on a day off. It also causes him to be deferential to clerks, doormen and waiters.

And yet, this is overanalyzing, oversimplifying the man. He is real. He is regular. He is sincere. He is possibly one of the great theatrical talents of this century.

JIM BISHOP

Teaneck, New Jersey