page_title: Jackie Gleason
section_title: Return to television
hierarchical_section_title: Jackie Gleason / Career / Return to television
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Edward R. Murrow and Jackie Gleason when Gleason was the subject of Murrow's Person to Person interview program in 1956.
context_page_description: John Herbert Gleason was an American actor, comedian, writer, composer and conductor. Developing a style and characters from growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy, exemplified by his city bus driver Ralph Kramden character in the television series The Honeymooners. He also developed The Jackie Gleason Show, which maintained high ratings from the mid-1950s through 1970. After originating in New York City, filming moved to Miami Beach, Florida in 1964 after Gleason took up permanent residence there.
  Among his notable film roles were Minnesota Fats in 1961's The Hustler, and Buford T. Justice in the Smokey and the Bandit series from 1977 into the early 1980s. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Gleason enjoyed a prominent secondary music career, producing a series of best-selling "mood music" albums. His first album, Music for Lovers Only, still holds the record for the longest stay on the Billboard Top Ten Charts, and his first 10 albums sold over a million copies each. To date, his output spans some 20-plus singles, nearly 60 long-playing record albums, and over 40 CDs.
context_section_description: In 1956 Gleason revived his original variety hour (including The Honeymooners), winning a Peabody Award. He abandoned the show in 1957 when his ratings for the season came in at No. 29 and the network "suggested" he needed a break. He returned in 1958 with a half-hour show featuring Buddy Hackett, which did not catch on.
  In addition to his salary and royalties, CBS paid for Gleason's Peekskill, New York, mansion, "Round Rock Hill". Set on six acres, the architecturally noteworthy complex included a round main home, guest house, and storage building. It took Gleason two years to design the house; it was completed in 1959. Gleason sold the home when he relocated to Miami.
  In October 1960, Gleason and Carney briefly returned, for a Honeymooners sketch, on a TV special. His next foray into television was the game show You're in the Picture, which was cancelled after a disastrously received premiere episode, but was followed the next week by a broadcast of Gleason's humorous half-hour apology, which was much better appreciated. For the rest of its scheduled run, the game show was replaced by a talk show named The Jackie Gleason Show.
  In 1962, Gleason resurrected his variety show with more splashiness and a new hook: a fictitious general-interest magazine called The American Scene Magazine, through which Gleason trotted out his old characters in new scenarios; including two new Honeymooners sketches. He also added another catchphrase to the American vernacular, first uttered in the 1963 film Papa's Delicate Condition: "How sweet it is!" The Jackie Gleason Show: The American Scene Magazine was a hit, and continued for four seasons. Each show began with Gleason delivering a monologue and commenting on the attention-getting outfits of band leader Sammy Spear. Then the "magazine" features would be trotted out, from Hollywood gossip (reported by comedian Barbara Heller) to news flashes (played for laughs with a stock company of second bananas, chorus girls and dwarfs). Comedian Alice Ghostley occasionally appeared as a downtrodden tenement resident, sitting on her front step and listening to boorish boyfriend Gleason for several minutes. After the boyfriend took his leave, the smitten Ghostley would exclaim, "I'm the luckiest girl in the world!" Veteran comics Johnny Morgan, Sid Fields, and Hank Ladd were occasionally seen opposite Gleason in comedy sketches. Helen Curtis played alongside him as a singer and actress, delighting audiences with her 'Madame Plumpadore' sketches with 'Reginald Van Gleason.'
  The final sketch was always set in Joe the Bartender's saloon, with Joe singing "My Gal Sal" and greeting his regular customer, the unseen Mr. Dennehy (the TV audience, as Gleason spoke to the camera in this section). During the sketch, Joe would tell Dennehy about an article he had read in the fictitious American Scene magazine, holding a copy across the bar. It had two covers: one featured the New York skyline and the other palm trees (after the show moved to Florida). Joe would bring out Frank Fontaine as Crazy Guggenheim, who would regale Joe with the latest adventures of his neighborhood pals and sometimes show Joe his current Top Cat comic book. Joe usually asked Crazy to sing—almost always a sentimental ballad in his fine, lilting baritone.
  Gleason revived The Honeymooners—first with Sue Ane Langdon as Alice and Patricia Wilson as Trixie for two episodes of The American Scene Magazine, then with Sheila MacRae as Alice and Jane Kean as Trixie for the 1966 series. By 1964 Gleason had moved the production from New York to Miami Beach, Florida, reportedly because he liked year-round access to the golf course at the nearby Inverrary Country Club in Lauderhill (where he built his final home). His closing line became, almost invariably, "As always, the Miami Beach audience is the greatest audience in the world!" In 1966, he abandoned the American Scene Magazine format and converted the show into a standard variety hour with guest performers.
  Gleason kicked off the 1966–1967 season with new, color episodes of The Honeymooners. Carney
caption: Edward R. Murrow and Gleason when the comedian was the subject of an interview on Person to Person in 1956
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