Herbert John "Jackie" Gleason (February 26, 1916 – June 24, 1987) was an American comedian, actor, and musician.
One of the most popular stars of early television, Gleason was respected for both comedic and dramatic roles. However, his major legacy is a brash visual and verbal comedy, especially as delivered as the character Ralph Kramden on the pioneering sitcom The Honeymooners.
One of two sons of a father who abandoned the family (a brother died when Jackie was a boy), Gleason was raised by a loving but troubled, overworked mother who died when he was 19. (Gleason sometimes pushed the date of death back three years; biographer William A. Henry III wrote of Gleason's tendency to both exaggerate and obscure his hardscrabble childhood.) His first recognition as an entertainer came on Broadway, when he appeared in Follow the Girls.
By the 1940s, Gleason was in the movies, first at Warner Brothers as "Jackie C. Gleason" in such films as Navy Blues with Ann Sheridan and Martha...
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Jackie Gleason died in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Broward County
Nothing in Common is a 1986 comedy-drama film, directed by Garry Marshall and starring Tom Hanks and comedian Jackie Gleason, in his last movie role. The film, released in 1986, was not a tremendous hit at first, but it became more popular as Tom Hanks' fame grew. Though not a financial success, the film is considered by some to be the pivotal role in Hanks' career because it marked his transition from less developed comedic roles to becoming a leading actor in more serious films, and features what some critics cite as a mesmerizing Gleason performance.
The original music score was composed by Patrick Leonard. The film marketed with the tagline "On his way up the corporate ladder, David Basner confronts his greatest challenge: his father."
The film is about happy-go-lucky ad-exec David Basner, who recently got a promotion at his Chicago ad agency. He is care-free until his parents split up after 36 years of marriage. Now, he must care for his aging bitter father Max, and be his...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091653
Izzy & Moe is a 1985 made for TV prohibition-era crime/comedy film, starring Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. It is a fictional account of two prohibition-era policemen, Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, and their adventures in tracking down illegal bars.During the prohibition era of the 1920s, a gangster named John Vanderhoff, alias 'The Dutchman', was quickly doing away with any competition and setting up his own speakeasys. In order to help fight this crime, the local police need to get some extra men. In steps Izzy Einstein (Jackie Gleason), a man who is desperate to come home with a steady paycheck to support his wife, mother-in-law and four daughters. Izzy is also interested in disproving his mother-in-law's assertion that he's just a 'bum', with the constant refrain that if he ever amounts to anything she'll light his cigar in Macy's Window.When the police chief tells Izzy that there's no job for him, Izzie has a prepared speech for such occasions: "This is America. And I'm proud...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089358
Smokey and the Bandit Part Three (often referred to by the shorter title Smokey and the Bandit 3) is the 1983 sequel to Smokey and the Bandit and Smokey and the Bandit II starring Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Paul Williams, Pat McCormick, Mike Henry and Colleen Camp. The film also includes a very brief cameo near the film's end by the original Bandit, Burt Reynolds.
As is the case with the two proceeding Smokey and the Bandit films, Smokey and the Bandit Part Three begins with Big (McCormick) and Little (Williams) Enos offering a sizable wager on one's ability to transport a shipment a large distance in a short period of time. Offering a slight twist, however, the offer is this time made to a retiring Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason), betting $250,000 against his badge on his ability to transport a large stuffed fish from an eatery in Florida to Texas.
Unlike the two earlier films, Enos and Enos this time seem to be quite active in their desire to see Buford fail in his goal. After...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086325
The Toy is a 1982 comedy film starring Richard Pryor, Jackie Gleason, Ned Beatty, Scott Schwartz, and Virginia Capers. It is an adaptation of the 1976 French film Le Jouet. The film is directed by Richard Donner, who also worked with Ned Beatty on the first Superman movie.
Richard Pryor plays Jack Brown, a thirty-something African-American man living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (or a suburb). Brown is an unemployed writer looking for work, and in danger of losing his house to the bank. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to get a job working for the local newspaper, the Bugle, he becomes desperate for a job and ends up taking one as a part-time hostess and "cleaning lady" for U.S. Bates (Jackie Gleason), who owns the paper and many other local businesses. Brown is humiliated as he clumsily attempts to serve food at a luncheon. He is quickly fired, but stubbornly stays in a department store owned by Bates to clean up that night.
Enter "Master" Eric Bates (Scott Schwartz), the young son...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084809
Smokey and the Bandit is a 1977 movie starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams, and Mike Henry. It inspired several other trucking films, including two sequels, Smokey and the Bandit II (originally known as Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again in the U.K.), and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. There were also a series of 1994 television movies (Bandit Goes Country, Bandit Bandit, Beauty and the Bandit and Bandit's Silver Angel) from original director/writer Hal Needham loosely based on the earlier version, with Emmy-winning actor Brian Bloom now playing Bandit [1]. The three original movies introduced two generations of the Pontiac Trans Am. The film was the second highest grossing film of 1977, beaten only by Star Wars.
The movie was filmed primarily in Georgia in the cities of McDonough, GA and Jonesboro, GA. The scenes in Texarkana were filmed in Jonesboro and the surrounding area, and many of the chase scenes were filmed in the...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076729
Skidoo is a 1968 comedy film starring Jackie Gleason and Groucho Marx, directed by Otto Preminger, and released by Paramount Pictures, with storyline by Doran William Cannon.
The movie featured a cast of mostly stars and veteran character actors, including Carol Channing, Cesar Romero, Frankie Avalon, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Richard Kiel, Arnold Stang, Frank Gorshin, Mickey Rooney, Slim Pickens, Stacy King, newcomers John Phillip Law, Alexandra Hay, Donyale Luna and Austin Pendleton, Groucho in his final movie role, and a hummable score (arranged and conducted by George Tipton) by singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, who also appeared briefly in the movie. It was an "acid comedy", with elements of free love and the hippie movement, and satires of technology, anti-technology, modern times and creature comforts.
The story is about a retired mobster, Tony Banks (Gleason), now settled with wife Flo (Channing) and daughter Darlene (Hay), who worries about his daughter's...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063612
Soldier in the Rain is a 1963 comedy-drama film about the friendship between an aging, obese Army Master Sergeant (Jackie Gleason) and a young country bumpkin buck sergeant (Steve McQueen in an extremely uncharacteristic and animated comedic performance). Tuesday Weld plays Gleason's character's love interest in a film often referred to by critics as charming and unusual. Produced and co-written by Blake Edwards, the screenplay is based on the novel by William Goldman. The film was directed by Ralph Nelson, who had directed Gleason in Requiem for a Heavyweight the previous year. Jackie Gleason as MSgt. Maxwell Slaughter Steve McQueen as Sgt. Eustis Clay Tuesday Weld as Bobbi Jo Pepperdine Tom Poston as Lt. Magee ...,
Gigot was an American motion picture released in 1962 by 20th Century Fox. It starred Jackie Gleason and was directed by Gene Kelly.
Gigot (Gleason) is a mute Frenchman living in the Montmartre district of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. He makes a hand-to-mouth living as a janitor at his landlady's apartment building. Though treated with condescension by most of his neighbors, he is much loved by the local children and by animals, whom he often feeds. He seems content with his life, though he has one strange passion: he attends every local funeral, whether or not he knew the departed, marching in the funeral march and crying along with the other mourners.
One rainy evening he is returning home when he comes across a prostitute named Collette (Katherine Kath) and her young daughter Nicole (Diane Gardner) sitting in a doorway trying to keep dry. He lets them stay at his apartment. Collette is suspicious of Gigot from the start but young Nicole warms to him right away....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056017
The Hustler is a 1959 novel by American writer Walter Tevis, later made into a 1961 film of the same title. It tells the story of a young pool hustler, Edward "Fast Eddie" Felson, who challenges the legendary Minnesota Fats (a fictional character, not to be confused with Rudolph "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone (1913 - 1996), who later adopted the nickname as his own).After losing to Fats, Eddie could spiral down to the scrapheap, but he meets Bert Gordon, a stakehorse. Bert teaches him about winning, or more particularly about losing. Tautly written, it is a treatise on how someone, with all of the skills, can lose if he "wants" to lose; how a loser is beaten by himself, not by his opponent; and how he can learn to win, if he can look deeply enough into himself.The book was followed by the sequel The Color of Money....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054997
Jackie Gleason was born
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