Jackie Gleason is dead
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from June 1987.
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Gleason was one of American television's biggest draws in the 1950s. When as bus driver Ralph Kramden, he turned to his wife, shaking his fist and threatening, "One of these days, Alice," millions of viewers shouted along.
In later years, his recurring role as Sheriff Buford T. Justice in the "Smokey and the Bandit" movies won over a new generation. His falstaffian capacity for enjoying life was reflected in his two trademark lines "How sweet it is" and "And away we go".
He drove himself hard on the set he once broke a leg on the air and played hard off it. His drinking and eating habits became the stuff of legend. Producer David Susskind once said Gleason could "put away more Scotch per square hour than any man alive," and Gleason's weight at one point ballooned to more than 280 pounds (127 kilos).
"You only live once," Gleason would say. "Let's live it up." He admitted to smoking as many as six packs of cigarettes per day, and scarcely cut back after a triple coronary bypass in 1978. Doctors also performed artery bypass surgery on his legs in 1983, and he suffered from emphysema and diabetes. He was born Herbert John Gleason on Feb. 26, 1916, the son of an insurance auditor who lived in a poor section of the Brooklyn area of New York City. When Jackie was 8, his father vanished one night on the way home from work. He was never seen again.
To support her son, Jackie's mother went to work as a subway cashier. Jackie hustled money at a neighborhood pool hall, developing skills that later helped bring him an Academy Award nomination.
