Frank n Jackie Sinatra Gleason

 

Frank & Jackie

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACKIE" !!!

Jackie Gleason's family background was, according to most accounts, almost Dickensian. It was marked by severe illness and grinding poverty, in any event. His father was a henpecked insurance clerk who took his myriad disappointments in life out in drink. He deserted the family when Jackie was nine. His mother was overprotective of her younger son, who died when Jackie was in his teens. An older brother, Clemence, died, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 14, when Jackie was three.

In the 1930s, before he ever really made it even in small-time venues,

Gleason was a bartender at a bar in Newark, NJ, called The Blue Mirror. He wore his apron high on the chest just like he did as his "Joe the Bartender" character 30 years later on his television show, and he entertained the patrons with his antics, just like "Joe the Bartender." Eventually, he got such a following that the owner gave him a chance at the microphone on stage. The rest, as they say, is history. This was also a time when he actually lived and slept in the back room with the empty bottles, etc. Naturally, of course, it was across the street from a pool hall that he patronized in the afternoons after he was finished cleaning up the Blue Mirror.

"Drinking removes warts and pimples. Not from me. But from those I look at."

Jackie Gleason was a mentor and frequent drinking buddy of Frank Sinatra. It was Gleason who first introduced Sinatra to Jack Daniels whiskey, which became Sinatra's signature drink.

Gleason recorded a number of albums featuring instrumental "mood music" (what is now known today as "lounge music"). Gleason served as producer, bandleader, and (on occasion) vibraphone player, despite the fact that he couldn't read sheet music. Several of the albums included original compositions by Gleason. One album, "Lonesome Echo", topped the charts in 1955, and featured an album cover with original art by Salvador Dalí. When asked what inspired him to became a "mood music" legend, Gleason replied, "Every time I ever watched Clark Gable do a love scene in the movies, I'd hear this really pretty music, real romantic, come up behind him and help set the mood. So I'm figuring that if Gable needs that kinda help, then a guy in Canarsie has gotta be dyin' for something like this." 

(IMDb)

Happy Birthday, Jackie Gleason!