The Miami News from Miami, Florida • 52

Sere Comes His Rotundity, With Quips And Profundity Bi jj WW. V-' 'r tfl 'I 4 jj VI. I I I I OUTSIDE MIAMI BEACH AUDITORIUM, where the Great-One's hour-long shows will be taped: a new $100,000 home, new names, new talent, and perhaps a stint atop the Florida exhibit in the World's Fair. by margcry Iwaslcr ''-t--s vv 'kl ELCOME BACK, JACKIE. You're the VV Kin and how sweet it is to have you chugging onto the Miami scene complete with 44 pieces of luggage and 150 of your merry men.

Frankly the town was Dullsville without you. That was the feeling expressed by Jackie Gleason's loyal subjects as his train raced him and his gang to the welcome bash on Collins Avenue where 100-odd others (his press agent's words, not ours) will whoop it up tonight before the star and his cast settle down for a long winter of TV tapings and wedge shots. "We're shaking the soot and sod from our slippers for another sojourn in the land of sun and sand," said Jackie yesterday as he stepped onto his special 14-car express train leaving from New York's Pennsy Station. His words were occasion for great jubilation up and down Miami Beach; Miamians gave a few cheers too. By tomorrow Miami's Mahatma, who's not here on vacation, so he says, will start, work.

Jackie wheels his sporty Mercedes up to his new $100,000 home at the Country Club of Miami Estates sometime during the a.m. "to rest up for the filming ordeal ahead." It will be the first time he has seen his Taj Mahal, since it was nothing more than a hole in the ground over which his pal Arnie Palmer trod. Thirty-two hour-long comedy and variety sessions, for which the world is waiting anxiously if not breathlessly, will occupy the King's time while he's not on the links. His first show is scheduled for taping Aug. 27 for viewing on CBS-TV Sept.

25. Jackie's profile is the same bowlful of jelly and all, but his show will be different. American Scene Magazine has been scrapped. Gone is the silvery red and white curtain that opened each Jackie Gleason Show at the Miami Beach Auditorium. In its place is a gossamer green and black creation.

June Taylor and her leggy dancers will be back; several are Miami girls. Doc Marcus, a comedy magician, has disappeared from Fred Waring's Shawnee Inn in Pennsylvania (where the great one plays summertime golf) and will join the show. Frank Fontaine and all his kids are arriving, and Jackie's TV sketch wife Helen Curtis will again snarl at him through this season. Sammy Spear is still wearing those nutty jackets which are always good for some camera shots while they set up for the commercials. Phil Napolean is on hand with his Memphis 5.

Jackie's jokesters, headed by Marvin Marx and Walter Stone, head his writing staff for the 15th year. A few new scribblers have been added. Absent from this season's show is Barbara Heller, Christine Clam of the past; series. She returned to the West Coast night club circuit. Gorgeous Glea Girl, DarSene En-low, who has been with the King for three years, left him for another man.

Now wed, she will appear in a new Elvis Presley movie. The rest of the crew, dancers, musicians, office staffers, carpenters, electricians, etc. will fan out through the Miami area. Not one to miss a trick, Gleason has arranged for footage of the festivities en route to Miami to be used on the Steve Lawrence telecast, a new CES TV property this fall. Miamians have come to regard Gleason as their native son and tend to have a memory lapse about any other town with which Gleason has been associated.

Ducing the last season he took part in every big civic bash including becoming Grand Marshal of the Orange Bowl parade. There has been a whisper (unconfirmed) about a move to put the King on top of the Florida exhibit at the World's Fair instead of that orange. O.J. may then become J. G.

So far it's just talk. A TRAVELER of ome seasoning, the Miami Mahatma carries his clubs not to mention his club soda. MIAMI Th Miami Jfews 1, J5 14.