The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 46

mmff nft A week in Florida with the man who's the highest liver of them all BY MICHAEL HANLON his waiting $28,000 Grand Mercedes to start flying a little. Earlier that day, between the final rehearsal and the taping of the show, Gleason was in his dressing room, reclining in his reclining chair, which thrust his huge girth ceilingward like a weather balloon. He was wearing a scarlet jacket with the words "Gleason's Gorgeous Clams" prints in yellow on the back. He'd had similar jackets made for all the dancers. (Gleason started in showbusiness as a diver and swimmer in aquashows.

A clam, he later explained, is a chorus girl in an aquashow.) June Taylor, the choreographer, has a jacket that reads "Gleason's Gorgeous Head Clam." 1 I i i i I i 1 I V- I i. i i- i J- 1 v' I J' s. in one with hinges so that it folds out and fits your shape when you tilt back (and Gleason, being six feet tall and weighing 250 pounds, is a tough shape to fit). If Carney wants another drink, and he doesn't often, he passes his glass to the door and it comes back within minutes, and nobody raids it en route. If Gleason wants a drink, and he does frequently, he shouts "Makeup" and Ed DeVierno, his valet, friend and troubleshooter, weaves through the crowd, gets the glass, fills it with ice, scotch and soda and returns it to The Great One.

The show comes on and it's as good as everyone thought it was. Most of the people in the room have heard the lines dozens of times before, at two days of readings and four days of rehearsals. But they still laugh, and mean it, because Gleason and Carney are so perfect together, are such a bora comedy team that, no matter how many times they do something, it always seems new. lcason, looking benign but tired only Gleason and those really close to him are left. Jack Philbin, the executive producer, and Gordon MacRae, the singer and husband of Sheila MacRae, who plays Alice in the show, are in the kitchen.

Frank Bunetta, the director, is lolling on a couch in Gleason's wardrobe room, absolutely bushed, knowing that hell have to go through it all again next week. Gleason suggests it's about time to go out and "fly a little," have something to eat, something to drink, and take in a little entertainment. He is boisterous, exuberant and excited. And still in the suit he was wearing as Ralph Cramden in the last scene. He calls for Ed DeVierno and a clean suit.

"I'm sorry, Jack," DeVierno says, "I forgot to bring you a suit. You'll have to go straight home tonight." Gleason assumes the exasperation induced by Ed Norton, and DeVierno, encouraged, goes on. "Tell you what I'll do, Jack, I'll lend you my suit. But I gotta have it back in the morning. I'm going to a wedding.

I gotta give the bride away." "If you had a bride, you'd have to give her away," Gleason says. They swear amiably at each other. DeVierno, who is built somewhat like his boss, but about six inches shorter, produces a suit he could get into three times and hands the pants to Gleason. Gleason dresses, brushes his hair, picks up his gold cigarette case, lighter and watch and tucks a carnation in his buttonhole. Five minutes ago he looked like fat, bumbling Ralph Cramden, the Brooklyn bus driver.

Now he no longer looks fat. He looks big and elegant and successful and, above all, graceful and handsome. He grabs another booze from DeVierno and marches briskly to the stage door and every Saturday night at about 9:30, die crowd gathers in Jackie Gleason's dressing room to see if it was all worthwhile. They sit on folding chairs, or squashed on a chesterfield, or on the floor, or on laps, or stand against the wall or each other, exhausted, anxious, rattling the ice in their glasses, watching the monitor set in the corner. They are waiting to see a playback especially for them, the important, the anointed, the invited of the Jackie Gleason Show that has just been taped ia Miami Beach Auditorium.

There are about 35 people in room that comfortably holds 10. Most are uncomfortable. Getting a drink means having your glass passed around the room and out the door and hoping it finds someone in the kitchen kind enough to fill it; then you have to sit and wait, probably in vain, because chances are that someone in white buckskin shoes or a three-ounce suit or with papier-mache bangles clunking on both wrists will suddenly find a brimful tumbler passing by and forget that it's in transit. There's no deliberate larceny involved. It's just that this is Saturday night, everyone's been going pretty hard all week rehearsing, rewriting and re-rehearsing gradually putting on the pressure until tonight, when the show was taped.

And now that show is about to come on the monitor in living color and everyone is about to find out if the show was as good as the audience thought it was. And, man, at times like this, you need a booze glomf, as Jack calls it. The tension is probably greater for Gleason and Art Carney than anyone else but, because they're The Star and the co-star, they don't have any trouble getting a drink. They sit at a large table in comfortable chairs, Gleason ind at this moment you learn why was talking about Art Carney. "When Art and I came to work together again on a Honeymooners show last January, it was like we had never been apart.

We knew all the moves and just went into the routine the way we did nine years ago. We work well together, I know that. We have an affinity for each other a rapport. It was obvious the first time we worked together on a Reggie Van Gleason show. I could tell right away he was an outstanding comedian." Gleason tilted his chair forward and reached for a cigarette, one of about 60 to 80 he would smoke that day.

He inhaled luxuriously and continued talking about Carney. "We see a lot of each other. Usually after the show we go out for a couple of drinks and we see each other every day at rehear- continued on page 4 Gleason has the whole crew's loyalty and respect. He laughs a lot at everybody else, particularly Art Carney, of whom he is very solicitous. He leads the applause in the room after the opening dance number and turns to June Taylor, the choreographer, and says, "Beautiful, baby, just beautiful." He turns to Mario Alcalde, the imported actor who made two brief appearances in the show as a Spanish blackmailer, and says, "Great, pal, you were great," and Alcalde, tense until then, just glows.

Everybody applauds when the playback is over. There's no more tension and the parties are beginning to form. The crowd thins and soon The Great One's office oozes opulence which is just what you would expect of a man who wears mulberry golf pants. 2.