Jackie Gleason and Trains

Jackie Gleason owned two private railcars. I believe they were both streamlined cars and one or both were observation cars. I had read somewhere that he frequently would venture into the train his car was attatched to, and would visit with fans in the lounge car, even buying drinks and cigars for patrons of the train.

what you can do when your brlng ln good ratlngs. as much as $100000 was then lt pales compalred to the $million an eplsode some stars get now. and he was called The Great One for a reason!

My father grew up with Jackie in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Jackie, and also my aunt and uncle, once lived on Chauncey Street. Jackie was briefly the "hook man" in one of the local Vaudeville theatres, and he would pay my dad and his buddies a dollar apiece to be the claque (applause generators) when he hooked an act off the stage.

My dad also played pool with Jackie, who even then, was quite a hustler. He did most of his own shots in the movie by the same name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otN66-Mt6HM

Gerry,
Great link. Very nice to see that video.

Gerry, I second that. My favorite TV show of all time was the Honeymooners. Thanks

And I thought Jackie was into buses.

Ralph was into buses, Jackie into trains. Don

THANKS for sharing that great video!

Maybe he was a tram op before they tore out the tracks and overhead!

For some great music,go to Pandora and type in Jackie Gleason. His big band music was fabulous!

Great video Gerry! I know that Jackie Gleason used Lionel Trains as props in a few of his shows as the playboy Reginald Van Gleason where he used the trains to bring him drinks but did he also collect and run model trains?

Steve Tapper

I saw Jackie one night talking with Johnny Carson (I think). Jackie was telling about one of his train trip/media blitzs. The buzz was that he was partying hardy and was drunk quite a lot. If what Jackie said was true then it was the media that was blitzed and Jackie was the one writing all of the copy for the drunk Hollywood columnists! It was a funny show!

"How sweet it is!"

Gleason had a terrific orchestra with Bobby Hackett on trumpet. He wrote and arranged "Melancholy Serenade", which became his theme song. His orchestra played many classic love songs by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hart, Jerome Kern, and many others.

Very relaxing music!

The only entertainer greater then Gleason was his ego.

You guys should read his biography,,,sad story on his way to the top.

rat

Hey Conducta, does this train go to Bismarck North Dakota?

I love Gleason! I did read his bio some years back. I found it very interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by Robert Snyder:
For some great music,go to Pandora and type in Jackie Gleason. His big band music was fabulous!

After I read his bio, I went out & found his music. It was a tough to locate, but I have most of his stuff on CD & something like 75% on vinyl which I found in a thrift store in Gilman, IL while I was recording an album down there. The music is great & goes very well with postwar Lionel

quote:

Originally posted by Tinplate Art:
Gleason had a terrific orchestra with Bobby Hackett on trumpet. He wrote and arranged "Melancholy Serenade", which became his theme song. His orchestra played many classic love songs by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hart, Jerome Kern, and many others.

Very relaxing music!

Also, "You are my Greatest Love" which he wrote (or co wrote, I don't remember) became the theme song for The Honeymooners

About 25 years ago there was a secret organization known as

Royal
Association for the
Longeviety and
Preservation of the
Honeymooners

It was a laugh riot, newsletters , conventions etc etc. It was a nationwide group started by 2 guys in CW Post College . They closed up shop when Gleason passed away.

RALPH

Don't forget Gleason's famous quote: "Booze goes swell with Lionel."

A few years ago they did a TV story about the life of Jackie Gleason. The tall actor Brad something who also played Ray Romano's brother on Everyone Loves Raymond played the lead role.

His early years were pretty painful for him personally and he was a difficult person to work with as he became more successful. He was notorious for micro managing everything in his shows. When they were interviewing actresses for the part of Alice Kramden for the Honeymooners he was doing the interviews. When Audrey Meadows showed up he took one look at her and said that she was to pretty and elegant to play Alice as a housewife and dismissed her.

Audrey went out and took off her makeup and fixed her hair in a more plain hairstyle and came back in to interview again. She immediately assumed the role of Alice and started bantering back and forth with Jackie as Ralph Kramden. They went back and forth without a script but still in their roles and finally Jackie told everyone I found my Alice.

In one of the Dean Martin Roasts of Jackie Gleason he made a comment about his drinking a partying by saying that he had been on the more more times than Johnson wax!

Steve Tapper

quote:

Originally posted by NYC Fan:
Don't forget Gleason's famous quote: "Booze goes swell with Lionel."

I remember reading about that in the book "All Aboard"

quote:

In one of the Dean Martin Roasts of Jackie Gleason he made a comment about his drinking a partying by saying that he had been on the more more times than Johnson wax!

Steve, I think you meant....he had been on the floor more times than Johnson's Wax.

quote:

Also, "You are my Greatest Love" which he wrote (or co wrote, I don't remember) became the theme song for The Honeymooners

Thanks Christopher! I never knew the name of that tune.

Tinplate Art:

My father also lived on Chauncey Street in Bushwick. He lived at 330 Chauncey, which would have been next door to the Kramdens at 328!

My father was a few years older than Jackie, so he did know him, although they both attended the same schools.

My grandfather used to take my father to the nearby Halsey Theater to see vaudeville shows. The Halsey is where Jackie caught the showbiz bug when he attended with HIS father.

I know it has been documented here on the forum how Gleason used Lionel trains in at least one of his shows. He apparently liked real trains, too!

John Knapp
Erie, not Eerie

quote:

Originally posted by NYC Fan:

quote:

In one of the Dean Martin Roasts of Jackie Gleason he made a comment about his drinking a partying by saying that he had been on the more more times than Johnson wax!

Steve, I think you meant....he had been on the floor more times than Johnson's Wax.

quote:

Also, "You are my Greatest Love" which he wrote (or co wrote, I don't remember) became the theme song for The Honeymooners

Thanks Christopher! I never knew the name of that tune.

If you every get to hear the original album version, it's pretty cool. A lot slower than the one used on the TV show (longer too)

I grew up in Brooklyn, and being such a big Gleason fan, I drove by that house a few times. I wish they would make it into something. I didn't stop and get pics, as by then, it was not the best of neighborhoods.

quote:

I know it has been documented here on the forum how Gleason used Lionel trains in at least one of his shows. He apparently liked real trains, too!

Jackie Gleason got a big laugh on his variety show by having his Reginald Van Gleason character exclaim, after taking a sip of a drink that a model train brought to him on the bar, "Booze goes swell with Lionel." Apparently, however, the executives at Lionel were not too pleased with the free publicity.

Many years ago I had suggested to MTH to make 2 Honeymooners items

The Jackie Gleason Bus terminal in Brooklyn

The Art Carney sewage Treatment plant in Connecticut

and in the Same sentence I squeezed in the Frank Sinatra Post office in Hoboken.



rat

...still waiting

They should also make the Stewart family hardware store, complete with an Oscar statue in the front window.

Jimmy Stewart was a great actor, and an even better man.

Jeff C

The gleason Bus Depot

quote:

Originally posted by ratpak:
The gleason Bus Depot

I think it's in Sunset Park

I was a member of RALPH---still have my membership card/pin and newsletters/other junk.

I wondered what happened?
Thx
Joe S.

Went on Youtube and found Jackie Gleason's Melancholy Serenade and played it

Went to the Roanoke rail cam and watched a slow moving train pass by as cars made their way through the streets

It was a good fit


cc

I did some digging on youtube & found a clip of "You are my greatest love" aka the theme for the Honeymooners.  This is the version off the album - 

http://youtu.be/WlhPcMPdhz0