Customer Reviews

The Great One: The Life and Legend of Jackie Gleason

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

As far as I know, this is the only biography written by someone who was not a friend of Gleason's, and it shows. While the book is well-researched, the author takes an inordinate amount of pleasure in pointing out as many of Gleason's faults as he can. I was left with the impression that the author was jealous that Gleason enjoyed such enormous success despite not always being a pleasant person.

Audrey Meadows commented at the end of her book "Love, Alice" that the author skewered Gleason for not living up to his (the author's) standards, and that sounds about right. To pay Meadows back for this, the author tries to discredit her story about how she won the role of Alice on "The Honeymooners," but only ends up looking vindictive again, as Meadows has published the photos taken of herself auditioning for Alice that prove her story true. This is only one of several instances where Henry tries to attack people who try to disagree with his negative view of Gleason.

There are many instances in the book of phrases like "Gleason said..." or "Gleason often commented..." but very few of these quotes are backed up with any kind of source in the text itself, and there are no endnotes in the book. In addition, many other people quoted in the book are identified only as "colleagues," with no one specific being cited as the source(s) of many of the stories about how horrible Gleason really was.

I noted the comments from various celebrities on the back of the dust jacket, and was surprised to hear praise from people who call themselves Gleason's friends. It makes you wonder just what kinds of friends they were.

On the first page of the book you hit the statement that Jackie was "the laziest man alive." For me, that statement sets the tone. A quick look at the picture of the author will show he doesn't know much about excercise himself. I found it laughable that one of the big gripes William makes about Gleason was he proported musical talent was his that belonged to others, when whole paragraphs from the previous two biographies mysteriously found themselves into this book, word for word at times. Whereas the first two books were written by friends of Jackie's, William never had even a personal conversation with him, and spoke to NONE of the family. While he did speak to coworkers, I got the feeling from the beginning that he had set out to write a "Jackie is a smuck" book, and filtered everything accordingly. Within the first few chapters, I lost count of the number of factual errors that I found. Mae's mother had 11 children, not 5. They never actually lived in Ireland. Jackie's darkness didn't come from some ancestral Spainard sunk of the coast of Ireland, but from a maternal Great-Grandfather from Portugal. Herb, the father, was not a decade older than his wife, but three years. These were all easily researched items and were wrong. This cast a long shadow of suspicion over the rest of the book which consists of people's accounts of things long past. We all know how memories can be. The bookcover said the author treated shortcomings with compassion, but I found it closer to intense condemnation, such as with the statement, "the laziest man alive" because Jackie didn't walk 12 blocks in New York. Have to wonder if the author would have hoofed it, or hailed a cab. There may be some facts buried in the pile of misinformation and bad feeling, but it may be hard to find, or to identify. For me, I see Jackie's ever changing stories as a way for him to keep the truth private and just for himself. I certainly hope no one out there really believes that Tom Cruise is telling us the truth about his life, or Julia Roberts. Just because they do something, doesn't mean we deserve the intimate details of theirs lives. And just because Jackie wasn't upfront about his, doesn't change that mystical magic that happens when people watch the Honeymooners. He wasn't perfect, few of us are, but he gave us smiles we didn't have before. His life was sad and hard, but to be so spiteful and mean about it makes William's life even sadder. Imagine implying Jackie shouldn't feel upset because his mother died when he was a "man of nineteen" instead of boy of sixteen. I can't imagine having lost both parents by nineteen and to only have one cousin at my wedding for family. This book will only give you what you want if you already know that it has been written by someone who looked for the bad and down played the good, or quite possibly, simply didn't include those accounts. The book wasn't that interesting, and I certainly could put it down. It left a very bad taste in my mouth.

On the first page of the book you hit the statement that Jackie was "the laziest man alive." For me, that statement sets the tone. A quick look at the picture of the author will show he doesn't know much about excercise himself. I found it laughable that one of the big gripes William makes about Gleason was he proported musical talent was his that belonged to others, when whole paragraphs from the previous two biographies mysteriously found themselves into this book, word for word at times. Whereas the first two books were written by friends of Jackie's, William never had even a personal conversation with him, and spoke to NONE of the family. While he did speak to coworkers, I got the feeling from the beginning that he had set out to write a "Jackie is a smuck" book, and filtered everything accordingly. Within the first few chapters, I lost count of the number of factual errors that I found. Mae's mother had 11 children, not 5. They never actually lived in Ireland. Jackie's darkness didn't come from some ancestral Spainard sunk of the coast of Ireland, but from a maternal Great-Grandfather from Portugal. Herb, the father, was not a decade older than his wife, but three years. These were all easily researched items and were wrong. This cast a long shadow of suspicion over the rest of the book which consists of people's accounts of things long past. We all know how memories can be. The bookcover said the author treated shortcomings with compassion, but I found it closer to intense condemnation, such as with the statement, "the laziest man alive" because Jackie didn't walk 12 blocks in New York. Have to wonder if the author would have hoofed it, or hailed a cab. There may be some facts buried in the pile of misinformation and bad feeling, but it may be hard to find, or to identify. For me, I see Jackie's ever changing stories as a way for him to keep the truth private and just for himself. I certainly hope no one out there really believes that Tom Cruise is telling us the truth about his life, or Julia Roberts. Just because they do something, doesn't mean we deserve the intimate details of theirs lives. And just because Jackie wasn't upfront about his, doesn't change that mystical magic that happens when people watch the Honeymooners. He wasn't perfect, few of us are, but he gave us smiles we didn't have before. His life was sad and hard, but to be so spiteful and mean about it makes William's life even sadder. Imagine implying Jackie shouldn't feel upset because his mother died when he was a "man of nineteen" instead of boy of sixteen. I can't imagine having lost both parents by nineteen and to only have one cousin at my wedding for family. This book will only give you what you want if you already know that it has been written by someone who looked for the bad and down played the good, or quite possibly, simply didn't include those accounts. The book wasn't that interesting, and I certainly could put it down. It left a very bad taste in my mouth.

In all my years of reading biographies I have never read a more terminal interpertation of another human being. One who mananged to bring himself up to major success with a abundance of close friends and colleagues. It seemed the author searched high and low looking for anything negative he could represent about one the greatest entertainers who lived and mananged to bring joy into the lives of so many of the public. I am sure he had faults but to portray each and everyone of them was neither entertaining or necessary in telling the story of this flamboyant man. We all make choices as we go through life, the ones who hang on the wall paper and try not to make waves and the wave makers that allow themselves to be put up for critism but take the world by the horns. I chose to be the later and I appreciate all others who do as well. This author has repeatley called Mr. Gleason "fat". That is obviously no surprise to any of us. However those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks, perhpas Mr. Author take a better look at yourself according to your book jacket your no bargain!! It seems to me your own personal issues with charactors of this such came through. I suggest you seek therapy and don't write anymore!

...I had a hard time liking this book for anything other than trivia nuggets. The author seems to endlessly delight in pointing out errors or outright lies in any and all Gleason anecdotes. He also makes sure to include every unflattering thing anyone ever said about Gleason, with very few kind things to balance them out. While I enjoyed learning new things about Jackie Gleason, I finished this book with an overall feeling that the author not only disliked him, but is almost jealous of Gleason's success, and tries to compensate for this by portraying Gleason as negatively as possible.

Insightful, cogent and most of all, compassionate of a man that left others astray and outside their own ceative input. Henry paints his subject with the kind of depthful insight rarely afforded one who has not had direct access. It is as if the author has somehow gotten under the skin of his subject, found him wanting and yet left room for understanding and compassion. Here's Gleason - The Great One -warts and all

The book is a little sluggish. It started out interesting but slowed down. It was not one of those "can't put down" books.

A very good, very entertaining, biography of Jackie Gleason. Covering his childhood through his rise to fame in the 1950s and his post-TV struggle to maintain a meaningful career. Along the way, author William A. Henry offers up glimpses of Gleason as boozer, spendthrift, absentee dad, egotist and so on. There's input from friends and collegues (from Art Carney to Joyce Randolph to Larry Gelbart as well as various writers, both valued and poorly treated), but there's really little revelation. Gleason's mid-80s interview on 60-Minutes covered a lot of the same territory. Still, it's a fun read, with some very amusing anecdotes and a nearly blow-by-blow account of Gleason's often hostile dealings with network honchos at CBS.

This author takes every opportunity to take The Great One down a few pegs. Even when begrudgingly admitting Gleason's strong points (such as his generosity and support of civil rights), there is an underlying tone of judgement throughout the book.

Also, I kept waiting for the "Honeymooners" period to be discussed, but this entire period seems glossed over. No anecdotes, no behind the scenes tales...

It seems the author just wasn't privy to much information and instead composed a smear campaign of a dead man. A shame.

Someday, someone will do a detached, objective book on Jackie Gleason. This is not it. Just as previous books were fawning in their praise, this one goes down the opposite track. Yes, he could be mean, cruel, manipulative etc., etc. He was human. He was not Ralph Kramden.

There are stories the author tells that seem to invite you to join in his scorn and anger at Gleason, but personally, I thought some of them were hysterical. The man would not have accomplished what he accomplished if he wasn't an out-sized personality. In reading this book, you would think Gleason beat up the author and took his milk money. Really. Even if you hated Gleason, but were at least fair, you would conclude that this book is a hit-job on Gleason, plain and simple. His shameful battering of Audrey Meadows is the lowest point within the pages, if I may pile on here.

The only redeeming quality in the book are the aforementioned stories. I love him having a limo at every door in one building so that no matter what door he came out he had one waiting for him. I find that funny, not an indication he is some jerk. Maybe that's just me.