Word: gleason
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Newark caterer named Walter Hollander (Jackie Gleason) and his family (Estelle Parsons and Joan Delaney) find themselves aboard a hijacked plane. Bound for Paris, it lands instead in Eastern Europe, where the Hollanders are charged with spying. "First no movie in the plane and now this!" moans the wife. "Nobody can be dragged out and shot," counters the suspicious junior American ambassador (Ted Bessell), "without written consent of the American Government." But from this intriguing negative nothing develops. Gleason merely settles in for an extended Honeymooners skit, swinging on the billingsgate with his wife and rolling fried-egg eyes skyward...
Another member of the Fainsod Committee- Andrew Gleason, professor of Mathematics- said the Docket Committee was a necessary step to streamline Faculty legislation to "meet the press of business as it comes...
...committee needs some authority," Gleason said. "but that raises the specter of authoritarianism." But hesaid that several checks on the committee - including a plan to have it report regularly on upcoming business- would keep it from becoming too powerful...
...then, as now, conceived of musicals as a kind of vaudeville show tailored for big stars. In Take Me Along's case, Merrick's original choice of a star was Anthony Perkins (in the role of Richard). Perkins, however, took another offer (Frank Loesser's Greenwillow), and Jackie Gleason was hired to star instead, in the role...
...show was then redesigned to Gleason's order. The title song, originally a ballad for Richard, was changed to a superfluous (if nice) rouser that Gleason could handle. A weak director was hired and the libretto's somber tinge was submerged in fireworks. The show ran for a year, but had another producer (such as Hal Prince, whose West Side Story had revolutionized the Broadway musical the year before) besides Merrick done it. Take Me Along's life would surely have been much longer. (It is interesting to note that co-author Stein went on to write two great serious...