Jackie Gleason - Early Life

Early Life

Gleason was born at 364 Chauncey Street in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. He grew up nearby, at 358 Chauncey (an address he later used for Ralph and Alice Kramden on The Honeymooners). Originally named Herbert Walton Gleason Jr., he was baptized John Herbert Gleason. His parents were Mae "Maisie" (née Kelly), a subway change-booth attendant and Herbert Walton "Herb" Gleason, an insurance auditor. His mother was from Farranree, Cork, Ireland, and his father was Irish-American. Gleason was one of their two children—his brother Clemence died of spinal meningitis at age 14, and his father abandoned the family.

He remembered his father as having "beautiful handwriting", as Herbert Gleason often worked at the family's kitchen table writing policies in the evenings. The night before his disappearance, Gleason's father disposed of any family photos he was pictured in; just after noon on December 15, 1925 he collected his hat, coat and paycheck, leaving the insurance company and his family permanently. When it was evident he was not coming back, Mae went to work for the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT).

After his father left, young Gleason began hanging around on the streets with a local gang and hustling pool. He attended elementary school at P.S. 73 in Brooklyn and attended (but did not graduate from) John Adams High School in Queens and Bushwick High School in Brooklyn. Gleason became interested in performing after being part of a class play; when he left school, he got a job as master of ceremonies at a theater which paid $4 per night. Other jobs he held included working in a pool hall, as a stunt diver and a carnival barker. Gleason and his friends made the rounds of the local theaters; he put an act together with one of his friends, and the pair performed on amateur night at the Halsey Theater (where Gleason replaced his friend, Sammy Birch, as master of ceremonies). He was also offered the same work two nights a week at the Folly Theater.

After his father's disappearance Gleason was raised by his mother; when she died in 1935 when he was 19, he had nowhere to go and less than 40 cents to his name. The family of his first girlfriend, Julie Dennehy, offered to take him in; Gleason, however, was headstrong and insisted he was going into the heart of the city. His friend, Sammy Birch, made room for him in the hotel room he shared with another comedian. Birch also told him of a one-week job in Reading, Pennsylvania that would pay $19, more money than Gleason could imagine. The booking agent advanced him bus fare for the trip against his salary. This was Gleason's first job as a professional comedian, and he had regular work in a number of small clubs after that.