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
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