I’m not old, really I’m not, but I am old enough to remember sitting in the sun porch of my grandparent’s red-brick house and trying to figure out why the adults laughed so hard at a big blustery man yelling at his wife. Today I understand why. That big man was Jackie Gleason who was acting as crotchety Ralph Kramden, on the popular 1950s sitcom The Honeymooners.

Herbert Walton Gleason, Jr., aka John Herbert Gleason, was born into an alcoholic home in Brooklyn, New York, on February 26, 1916. His father left the family when Gleason was nine, and just six years after Gleason’s older brother Clement died. His humble beginnings led him to drop out of school and found him earning money as a pool hustler, carnival worker and boxer.

At the age of 15, he decided that he was more interested in performing for an audience, and became a stand-up comic.

Loss came again to Gleason, when at the age of 19, his mother Mae Kelly Gleason died. Shortly after her funeral he married Genevieve Halford, a marriage which lasted 34 on-again-off-again years and produced two daughters. After divorcing in 1970, he had a short-lived marriage to Beverly McKittrick, and eventually made June Taylor’s sister Marilyn his third and final bride.

After paying his dues as a house comic at The Empire and various other outlets, and performing on Broadway, he made his way to Hollywood and was rewarded with a role in the television series The Life of Riley. That series eventually led to his big break as the host of the variety show, Cavalcade of Stars, and on to The Jackie Gleason Show and The Honeymooners.

What many people don’t realize is that Gleason was more than just a comedian. He acted in more than a handful of films, most notably The Hustler, as Minnesota Fats, and Smokey and the Bandit I, II, and III. He was also an accomplished musician who recorded 43 albums.

Sadly, in 1987, colon cancer took from us “The Great One,” as he was so aptly named by Orson Welles, after a night of drinking together.