Tragic Details About Jackie Gleason

Jackie Gleason was born on February 26, 1916, to parents Herbert Walter Gleason an insurance auditor who was born in Brooklyn and Mae "Maisie" Kelly, who hailed from County Cork in Ireland. Curiously enough, while Gleason was born Herbert John Gleason, he was baptized as John Herbert Gleason. The nickname "Jackie" was given

Jackie Gleason was born on February 26, 1916, to parents Herbert Walter Gleason — an insurance auditor who was born in Brooklyn — and Mae "Maisie" Kelly, who hailed from County Cork in Ireland. Curiously enough, while Gleason was born Herbert John Gleason, he was baptized as John Herbert Gleason. The nickname "Jackie" was given to him by his mother, and it stuck. Gleason grew up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which was a very impoverished area at the time.

According to Gleason's website, young Jackie knew that he wanted to be an actor from the age of six when his father used to take him to see matinee silent films and vaudeville performances. Unfortunately, the theater visits would be the only good memory that Gleason would have of his father. Herbert Gleason would walk out on his family when Jackie was only nine years old. 

He never saw his father again, but according to film historian Dina Di Mambro, that didn't stop Gleason from hoping that he might one day meet his father, even after he became famous: "I would always wonder whether the old man was somewhere out there in the audience, perhaps a few seats away. I guess I always kind of expected him to appear backstage suddenly, saying, 'Hi, I'm your old man.' Then one day, I realized that wherever he was, it would be easy for him to contact me — if he really wanted to."

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