This Week in Television History: June 2022 PART IV

 

June 24, 1987

Jackie Gleason dies. 

Actor Jackie Gleason dies on this day in 1987. Raised by a single mother who worked at a subway token booth in New York, Gleason dropped out of high school and began performing on the vaudeville circuit in his teens. Signed to a movie contract by the time he was 24 years old, Gleason played character roles in a handful of movies in 1941 and 1942, but found much more success in television. He became one of TV's most popular stars in a number of shows, including The Jackie Gleason Show, which ran throughout most of the 1950s and '60s. On the show, he created the character of Ralph Kramden, a bus driver who became the beloved star of the spin-off television show The Honeymooners. On June 24, 1987, Gleason died at his Florida home. After a private funeral mass at the Cathedral of Saint Mary in Miami, Gleason was interred in an outdoor mausoleum at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Cemetery in Miami. At the base is the inscription, “And Away We Go.” 

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Tony Figueroa