Here’s What Happened to Art Carney Before, During and After Playing Ed Norton on ‘The Honeymooners’

His Early Days

He was born Arthur William Matthew Carney on November 4, 1918, in Mount Vernon, New York, the youngest of six sons. He would serve during World War II in Normandy in July of 1944, but was injured by mortar shrapnel on August 15, 1944, which ultimately resulted in his being sent back home (giving him a limp for the rest of his life due to a slightly shortened leg). Before and after, though, Art proved himself to be an amazing mimic, which he demonstrated in school. Graduating from Mount Vernon’s A.B. Davis High School in 1936, he managed to talk his way into becoming a part of the Horace Heidt Orchestra, traveling with them for three years performing novelty songs and showcasing his impersonations. He also served as announcer for the radio show Pot o’Gold, for which Heidt’s orchestra was the house band — brought to life as a feature film starring Jimmy Stewart with Art in a small part. From there, he exploded as a performer in radio comedies and dramas.

On the Radio

“Unlike people we know today,” suggests Geoffrey, “Art really came up through the ranks in radio. It was his voice that got him noticed, because he was a mimic. And if you were a mimic in mid-1930s and 1940s, and could do a spot-on FDR or something, so much so that people were afraid and thought he was really FDR speaking, it brought him notoriety that was incredibly impressive. He never became a star in radio in that there was no Art Carney Show, but he was on everything.”

Moving From Show to Show

He continues, “It’s hard for people today to understand that in both New York and Hollywood there were three to five big networks that were available back then. They were quite close to one another and Art would do a soap opera at 11 [a.m.] on one network, and at 12:30 [p.m.] do another soap opera on another network, then do a 4:00 [p.m.] interview show on another network, and at 7 [p.m.] do a sitcom on another network. So people would go back and forth all day long and they would make great money, because there was minimal rehearsal; you’re reading from a script and, really, all they needed to know was the character and to avoid people stepping on each other’s lines. Jack Benny said it was like stealing money, because there wasn’t the intense rehearsal process necessary like it was for movies or the stage or television. And Art was wonderful at that. He could just look at his script, figure out the character he wanted to do, and read it as though he knew it by heart. So he became a very valuable radio personality that went into television. Though on television for Art it was almost like if you blinked, you would have missed his early work, because his early work was on the Dumont Network, which folded in the mid-50s.”

‘The Morey Amsteram Show’

When you think of comedian Morey Amsterdam, you likely think of him as Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Before that, though, he enjoyed stardom in his own right, initially on the radio in a number of shows before starring in his self-titled one, which ran from 1948 to 1949. The premise has Morey as the emcee of a nightclub in New York City called the Golden Goose Café, with co-stars Jacqueline Susann (who would go on to an amazingly successful career as a novelist) as the cigarette girl Lola, and Art Carney as Charlie the doorman. A TV version ran on CBS for 13 episodes from 1948 to 1949, before shifting over to the DuMont Televison Network from 1949 to 1950, with Art himself shifting from doorman to Newton the waiter.

From Morey to Jackie

“The Morey Amsterdam Show was a success in its time in that it lasted more than a few weeks,” Geoffrey reflects. “We’re talking 1950, so it was even before I Love Lucy. There was Howdy Doody, Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town and The Milton Berle Show. Everything else that we know today or might be remembered wasn’t even on yet. Over on Dumont was also a variety show called Cavalcade of Stars. The original host was Jack Carter, and when Jack was hired away by a larger network because Dumont was bottom of the barrel, his hosting chores were turned over to Jackie Gleason and that’s where Jackie Gleason went from being a respected nightclub comic who had done a few character movie bits to becoming a star.”

Adds Michael, “I always thought that Art was an unsung talent, especially in the early days of television and it was through happenstance that he ended up with Jackie Gleason to create one of the greatest onscreen pairings in TV history. Performers generally don’t come out of nowhere, but people think that that’s the case. And with Art, he hit it big at a time when television was in its infancy and exploded in the mid-50s. The Gleason show became a huge show for its time.”

‘Cavalcade of Stars’

When Jackie Gleason took over as host of this skit comedy show in 1950, the audience immediately took notice, turning it into one of the hit shows of early television. The approach, says Geoffrey, was “to create recurring characters, which was a holdover from radio variety shows like Red Skelton, where the host would play several different recurring characters in sketches. So they wanted several characters for Gleason and one of the things they came up with was a skit called ‘The Honeymooners,’ which was about a long-married couple, childless, living in poverty in the Brooklyn of Jackie’s youth in a two-room apartment. Pert Kelton played Alice, Jackie was Ralph and Art was hired to play a policeman in the first one before playing Norton. He also did other sketches with Jackie.

A Bit of ‘Honeymooners’ History

“Although Jackie did many characters on the show, The Honeymooners is the one that everyone looked forward to every week,” he elaborates. “Pert, unfortunately, was blacklisted because of her political beliefs, but they allowed her to back out of the show by saying she had a bad heart — yeah, her heart was broken from the way she was treated. A funny side note is that a decade later she came back to The Honeymooners playing Alice’s mother, because she’d gotten cleared eventually. Also, as funny as Gleason was playing Ralph Kramden, Art’s Ed Norton stole the show. Eventually Joyce Randolph replaced Elaine Stritch as Trixie and there was a Honeymooners sketch almost every week. Then, just like what happened with Jack Carter, a larger network bought Jackie away from Dumont and it became The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS. That’s more or less the point where Audrey Meadows took over as Alice. So there is all of this sudden success for Art, including winning an Emmy Award for the show.”

Projecting Vulnerability

Michael points out, “Years later when Art Carney would win an Oscar for Harry and Tonto, he seemed to have come out of nowhere. But he didn’t. He was a good actor. He may have played a goofy character like Norton, but there was always a vulnerability there. Gleason was full of bluster and was great, too, and was vulnerable in his own way, but Art just sort of radiated that personal angsty thing. And what a foil he was for Jackie Gleason.”

‘The Honeymooners’ on Its Own

In 1955, and with the rising popularity of the sketches, Jackie Gleason suspended production on the variety show to turn The Honeymooners into an actual sitcom. A total of 39 episodes were produced between 1955 and 1956 which, of course, have come to be known as “The Classic 39.” But then Jackie made the decision to end the show and switch back to the variety format, utilizing the Kramdens and Nortons in sketches once again. “It was a smart move,” opines Peter Crescenti. “The reason he gave for the decision was that he felt they’d essentially run out of good ideas. You have to remember that they did The Honeymooners as sketches in 1952, ’53, ’54 and the first half of ’55. That’s a lot of plots. So I think Gleason was right on target when he said, ‘We should end it before we get stale.’”

Taking Stock of Art Carney

As the show went back to its old format, Geoffrey explains, “Then Jackie decided he wanted to do other things. The thing is, people don’t remember what a huge television star in the late ‘50s Art was. He had his own television specials, he was starring in live dramas and special things being written dramatically and comedically for him. Art was the bigger television star, but Jackie was just out there in your face more. Jackie was doing Broadway and making films in the late ’50s and early ’60s while Art was doing television. And doing it well.”

Dramatic Turn

Elaborates Michael, “People always think of Art as Ed Norton in the same way that people think of William Shatner as Captain Kirk, but Art was a great performer and a good dramatic actor. He did a lot of dramatic roles in the ‘50s on CBS and Playhouse 90. He did The Twilight Zone episode ‘Night of the Meek,’ which got rave reviews. For a man who had no classic training — and I don’t mean Shakespeare, just that he never took an acting class — he was amazing. He was basically a mimic early in his career and an announcer, but he was able to plumb the depths of his acting talent and really come out with some gems.”

Challenges in His Life

While balancing his career with his home life, which included wife Jean Myers and children Eileen, Brian and Paul, Art was dealing with two overwhelming forces in his life. One was that he was an alcoholic — a problem that began early on — and the other is that he suffered from deep-rooted depression. “Mental illness would plague Art his entire life,” says Geoffrey. “I’m sure today there might be different diagnoses and different medications for him. He was called manic depressive and schizophrenic and there would just be times when he could not function. And there were multiple stays in mental institutions trying to get him to function. So while his star is ascending, while he’s literally becoming a star, he is struggling mightily with mental illness.”

Few Places to Turn

Explains Michael, “The alcoholism ran in his family. If you consider his family history, maybe it’s not such a surprise, but he had it and it plagued him throughout his life and his career. It started all the way back in the early year when he was with Horace Heidt, where he was already belting back a few for breakfast. What’s impressive is that he managed to carve out such an unbelievable career for himself with all these demons. In those days, they didn’t have rehab, so he would go to a sanitarium in Connecticut. There was no Betty Ford Clinic. You wonder how people like Art, who were drinking and pill-popping and stuff in those days — Sid Caesar was another one — would have fared in their careers if they’d been recognized for what it was and would have been sent to rehab.”

Avoiding the Off-Stage Spotlight

“Back in the ‘50s, when Gleason was doing the show in New York, it was always in the gossip columns that Gleason was at Toots Shor’s, making a scene and being boisterous and buying drinks for everybody and being brash and loud,” he adds, “you’d never read about Art doing that kind of stuff. Even back when he was a star, because he’d go home to his wife and kids in Westchester County. It just wasn’t his personality to be that kind of brash guy, even though he was in the business where you were being beamed into millions of home each week. Looking back at it now, he was a star and he was being written about in newspapers, but that wasn’t really his personality. That was sort of just happenstance. He ended up with Jackie Gleason and they became this huge starring team, but he was really a shy guy and a bit of a recluse. And he was, again, an alcoholic, which would rear its head later in his career several times.”

The Norton Spin-Off That Never Happened

There was a point after the “Classic 39” when Jackie Gleason decided that they should produce a spinoff series focusing on Ed Norton and the guys in the sewer where he worked, including one played by Al Lewis (who would go on to star as Grandpa on The Munsters). “Art was drunk during the filming of this pilot,” Michael explains. “He was dropping his script and blowing his lines and it was one of the few times he actually let his guard down. I remember Al Lewis saying that Art was such a professional, but how much pain he had to have been in to show up to work drunk. I mean, that’s how bad it was at that time. Al also alluded to the idea that Art sabotaged his own chance with that, because he didn’t want to be the star of the show. He went along with the plan to do the spinoff for CBS, but I do think that drinking heavily during the shooting of that pilot, if you want to look at it from a psychological angle, is psychological.”

Fear of Losing the Gleason Connection

Another side of it could very have been Art’s fear of playing Norton without the connection to Jackie’s Kramden. “It’s a good point,” says Michael, “because even in The Honeymooners sketches from the ‘60s, the musical ones, they weren’t as good or as funny, but they still had that chemistry. And even when they brought them back for the ’70s reunion specials on ABC, it was still there. Obviously they were older and paunchier, and Gleason had a bad hairpiece and mustache, but you could still see the spark between them. That would have been lost in the spinoff.”

Welcome to the ’60s

“In the early 1960s,” says Geoffrey, “Jackie decided to come back to television, and Art’s mental illness deepened, so Jackie agreed to do a limited number of Honeymooners sketches on the new variety show to give Art work, because he had wigged out and the opportunities for dramas and variety shows were drying up due to his behavior. People felt he was undependable, so Art came back to Jackie’s show doing limited sketches, playing Norton, and eventually he got better, as he often did. Then he landed the role of a lifetime playing Felix Unger on Broadway in Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. Which was an enormous hit.”

‘The Odd Couple’

The premise of 1965’s The Odd Couple is that two divorced men — one with a penchant for sloppiness, the other for neatness — end up sharing an apartment and very much driving each other crazy. With Art as Felix, Simon cast Walter Matthau as Oscar. The premise, of course, would spin off to a movie version in 1968 starring Matthau with Jack Lemmon as Felix, a 1970-1975 TV show starring Jack Klugman as Oscar and Tony Randall as Felix, the 1982 reboot The New Odd Couple with Demond Wilson as Oscar and Ron Glass as Felix, a female stage version initially starring Rita Moreno as Olive Madison and Sally Struthers as Florence Unger, and the recent TV series with Matthew Perry as Oscar and Thomas Lennon as Felix. But Art was there at the beginning … though only for several months.

Personality Clashes?

Details Geoffrey, “Art couldn’t handle the success emotionally. He couldn’t handle eight shows a week physically, and he had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized in Connecticut. It’s one of the reasons why he did not appear in the movie version.”

“There was another problem,” points out Michael. “I spoke to people who worked on that show and they all told me that Art was a disciplined performer who would learn his lines, hit the marks and that sort of thing. Matthau liked to ham it up and throw in lines that weren’t in the script and steal the show. Art didn’t like him improvising and he didn’t like Walter Matthau very much.”

“I would probably disagree with the idea that Art had problems with Matthau improvising, because of all the years Art had experienced working with Jackie Gleason, who did the same thing,” counters Geoffrey. “I mean, Jackie never did a sketch the same way twice. You never knew what he was going to say or do from rehearsal or minimal rehearsal to live air time. So I think Art Carney was infinitely capable of dealing with improvisation on a stage. I think it probably had more to do with mental illness and paranoia than his inability to deal with it as an actor.”

‘The Honeymooners’ Musical Episodes

In the 1960s, when Art had grown well enough to function on stage again, Jackie Gleason decided to do hour-long versions of The Honeymooners which took their cue from some 1956 to 1957 episodes. Explains Geoffrey, “They did these hour-long musical versions of the sketches, taking the Nortons and the Kramdens around the world, because they won a contest. So they decided to revive those scripts and songs with new choreography and better stage values. And those originals were not really recorded, except on kinescope. They would do them now in color with big budgets. Also, the show had moved to Florida, so they were doing this in Miami Beach. Sheila MacRea became Alice, Jane Kean became Trixie and Jackie and Art remained as Ralph and Norton. And they were wonderful, because both Jackie and Art could sing and dance and so could the ladies.”

A Dangerous Moment

As Geoffrey explains it, once again Art started having problems. “Sheila MacRea personally told me this story,” he says, “that they were rehearsing one week for a Honeymooners sketch and it was done at the convention center in Miami Beach. So they were literally on the stage at the convention center and doing a dress rehearsal. There was no audience, there were no cameras. They were just going through the motions and Sheila had lingered on stage to go over some lines to be comfortable. Art came from behind, grabbed her with his left arm around her throat put a gun to her head and said, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ Just then Jackie came out, because he was getting ready to leave; he had just wanted to see what the movements were and the rest would be on cue cards for him. So he just says goodbye and leaves, but he wasn’t just walking out. He called the police, explained the situation, they restrained Art and he paid another visit to the mental hospital. Sheila said that was the worst moment with him where he just blurred reality.”

Coping With Pain

“He was really and truly mentally ill,” he elaborates. “So in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Art didn’t do a whole lot except these Honeymooners things. The truth is, today, unlike then, there is treatment and medications a person can take and I would imagine if one is not in the public eye, that’s easier, right? If one’s function is to stand in front of a thousand people and learn new scripts and learn songs and choreography and be funny, that’s a lot of pressure. On the other hand, if you’re born with incredible talent, not using the talent turns to depression. So it’s like damned if you do, damned if you don’t — which explains why he didn’t retire, because retirement in itself would have brought on more mental health issues and financial issues. Until recently there was no such thing as medical coverage or health insurance for mental illness. Back then, it just didn’t exist. So you did what you could.”

Similarity to … Nixon?

Michael notes that for reasons he can’t quite explain, he’s read a number of books about President Richard Nixon, because, as he says, “He has a personality that interests me. This is a guy who hated people and couldn’t look anybody in the eye and hated politics. In politics you have to shake people’s hands and talk to them, and he hated small talk. It reminds me of what happened with Art. Here’s this guy who sort of by accident is thrust into the spotlight, so to speak, and has to sustain that — and stardom was not something he was seeking. It’s an interesting story and people, if they’re not aware of Art and his contribution to television — and a few movies — should start watching The Honeymooners and all the other things that he did.”

Turning Things Around

The Jackie Gleason Show ended its run on CBS in 1970, largely because of declining ratings and Gleason’s refusal to shift from a variety show to strictly one-hour Honeymooners episodes. This, of course, necessitated a change in focus on Art’s part. “The public at home, of course, had no idea what had been happening with him,” says Geoffrey. “By the time Jackie’s show finally ended, Art had been almost constantly on television for 20 years, and when Jackie didn’t have a weekly show anymore, that’s when Art started doing movies and all sorts of television. He did two specials with Lucille Ball in the 1970s that were very successful, playing characters. Not variety show stuff, not sketches, but actual characters. He was grateful for the work and exposure, because he had gotten typecast as Norton.”

‘Harry and Tonto’

By 1974, Art had only appeared in the feature films Pot o’Gold (1941), PM Picnic (1950), The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) and A Guide for the Married Man (1967). But then things changed for him again when he took on the role of Harry, an elderly man who, when his apartment building is torn down, heads on a cross country trip accompanied only by his cat, Tonto. His strength in the role was such that he ended up taking home the Academy Award in the category of Best Actor, beating the likes of Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson. “People just don’t realize that there’s more to him than goofy Norton,” laughs Michael, “but when he beat those and other heavyweights at the Oscars, Hollywood was stunned. They gave it to him, because they recognized the talent that was there and it was a good comeback story at the time. He had been through a lot and would continue to go through a lot after that, but he managed to sort of raise himself up from the depths of alcoholism and depression and claw his way back into the business and show off his talent and won the Oscar for it.”

The Fruitful ’70s

Following Harry and Tonto, Art found work in numerous TV movies and features as well as oddities like The Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978. And then, of course, there were a series of Honeymooners reunion specials aired on ABC. Says Geoffrey, “He wins an Academy Award and becomes a motion picture actor, and when that starts to slow down a little bit, Jackie decided to do Honeymooners specials that Art appeared on. So, like his own mental illness, it kept coming and going. The heat of his career kept coming and going. There were periods where he was the hottest thing around, even as an old man, and periods where pretty much he was working with Jackie Gleason and there wasn’t much else to do. But the man had an enormously long career if you count the radio days, with an amazing talent. One of those questions you ask is, imagine if he didn’t have mental illness how big his career could have been.”

‘Izzy & Moe’

Art and Jackie Gleason reunited for one more project, the 1985 TV movie Izzy & Moe. Describes Geoffrey, “Art was tremendously loyal and grateful to Jackie Gleason, which is why they did this TV movie about two schnooks who were buddies during the Depression who helped stop illegal booze during prohibition. They loved working together and were great at it. Both of them were uber-talented men and Art was enormously grateful to the people who understood his problem and helped to make it better, not worse.”

At the same time, Michael notes, “Gleason definitely took center stage when it came to promoting the film. During a press conference for it, he wouldn’t let Art get a word in edgewise, but perhaps that’s the way he wanted it.”

The Personal Side of Things

Art was married three times to two women. He was with his first love, Jean Myers, from 1940 to 1965, then, when he suffered his emotional issues following The Odd Couple, he ended things. On December 21, 1966 he married Barbara Isaac and was with her until 1977, but then he went back to Jean and they were remarried in 1980 and were together until Art’s death in 2003.

“He divorced Barbara after he got better,” says Michael, “and the story is he went back to Connecticut, where Jean lived, knocked on the door and, when she answered, he asked, ‘What’s for dinner?’ They remarried and lived happily ever after. They had two sons and a daughter, and on the surface he was living the American dream. Below, not to get dramatic about it, he was a tortured soul.”

Saying Goodbye

Art died of natural causes on November 9, 2003, less than a week after his 85th birthday, having lived a wonderful and painful life, somehow surviving that obvious conflict. He left behind a legacy that’s still going today; a legacy of Ed Norton and so much more for the people whose lives he’s touched. “I think Art’s legacy,” muses Michael, “is as one of the premier comic geniuses of TV who, in the early days of television, helped the medium establish itself. A lot of comedians and performers owe a debt to him and the way he performed in terms of his movements on stage and dramatic chops. I also think he’s an under-appreciated performer in the pantheon of show business. When you talk about television, especially early television, people always refer to, and rightfully so, Lucille Ball and maybe Jackie Gleason, but they rarely mention Art Carney’s name. And he was such an integral part of that world.”

“Obviously he had great writers on The Honeymooners and elsewhere,” he continues, “but you can only do so much with the printed word. You have to inject a big part of yourself into whatever role you’re taking on, and Art was the master of that and was just a giant of television. Not only as Norton, but in dramatic roles like Harry and Tonto, and he really should not be forgotten. When people talk about how impactful television is, they need to look back at that era and how important Art and Jackie Gleason were in establishing it for what it is today.”