Two Interesting Things About Jackie Gleason That I Learned Just This Morning

 

"Gleason was a voracious reader of books on the paranormal, including The Urantia Book, parapsychology and UFOs.  He even had a house built in the shape of a UFO which he named The Mothership.  During the 1950s, he was a semi-regular guest on the paranormal-themed overnight radio show hosted by Long John Nebel, and he wrote the introduction to Donald Bain's biography of Nebel.  According to Gleason's second wife, Beverly McKittrick, he told her that U.S. President Richard Nixon took him on a secret visit to Homestead Air Force Base.  There, Gleason allegedly saw an alien spaceship and dead extraterrestrials.  After his death, his large book collection was donated to the library of the University of Miami."  (from Wikipedia). 

"In the Saturday Evening Post article mentioned above, a pizzeria owner is quoted as pointing to a picture of Jackie Gleason on his wall and declaring him as his prize customer.  Gleason, he said, would come in and order two large pizzas with everything to warm up his appetite, then attack veal parmigiana with spaghetti, washed down with a quart or two of Chianti, and then have another pizza for dessert, the waiters all standing around in awestruck silence"  (from John Thorne, Pizza, The Art Of The Pizzaiolo, Jackdaw Press, 1981).