Amazingly, The Honeymooners, one of the most enduring and beloved classics of TV’s golden era, won just a single Emmy during its run in the mid-1950s. Not at all amazingly, it went to Art Carney.
Seventy years ago, the gangly, loose-limbed comedian arrived at the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in New York (the Emmys were a bicoastal telecast then) — not in a rumpled vest and white T-shirt but a tuxedo — and accepted a trophy for best actor in a supporting role. Perhaps his speech began with something like, “Helloooo, Ralphie boy!”
Of course, Jackie Gleason was indisputably the star of the show. As his character Ralph Kramden so often reminded Alice, his long- suffering TV wife (Audrey Meadows), he was king of the castle — in his case, a dreary, barely decorated walk-up in Bushwick. But it was Ralph’s upstairs neighbor, the gleefully unflappable Ed Norton, who often got the last laugh.
They were a perfect comic pairing: Ralph a hot-headed blowhard full of coiled rage, Ed as cool as a cucumber — and often as dim-witted. He never merely stepped into a scene — Carney turned every entrance into a quirky, nudnik overture. When Ralph wanted him to sign something — a recurring bit — Norton always had to limber up first, waving his arms and fluttering his fingers, until Ralph inevitably exploded in impatience (Carney later revealed he copied the gesture from his father, who made a big show of signing his report cards).
Beneath it all, though, there was a tenderness to Carney’s character, and to Ed’s friendship with Ralph. He may have lived above Ralph in that drab Brooklyn tenement, but emotionally it was Ed holding up the whole building.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.