Art Carney Dies at 85

By Diane Werts Staff Writer

11:04 PM EST, November 11, 2003

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"Helllloooo, ball." Art Carney is standing lanky and loose, golf club in hand, head down and hips swaying, intently "addressing" a tiny white ball that isn't going anywhere -- just like all the other dreams and schemes of sewer worker Ed Norton and his bus-driving buddy, Ralph Kramden.

It's moments like this that would make Carney one of television's most beloved performers as dim-witted sidekick to Jackie Gleason's sputtering butterball on the 1950s classic "The Honeymooners." He'd win six Emmy awards for his invaluable support of Gleason, and he'd do it so fluently, in language both spoken and body, that his supple skills may not be properly appreciated still, 50 years after he first found TV fame.

Carney died Sunday at his home in Connecticut and was buried yesterday in a private ceremony. He was 85 and had been ill for some time. "The family is very private, and that's why no one was notified until after the funeral," said Philip Appell, a spokesman for Swan Funeral Home in Clinton, Conn., according to CNN.

Though best remembered for his two decades working with Gleason in TV, Carney also made his mark on the big screen, winning a best actor Oscar and Golden Globe in 1975 in a dramatic role as a retiree traveling with his cat in "Harry and Tonto."

When it won him his Oscar, Carney wisecracked: "You're looking at an actor whose price has just doubled."

The late 1970s were a fertile time in which Carney found a second and more serious wind starring in the mystery "The Late Show" and in the caper film "Going in Style."

Dramatic acting was actually nothing new to Carney, who had very early on appeared with the equally versatile Gleason in a 1953 installment of the live TV drama anthology "Studio One." In an episode called "The Laugh Maker," Carney played a reporter researching the far-from-amusing life of a famed comic played by Gleason. Carney won a seventh Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in 1984 as an aged boxer's confidant in James Cagney's final TV film, "Terrible Joe Moran."

Such supporting work was Carney's bread and butter. Born Arthur William Matthew Carney on Nov. 4, 1918 in Mount Vernon, he traveled with dance bands and served in World War II's Normandy invasion before he settled into New York's thriving post-war radio-TV scene, doing voice work and bit parts like playing a doorman on 1948's "The Morey Amsterdam Show." He was in his mid-30s by the time his signature role presented itself. Variety shows were hot, and Carney became a regular on the old Dumont network's "Cavalcade of Stars," emceed in 1950 and 1951 by up-and-coming comedian Gleason. That rowdy and rotund young funnyman found a fine sparring partner in the slight, relaxed and more disciplined Carney -- especially when the two joined forces in 1951 on ill-fated everyman schemes in sketches revolving around two long-married couples, mockingly called "The Honeymooners."

"We were just a couple of kids really, and we acted like a couple of kids, too," Carney said in a 1990 CBS tribute special. It recently was excerpted for Paramount's new DVD collection "The Honeymooners Classic 39 Episodes," assembling the sole season of stand-alone, filmed half-hours featuring the characters otherwise seen in variety sketches.

He recalled, "That Irish chemistry seemed to work right from the start, and I became a regular with him." He'd work on Gleason's various series through 1970 (taking a break in the 1960s to star on Broadway as the original Felix Unger in Neil Simon's comedy "The Odd Couple"). He and Gleason were well matched in both dialogue humor and physical comedy, and Carney proved able to go with the flow of the show's notoriously spontaneous (and rehearsal-averse) star.

In his white T-shirt, unbuttoned vest and ever-present hat, Norton the sewer worker would be either the catalyst for pal Kramden's schemes or the brakes on his wilder ideas. Carney's Norton wasn't stupid but he was slow, easily distracted and prone to speaking before thinking. Yet his gentle soul and big heart shone through, especially in contrast with Gleason's volcanic bluster. "They never ended up really mad at each other by the time the episode ended. They were tried and true friends," Carney would recall, pinpointing the grounded mix of gags and warmth that made "The Honeymooners" so enduring. The show still airs weeknights at 3 a.m. on WPIX/11, where it has run almost continuously for decades. "Art Carney's lovable character, Ed Norton, will live forever in the minds and hearts of generations of television viewers past, present and yet to come," TV Land general manager Larry W. Jones said yesterday. His cable channel has scheduled a marathon of all 39 "Honeymooners" half hours from the 1955-56 season, to air in their original order starting Friday at 8 p.m.

Joyce Randolph, who played Norton's wife Trixie, is the last surviving member of the series. Gleason died in 1987. Audrey Meadows, who played Alice Kramden, died in 1996. Randolph, who turned 78 last month, appeared last year in an episode of the Travel Channel's "TV Road Trip," dedicated to "The Honeymooners."

After "The Honeymooners," Carney battled a drinking problem, and he dropped out of Broadway's "The Odd Couple" to spend nearly half a year in a sanitarium. He had started drinking in his 1930s dance band tours as "an 18-year-old mimic rooming with a blind whistler," Carney told People magazine in 1974. "He would order gin and grapefruit juice for us in the morning, and it was great. ... No responsibilities, no remorse. I was an alcoholic, even then."

Carney married his high school sweetheart, Jean Myers, in 1940. After the marriage broke up, Carney married Barbara Isaac in 1966.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.