How to Be a Drama Queen

IN the mid 1960s, a friend of mine landed his first job as a comedy writer. He was hired by Jackie Gleason’s manager, or “wrangler,” to use the term we prefer to describe the guy whose job it is to mollify, coddle, and keep tense company with the star. His job was to write a few jokes for one of Gleason’s appearances.

As he and the wrangler walked slowly to Gleason’s hotel-room door, my friend clutching his jokes on a few damp pages, Gleason’s wrangler suddenly stopped. He turned to my friend.