HAMLET AS A FAT MAN—JACKIE GLEASON. There were reports back in the day that Jackie Gleason was going to play Hamlet. Here is an article about those plans by H. I. Phillips in the Toledo Blade (August 27, 1960). Phillips says: “Jackie Gleason is reported in all seriousness preparing to play ‘Hamlet’…. Famed laugh-getter, insists he will play it as Shakespeare wrote it, with no buffoonery.'” Phillips makes the natural reference to the passage “Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt….”
As soon as I read about the possibility, I wanted to see the Gleason Hamlet. I think he would have been very good.