Los Angeles Herald Examiner

The Razor Sharp Mind of the Late Jack E. Leonard

By James Bacon

Saddest memory of all is my last of Jack E. Leonard a few months ago as he was being wheeled through the Miami airport.

The body was feeble but the mind was razor sharp with the insult jokes. Bob Hope, George Allen, the coach of the Washington Redskins and I had all been on the plane with Jackie on a flight from Atlanta.

He never let up.

"Sorry, George, I didn't recognize you without your cleats."

"What are you doing in Miami? There's no wax here."

And on and on.

He had come to Miami to make an appearance but he doubted if he could go on. He had lost a lot of weight. He no longer was Fat Jack.

Leonard, in his youth, had been a champion swimmer in Chicago. Both he and Johnny Weissmuller came up at the same time in the pool at the Illinois Athletic Club.

"I used to race Weissmuller all the time. He always beat me so that's why I became a comic."

For awhile, he did put his swimming ability to profitable use. He was a lifeguard on the Rogers Park beach in Chicago.

Jack Carter recalls that Jack E. always was a life-saver at heart.

"He saved my life in Chicago in 1953 when I was playing a club. I was young in the business and one night I did some insult jokes on a lady at ringside.

"I didn't know she was the wife of one of Chicago's toughest gangsters.

"After the show the gangster came backstage with two of his henchmen, ostensibly to rough me up.

"Jack E., who knew the hood, threw himself in front of my dressing room door, screaming, "He's just a kid. He didn't know what he was doing." And he talked the hood out of roughing me up."

Jack E., the master of the insult joke, was one of the kindest men alive offstage. Which figures.

He was very popular with his fellow comics and was always in demand for Friars' roasts. He had the ability of getting all the newspaper publicity for the stag roasts!

“I just used clean lines – the only kind that got printed.” said Jackie. None of the other comics ever did.

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