Buck Henry

Buck Henry, born Henry Zuckerman on December 9, 1930, in New York City, was an American actor, screenwriter, and director who worked across film, television, and stage until his death on January 8, 2020. His father, Paul Steinberg Zuckerman, was an Air Force brigadier general and stockbroker, and his mother, Ruth Taylor, was a silent film actress best known for starring in the original version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Both his given nickname and his birth surname derived from his grandfather. Henry did not officially adopt the name Buck Henry until the 1970s, though the nickname had been his since childhood.

Henry attended The Choate School, then an all-boys institution, before making his professional acting debut at age fifteen in a Broadway production of Life with Father, which subsequently toured venues in Brooklyn, Long Island, and the Bronx. He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in English literature and a senior fellowship in writing at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he contributed to the college humor magazine, the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, and met filmmaker Bob Rafelson. After graduating, he enlisted in the Army during the Korean War, serving in West Germany first as a helicopter mechanic before transferring to Special Services, where he performed with the Seventh Army Repertory Company in a play he both wrote and directed.

Following his military service, Henry joined the improvisational comedy group the Premise in Manhattan's West Village, alongside George Segal and Theodore J. Flicker. Between 1959 and 1962, he participated in an elaborate public hoax conceived by comedian Alan Abel, making television appearances as G. Clifford Prout, the fictitious president of the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals. Henry played the character with deadpan sincerity, and Prout received unsolicited monetary donations from viewers, all of which were returned. He became a cast member on The New Steve Allen Show in 1961 and later appeared on the American version of That Was the Week That Was from 1964 to 1965.

Henry's television career reached a significant milestone when he co-created the secret agent comedy series Get Smart with Mel Brooks, which ran from 1965 to 1970 for five seasons and 138 episodes. The show earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. He also created two shorter-lived television projects: Captain Nice in 1967, starring William Daniels as a reluctant superhero, and Quark in 1978, featuring Richard Benjamin as the commander of a garbage scow in outer space. Throughout his career he made guest appearances on Murphy Brown, Will and Grace, The Daily Show, 30 Rock — in which he played Liz Lemon's father Dick Lemon — and appeared in a multi-episode arc of Hot in Cleveland in 2011 as Elka's groom. He also made a brief unscheduled appearance on The Price is Right in 1982, driving a prop train onstage.

In film, Henry co-wrote the screenplay for Mike Nichols's The Graduate in 1967 with Calder Willingham, earning a shared Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also appeared in the film in a supporting role as a hotel desk clerk. His other screenwriting credits included Candy in 1968, Catch-22 in 1970, The Owl and the Pussycat in 1970, What's Up, Doc? in 1972, The Day of the Dolphin in 1973, Protocol in 1984, and To Die For in 1995. In 1978, he co-directed Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty, a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and appeared in the film as an officious angel originally played by Edward Everett Horton. That directorial work earned him a second shared Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Director. In 1997, the Austin Film Festival presented him with its Distinguished Screenwriter Award. His acting appearances spanned more than forty films, including lead and supporting roles in Taking Off in 1971, The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976, Gloria in 1980, Eating Raoul in 1982, Defending Your Life in 1991, The Player in 1992, and Short Cuts in 1993.

Henry hosted Saturday Night Live ten times between 1976 and 1980, making him the program's most frequent host during its initial five-year run. On November 19, 1977, he became the first person to host the show five times, establishing what became known as the Five-Timers Club. It became a tradition for him to host the final episode of each season beginning with the 1976–1977 season. During the October 30, 1976 broadcast, John Belushi's katana struck Henry in the forehead during a samurai sketch, causing him to bleed and wear a bandage for the remainder of the episode; the cast members wore matching bandages as a gag. His record as most frequent host was later surpassed when Steve Martin made his eleventh appearance in 1989. Henry's recurring SNL characters included Howard, a sadistic stunt coordinator; Marshall DiLaMuca, father of Bill Murray's character Todd in the Nerds sketches; Mr. Dantley, a regular customer of John Belushi's Samurai Futaba character; and Uncle Roy, a single babysitter portrayed in three sketches written by Rosie Shuster and Anne Beatts.

Henry's Broadway appearances spanned from 1998 to 2008 and included the 2002 revival of Morning's at Seven, as well as The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken and Art. A native of New York, New York, he also appeared off-Broadway in July 2009, starring opposite Holland Taylor in Mother, a play by Lisa Ebersole.