Buddy Hackett

Buddy Hackett, born Leonard Hacker on August 31, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York, was an American comedian and comic actor whose Broadway career spanned from 1954 to 1967. He died on June 30, 2003. The son of Anna Hacker, who worked in the garment trades, and Philip Hacker, a furniture upholsterer and part-time inventor, Hackett grew up in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, across from Public School 103 on 54th Street and 14th Avenue. He attended New Utrecht High School, where he participated in varsity football and drama club. As a child, Hackett suffered from Bell's palsy, the lasting effects of which shaped his distinctive slurred speech and facial expression. He graduated from high school in 1942 and enlisted in the United States Army, serving for three years in an anti-aircraft battery during World War II.

Before his military service, Hackett had already begun performing, working as a tummler entertaining guests at Catskills Borscht Belt resorts while still a student, initially under the name Butch Hacker. His first appearance was at the Golden Hotel in Hurleyville, New York. After the war, he took a job at the Pink Elephant, a Brooklyn club, where he adopted the stage name Buddy Hackett. He continued building his career through appearances in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and the Catskills. His performance in the Broadway production Lunatics and Lovers brought him to the attention of producer Max Liebman, who subsequently cast him in two television specials.

Hackett's film work began in 1950 with a Columbia Pictures short called King of the Pins, a bowling demonstration reel in which expert Joe Wilman showed correct technique while Hackett pantomimed the wrong approach. He returned to film in 1953 with a role in the Universal-International musical Walking My Baby Back Home, in which he was third-billed beneath Donald O'Connor and Janet Leigh, reprising his nightclub routine "The Chinese Waiter." In 1954, he stepped in as an emergency replacement for Lou Costello in Fireman, Save My Child after Costello withdrew due to illness, joining Hugh O'Brian in the production alongside Spike Jones and His City Slickers. He appeared opposite Robert Preston in the film adaptation of The Music Man in 1962, playing Marcellus Washburn, and the following year was paired with Mickey Rooney in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, in which he played Benjy Benjamin. The two had previously appeared together in Everything's Ducky in 1961, playing sailors who smuggle a talking duck aboard a Navy ship. He played Tennessee Steinmetz, a hippie auto mechanic, in Disney's The Love Bug in 1968, and provided the voice of Scuttle in The Little Mermaid in 1989.

On Broadway, Hackett appeared in Lunatics and Lovers and the comedy Viva Madison Avenue!, and starred alongside Eddie Fisher in Eddie Fisher and Buddy Hackett at the Palace. In 1964, he appeared with Richard Kiley in I Had a Ball.

Television became a significant platform for Hackett beginning in the 1950s. He starred as the title character in NBC's Stanley, a situation comedy that ran for 19 weeks during the 1956–1957 season on Monday evenings at 8:30 pm ET. The Max Liebman-produced series, which featured a young Carol Burnett and the voice of Paul Lynde, aired live before a studio audience and centered on a newsstand operator in a posh New York City hotel. Hackett made fifteen guest appearances on NBC's The Perry Como Show between 1955 and 1961, appeared as a panelist and mystery guest on CBS's What's My Line?, and filled in as emcee on the game show Treasure Hunt. He appeared with his roommate Lenny Bruce on the Patrice Munsel Show from 1957 to 1958, with the two billing their comedy partnership the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players." He was a frequent guest on both the Jack Paar and Johnny Carson versions of The Tonight Show, and his regular appearances on Paar's program earned him a spot on Paar's final Tonight broadcast on March 29, 1962. He also appeared in two episodes of ABC's The Rifleman and made multiple appearances on Hollywood Squares in the late 1960s and 1970s.

In the 1970s, Hackett published a book of poetry titled The Naked Mind of Buddy Hackett, played Lou Costello in the television movie Bud and Lou opposite Harvey Korman as Bud Abbott, and narrated the Rankin/Bass Christmas special Jack Frost in 1979. He hosted a syndicated revival of the Groucho Marx quiz show You Bet Your Life in 1980 before it was cancelled after one year, and that same year starred in the film Hey Babe!. He continued making frequent appearances on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show until Carson's retirement in 1992, and also performed uncensored stand-up comedy specials for HBO. For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Hackett received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2000, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.