Victor Buono

Victor Charles Buono was born on February 3, 1938, and died on January 1, 1982. An American actor, comedian, and recording artist, he built a career playing characters considerably older than his actual age, aided by his large physical frame and a deep, resonant voice. He appeared on Broadway in 1970 in Camino Real.

Buono's father, Victor F. Buono Sr., was a former police officer and bail bondsman who in 1959 was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment. A prior conviction for bird smuggling required him to serve an additional sentence after his parole, yet he continued managing his son's professional affairs from prison.

Buono began performing on local radio and television while still a teenager, and at eighteen joined the Globe Theater Players in San Diego. The company's director cast him in Volpone, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and Witness for the Prosecution, among other productions. In the summer of 1959, a Warner Bros. talent scout attended a Globe performance in which Buono played Falstaff and arranged a Hollywood screen test. His first national television appearance came in an episode of 77 Sunset Strip, in which he played a bearded poet named Bongo Benny. He subsequently appeared in menacing supporting roles across multiple television series, including The Untouchables.

Director Robert Aldrich cast Buono in the 1962 psychological horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Buono portrayed Edwin Flagg, a musician who serves as a hapless accompanist, and the performance earned him nominations for both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. Aldrich again cast him in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), in which he played Big Sam Hollis, the father of Davis's title character. His other film credits include The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), in which he portrayed the High Priest Sorak; The Strangler, in which he played Leo Kroll, a character based on the Boston Strangler murders; 4 for Texas (1963); Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964); The Silencers (1966); Who's Minding the Mint? (1967); Target: Harry (1969); Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970); The Mad Butcher (1972); and The Evil (1978), in which he played the Devil in a white suit.

On television, Buono accumulated an extensive list of credits across two decades. He appeared twice in 1960 on the western series The Rebel, in the episodes "Blind Marriage" and "The Earl of Durango." He made four appearances on Perry Mason across seasons five through nine, portraying different characters in each. In the anthology series GE True, he played a Los Angeles barber who commits arson by night. He also appeared in the Get Smart episode "Moonlighting Becomes You," which aired on January 2, 1970, and made three appearances as Dr. Blaine in the sitcom Harrigan and Son. His credits further include episodes of Hawaii Five-O, Night Gallery, The Odd Couple, The Practice, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Buono played the recurring role of Count Manzeppi in The Wild Wild West, as well as unrelated characters in that series' premiere episode and in the 1980 reunion film More Wild Wild West. His most recognized television role was King Tut on Batman, which aired from 1966 to 1968. The character, William McElroy, is a Yale professor of Egyptology who assumes the persona of an Egyptian king after being struck in the head and reverts to his academic identity when struck again. King Tut became the most frequently featured original villain in the series, and Buono identified the role as a personal favorite because it permitted uninhibited overacting. He also played a villain called "Mr. Memory" in a 1967 unsold television pilot based on the Dick Tracy comic strip, produced by the same team behind Batman and The Green Hornet.

In the late 1970s, Buono appeared in nine episodes of Man from Atlantis as the primary antagonist, Mr. Schubert. He portrayed President William Howard Taft in the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House and played the millionaire father of Reverend Jim Ignatowski on Taxi, opposite Christopher Lloyd, who was the same age as Buono. In 1980, he appeared in the television film Murder Can Hurt You as Chief Ironbottom, a parody of the Ironside title character, and made multiple appearances on the ABC series Vega$ as a Las Vegas casino high roller named Diamond Jim.

During the 1970s, Buono released several comedy record albums, the first of which, Heavy!, reached number sixty-six on the US charts. The albums drew humor from his physical size, and he adopted the self-description "the fat man from Batman." He also published a book of comic poetry titled It Could Be Verse and regularly recited his work during appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. His poem "Fat Man's Prayer" became widely quoted and was frequently misattributed to Dom DeLuise or Jackie Gleason.

Buono died of a heart attack at his home in Apple Valley, California on January 1, 1982, at the age of forty-three. He is entombed alongside his mother, Myrtle, at Greenwood Memorial Park in San Diego.