Red Buttons

Although Red Buttons is best known as a standup comic he is also a successful songwriter an Academy Awardwinning actor and has been nominated for two Golden Globe awards and an accomplished singer Born Aaron Chwatt on February 5 1919 Aquarius in New York Citys Lower East Side stood at a height of 5 6 168 m Buttons who got his name from a uniform he wore while working as a singing bellhop also known as Cpl Red Buttons started his showbusiness career singing on street corners as a child At 16 he got a job as part of a comedy act playing the famed Catskills resort area in upstate New York his partner was future actor Robert Alda Buttons worked the burlesque circuit as a comic and even landed a role in a Broadway play Vicki in 1942 He soon joined the US Marine Corps and in 1943 was picked for a role in Moss Harts service play Winged Victory on Broadway and soon afterwards journeyed to Hollywood to make the film version After his discharge from the service he returned to Broadway both in plays and as a comic with several bigband orchestras He was successful enough that he got his own TV series The Red Buttons Show 1952 on CBS It lasted three years and won Buttons an Emmy for Best Comedian He worked steadily for the next several years and in 1957 got his big film break in the drama Sayonara 1957 with Marlon Brando in which he played an American soldier stationed in Japan who struggled against the societal and racist pressures of both American and Japanese cultures because of his love for a Japanese woman His performance garnered him an Academy Award and more film roles followed He played a paratrooper in The Longest Day 1962 was nominated for a Golden Globe for Harlow 1965 and again for They Shoot Horses Dont They 1969 He had a part in the TV series The Double Life of Henry Phyfe 1966 and has done pretty much every kind of TV show there is from variety to comedy to soap operas He gained further renown in the 1970s for his appearances on the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast where he performed his Never Got a Dinner act to great acclaim He has played Las Vegas for years has a star on Hollywood Boulevard corner of Hollywood and Vine and has appeared in numerous telethons and charitable events for which he has been honored by such organizations as the Friars Club and the City of Hope Hospital He died July 13 2006 at the age of 87 in Century City California USA from vascular disease