US comedian and entertainer Ruth Buzzi dead at 88

Perth Now

02-05-2025

Ruth Buzzi, who rose to fame as the frumpy and bitter Gladys Ormphby on the groundbreaking sketch US comedy series Laugh-In and made more than 200 television appearances during a 45-year career, has died at age 88.
Buzzi died on Thursday at her home in Texas, her agent Mike Eisenstad said.
She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and was in hospice care. Shortly before her death, her husband, Kent Perkins, had posted a statement on Buzzi's Facebook page, thanking her many fans and telling them: "She wants you to know she probably had more fun doing those shows than you had watching them."
Buzzi won a Golden Globe and was a two-time Emmy nominee for the NBC show that ran from 1968 to 1973. She was the only regular to appear in all six seasons, including the pilot.
Born Ruth Ann Buzzi on July 24, 1936, in Westerly, Rhode Island, she was the daughter of Angelo Buzzi, a nationally known stone sculptor. Her father and later her brother operated Buzzi Memorials, a gravestone and monument maker in Stonington, Connecticut, where she was head cheerleader in high school.
Buzzi enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse at age 17. Two years later, she travelled with singer Rudy Vallee in a musical and comedy act during her summer break. That earned her an Actors' Equity union card before she graduated from the playhouse's College of Theatre Arts.
Buzzi moved to New York and was immediately hired for a lead role in an off-Broadway musical revue, the first of 19 such shows she performed in on the East Coast.
She was a semi-regular on That Girl as Marlo Thomas' friend. She co-starred with Jim Nabors as time-travelling androids on The Lost Saucer in the mid-1970s.
Her other guest appearances included variety shows hosted by Burnett, Flip Wilson, Glen Campbell, Tony Orlando, Donny and Marie Osmond and Leslie Uggams.
Buzzi guested in music videos with Weird Al Yankovic, the B-52's and the Presidents of the United States of America.
She was Emmy nominated for her six-year run as shopkeeper Ruthie on Sesame Street.
Buzzi was active on social media and had thousands of followers whom she rewarded with such one-liners as "I have never faked a sarcasm" and "Scientists say the universe is made up entirely of neurons, protons and electrons. They seem to have missed morons."
She married actor Kent Perkins in 1978.
The couple moved from California to Texas in 2003 and bought a 260-hectare ranch near Stephenville.
Buzzi retired from acting in 2021 and suffered a series of strokes the following year. Her husband told The Dallas Morning News in 2023 that she had dementia.