Ruth Buzzi, who played a purse-wielding spinster on ‘Laugh-In,' dies at 88

Los Angeles Times

02-05-2025

Ruth Buzzi, famous for her work as handbag-wielding spinster Gladys Ormphby on 'Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In,' died Thursday, her family announced Friday. The actor was 88.
'Ruth Buzzi died peacefully in her sleep at home in Texas,' read the note on Facebook. 'She was in hospice care for several years with Alzheimer's disease.'
Buzzi's husband of more than 40 years, Kent Perkins, announced in July 2022 that she had suffered 'devastating strokes' that left her bedridden and incapacitated.
'I am living with an attitude of gratitude for 43 years of marriage to my best friend, the greatest person I ever met, the one and only Ruth Buzzi,' he wrote at the time on social media. 'Her love for others knows no bounds, and she has spent a lifetime making people smile.'
She could still speak, understand and recognize her friends and loved ones at that point, he said.
Early Thursday he wrote on Facebook that Buzzi had 'asked me to thank all of you for being so good to her for so many years. She wants you to know she probably had more fun doing those shows than you had watching them.'
The performer was born July 24, 1936, in Rhode Island and raised in Connecticut. She enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts, which was affiliated with Southern California's Pasadena Playhouse from 1928 to 1968 and had more than 5,000 students over the years.
She was in every episode of NBC's 'Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In' (1967-73), where she honed her comedic role as a park-bench spinster, and was among many cast members to utter the line 'Sock it to me.' That came after Buzzi became a fixture on television in the late '60s with appearances on 'The Monkees' (1967) and 'The Steve Allen Comedy Hour' (1967) and a part on 'That Girl' (1967-68).
'You can't find anyone funnier than Goldie Hawn or Ruth Buzzi or Arte Johnson,' 'Laugh-In' creator and executive producer George Schlatter told The Times in 2019.
Buzzi herself told The Times in 2011 about working with John Wayne on the variety show.
'John Wayne loved us so much. He would do just about anything you would ask him to do. He did one sketch where he was Gladys' husband,' she said, referring to her famous spinster character. 'They had me wearing a little bitty cowboy hat and little bitty guns. I had to hit him, and I kept hitting him waiting for them to say cut. I turned around and said, 'Please, I don't want to hit this man.' It was so funny they put [the aside] in the show.'
Among her more recent acting credits were the 2009 film 'City of Shoulders and Noses,' 'Fallen Angels' (2006) and multiple episodes of 'Passions' (2003), and she played Suzie Kabloozie in 86 episodes of 'Sesame Street.' Her final credit came in 2021 when she played Agnes in the movie 'One Month Out.'
This story is developing and will be updated. Former Times staff writer Lauren Beale contributed to this report.