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Ruth Buzzi
Ruth Ann Buzzi (/ˈbʌzi/ BUZ-ee; July 24, 1936 – May 1, 2025) was an American actress, singer and comedian. She appeared on stage, in films, and on television. She was best known for her performances on the comedy-variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973, for which she won a Golden Globe Award and received five Emmy nominations.
Buzzi was born July 24, 1936, in Westerly, Rhode Island, the daughter of Rena Pauline and Angelo Peter Buzzi, a nationally recognized stone sculptor. Her father, who came from a Swiss family, immigrated from Arzo, Switzerland, in 1923. She was raised in the village of Wequetequock in the town of Stonington, Connecticut, in a stone house overlooking the ocean at Wequetequock Cove, where her father owned Buzzi Memorials, a business that her older brother Harold operated until his retirement in 2013.
Buzzi attended Stonington High School, where she was head cheerleader. At age 18, she moved across the country to enroll at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts, where her classmates included Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman. She graduated with honors in June 1957.
Before graduation from college, Buzzi was already a working union actress performing in musical and comedy revues. Her first job in show business was at 19, traveling with singer Rudy Vallée in a live musical and comedy act during her summer break from college; it allowed her to graduate with an Actors' Equity Association union card. She moved to New York City after graduation and was hired immediately for a lead role in an off-Broadway musical revue, the first of 19 in which she performed around the East Coast. She worked alongside other young performers just beginning their careers at the time, including Barbra Streisand, Joan Rivers, Dom DeLuise, and Carol Burnett. She performed in New York musical variety shows, and she made numerous television commercials, some of which won national awards including the Clio Award.
Her first national recognition on television came on The Garry Moore Show in 1964, shortly after Carol Burnett was replaced by Dorothy Loudon on the series. She performed as "Shakundala the Silent", a bumbling magician's assistant to her comedy partner Dom DeLuise, who played "Dominic the Great". Buzzi was a member of the regular repertory company on the CBS variety show The Entertainers (1964–65). In 1966–67, she appeared in Sweet Charity with Gwen Verdon in the original cast (playing three small parts: "The Good Fairy", "Woman with Hat", "Receptionist").
In 1967, Buzzi appeared in all eight episodes of The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, a variety series starring Steve Allen. Her character parts in the Allen sketches led her to be cast for NBC's new show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. She was the only featured player to appear in every episode of Laugh-In including the pilot for the show and the Laugh-In television special.[citation needed] Among her recurring characters on Laugh-In were Flicker Farkle, youngest of the Farkle family; Busy-Buzzi, a Hedda Hopper–type Hollywood gossip columnist; Doris Swizzler, a cocktail-lounge habituée who always got smashed with husband Leonard (Dick Martin); and one of the Burbank Airlines Stewardesses, inconsiderate flight attendants.
Buzzi was probably best-known for her role as "spinster" Gladys Ormphby, clad in drab brown with her bun hairdo covered by a visible hairnet knotted in the middle of her forehead. She first used this look when playing Agnes Gooch in a school production of Auntie Mame. In most sketches, her purse was used as a weapon, with which she would flail away vigorously at anyone who incurred her wrath. She most often was the unwilling object of the advances of Arte Johnson's "dirty old man" character Tyrone F. Horneigh. NBC collectively called these two characters The Nitwits when they went to animation in the mid-1970s as part of the series Baggy Pants and the Nitwits. Buzzi and Johnson both voiced their respective roles in the cartoon.[citation needed]
Buzzi appeared as Gladys in many of the NBC Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts from the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, ranting about notable roastees including Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, and Lucille Ball. In each case, Gladys pugnaciously attacked the honoree with her purse, and she would also hit Martin when he invariably made disparaging remarks about her looks and her romantic prospects.
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Ruth Buzzi
Ruth Ann Buzzi (/ˈbʌzi/ BUZ-ee; July 24, 1936 – May 1, 2025) was an American actress, singer and comedian. She appeared on stage, in films, and on television. She was best known for her performances on the comedy-variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973, for which she won a Golden Globe Award and received five Emmy nominations.
Buzzi was born July 24, 1936, in Westerly, Rhode Island, the daughter of Rena Pauline and Angelo Peter Buzzi, a nationally recognized stone sculptor. Her father, who came from a Swiss family, immigrated from Arzo, Switzerland, in 1923. She was raised in the village of Wequetequock in the town of Stonington, Connecticut, in a stone house overlooking the ocean at Wequetequock Cove, where her father owned Buzzi Memorials, a business that her older brother Harold operated until his retirement in 2013.
Buzzi attended Stonington High School, where she was head cheerleader. At age 18, she moved across the country to enroll at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts, where her classmates included Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman. She graduated with honors in June 1957.
Before graduation from college, Buzzi was already a working union actress performing in musical and comedy revues. Her first job in show business was at 19, traveling with singer Rudy Vallée in a live musical and comedy act during her summer break from college; it allowed her to graduate with an Actors' Equity Association union card. She moved to New York City after graduation and was hired immediately for a lead role in an off-Broadway musical revue, the first of 19 in which she performed around the East Coast. She worked alongside other young performers just beginning their careers at the time, including Barbra Streisand, Joan Rivers, Dom DeLuise, and Carol Burnett. She performed in New York musical variety shows, and she made numerous television commercials, some of which won national awards including the Clio Award.
Her first national recognition on television came on The Garry Moore Show in 1964, shortly after Carol Burnett was replaced by Dorothy Loudon on the series. She performed as "Shakundala the Silent", a bumbling magician's assistant to her comedy partner Dom DeLuise, who played "Dominic the Great". Buzzi was a member of the regular repertory company on the CBS variety show The Entertainers (1964–65). In 1966–67, she appeared in Sweet Charity with Gwen Verdon in the original cast (playing three small parts: "The Good Fairy", "Woman with Hat", "Receptionist").
In 1967, Buzzi appeared in all eight episodes of The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, a variety series starring Steve Allen. Her character parts in the Allen sketches led her to be cast for NBC's new show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. She was the only featured player to appear in every episode of Laugh-In including the pilot for the show and the Laugh-In television special.[citation needed] Among her recurring characters on Laugh-In were Flicker Farkle, youngest of the Farkle family; Busy-Buzzi, a Hedda Hopper–type Hollywood gossip columnist; Doris Swizzler, a cocktail-lounge habituée who always got smashed with husband Leonard (Dick Martin); and one of the Burbank Airlines Stewardesses, inconsiderate flight attendants.
Buzzi was probably best-known for her role as "spinster" Gladys Ormphby, clad in drab brown with her bun hairdo covered by a visible hairnet knotted in the middle of her forehead. She first used this look when playing Agnes Gooch in a school production of Auntie Mame. In most sketches, her purse was used as a weapon, with which she would flail away vigorously at anyone who incurred her wrath. She most often was the unwilling object of the advances of Arte Johnson's "dirty old man" character Tyrone F. Horneigh. NBC collectively called these two characters The Nitwits when they went to animation in the mid-1970s as part of the series Baggy Pants and the Nitwits. Buzzi and Johnson both voiced their respective roles in the cartoon.[citation needed]
Buzzi appeared as Gladys in many of the NBC Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts from the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, ranting about notable roastees including Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, and Lucille Ball. In each case, Gladys pugnaciously attacked the honoree with her purse, and she would also hit Martin when he invariably made disparaging remarks about her looks and her romantic prospects.
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