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Comedian Buddy Hackett Dead
Rubber-faced funnyman Buddy Hackett died Monday at his home in Malibu. He was 78.
A cause of death is not known; however, Hackett suffered from diabetes and, according to reports, he recently had a chest cold.
Hackett's self-deprecating humor, sharp tongue and cartoon-quality mug launched his career as a comedian and actor. He rose to fame first as a waiter turned performer in the Catskills and later cracked wise in nightclubs, on Broadway, on television and in movies like The Music Man and It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
His reputation for laughs landed him appearances on CBS' Jackie Gleason Show and Jack Paar's Tonight Show on NBC and scored him his own Peacock network sitcom called Stanley, which ran from 1956-57 and costarred Carol Burnett as Hackett's girlfriend.
The '50s also saw the rise of Hackett's film career. He made his big-screen debut in 1953's Walking My Baby Back Home and would go on to star in All Hands on Deck, Muscle Beach Party, The Love Bug and Scrooged.
Younger audiences will remember Hackett as the voice of manic seagull Scuttle in Disney's The Little Mermaid and as the voice of the parrot in Paulie.
Born Leonard Hacker in Brooklyn in 1924, the class clown almost missed his calling, choosing to apprentice at his father's upholstery shop. But after three years in the military during World War II, he reinvented himself as Buddy Hackett, standup comedian, and he hit the road.
His shtick was well received by New Yorkers vacationing in the Catskill Mountains, aka the Borscht Belt. He then graduated to small clubs in New York and Los Angeles and was soon crisscrossing the country making people laugh.
In recent years, he made guest appearances on shows such as Just Shoot Me, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. His last appearance was as a celebrity talent scout on an episode of NBC's Last Comic Standing with Jay Mohr; the two had previously worked together on Paulie and Fox's defunct 1999 series Action.
He stopped making public appearances in 1996 after suffering a bout of stage fright, including dizziness and shortness of breath.
Hackett is survived by his wife, Sherry, and three children.
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