Early life

Buzzi was born at Westerly Hospital, Westerly, Rhode Island, the daughter of Rena Pauline and Angelo Peter Buzzi, a nationally recognized stone sculptor. She was raised in Wequetequock, Connecticut, in a rock house overlooking the ocean at Wequetequock Cove, where her father owned Buzzi Memorials, a business still operated by her older brother Harold.

Her father was born in Arzo, Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, a few miles from the Italian border. He carved the marble eagles at Penn Station in New York designed by artist Adolph A. Weinman (who also designed the Walking Liberty half dollar and Mercury dime for the U.S. Mint), the granite Leif Erikson memorial in Providence, Rhode Island, the animals seen in relief on the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and made thousands of tombstones. He was asked to work on the carving of the Presidents on Mount Rushmore but declined, out of a fear of heights. Her mother was born in the United States to immigrants from northern Italy.

Buzzi attended Stonington High School, where she gained experience as head cheerleader performing before crowds at athletic events. At 17, she enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse for the Performing Arts and graduated with honors. She studied voice, dance, and acting, and took courses in cosmetology in case the acting career failed to attain success. Classmates at Pasadena Playhouse included legendary actors Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman.

Career

Early successes

Before graduation from college, Buzzi was already a working actress with a union card in musical and comedy revues. Her first job in show business was at 19, traveling with singer Rudy Vallee in a live musical and comedy act during her summer break from college; it allowed her to graduate with a treasured union card with Actor's Equity Union. 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 across the East Coast.

In musical and comedy revues from Provincetown, Massachusetts, to the Catskills of New York, to off-Broadway, she worked alongside other young, talented performers just beginning their careers at the time, including Barbra Streisand, Joan Rivers, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters and Carol Burnett. Buzzi 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, just after Carol Burnett was replaced by Dorothy Loudon on the series. Buzzi saw her first taste of national fame as "Shagundala the Silent", a bumbling magician's assistant to her comedy partner Dom DeLuise who played "Dominic the Great". They were an instant hit with the public.

Buzzi was a member of the regular repertory company on the CBS variety show The Entertainers (1964-1965). In 1966-1967, Buzzi played in a Bob Fosse classic Broadway musical Sweet Charity, with Fosse's wife Gwen Verdon in the original cast. She had several small roles, one of them "the Singing Fairy".

On Laugh-In and related work

In the late 1960s, Ruth Buzzi appeared in every episode of The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, a comedy-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.

A versatile comedian, Ruth Buzzi played everything from dowdy old women to tipsy drunks, from Southern belles to flashy hookers. Among her recurring characters on Laugh-In were Busy-Buzzi, Hollywood gossip columnist; Doris Swizzler, a cocktail-lounge habituée who always got riotously smashed with husband Leonard (Dick Martin); and one of the Burbank Airlines Stewardesses, teaming with Debbie Reynolds as two totally inconsiderate flight attendants. Her most famous character is the dowdy spinster Gladys Ormphby, clad in drab brown with her bun hairdo covered by a visible hairnet knotted in the middle of her forehead. Buzzi first used this look when she played Agnes Gooch in a school production of Auntie Mame. In most sketches, she used her lethal purse, with which she would flail away vigorously at anyone who incurred her wrath.

On Laugh-In, Gladys most often appeared as the unwilling object of the advances of Arte Johnson's "dirty old man" character Tyrone F. Horneigh. In a typical exchange, Tyrone accosts Gladys and asks, "Do you believe in the hereafter?" "Of course I do!" Gladys retorts defensively. Delighted, Tyrone shoots back: "Then you know what I'm here after!" 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.

Buzzi, as Gladys, was featured in most of the Dean Martin Roasts from the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas. Memorable shows included her intense comedic dialogue, ranting about notable roastees including Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, and Lucille Ball, to name a few. In each case, Gladys Ormphby pugnaciously attacked the honoree with her flailing purse to the screams and howls of the Las Vegas audience.

Martin would also suffer Gladys's purse assaults for his remarks about her unappealing looks and poor romantic prospects. In one such exchange, Gladys accusingly questioned Martin about who had been chasing her around a hotel room in the wee hours; Martin's response ("The exterminator!") earned him a beating as he broke up laughing along with the audience. Gladys then declared to the audience that, when Martin and other men looked at her, only one thing came to their minds. Martin, still laughing, could barely get out the answer: "Rabies!" This earned him an even fiercer beating from Gladys.

Continued success on television

Buzzi was featured as a semi-regular on the sitcom That Girl as Marlo Thomas's friend Pete Peterson. She starred with Jim Nabors as the time-traveling androids Fi and Fum in The Lost Saucer produced by Sid and Marty Krofft which aired from September 11, 1975 to September 2, 1976 (16 episodes).

Buzzi also guested as Chloe, the usually never-seen but often mentioned wife of phone company worker Henry Beesmeyer on Alice.

Dean Martin's producer, Greg Garrison, obviously enjoyed Ruth Buzzi's work as a comedy sketch artist and hired her for his comedy specials starring Dom DeLuise.

Buzzi charted the single "You Oughta Hear The Song" in 1977. It reached #90 on Billboard's national Country Music chart.

Buzzi was a guest star on many television series including Donny & Marie, The Flip Wilson Show, The Dean Martin Music and Comedy Hour, the Dean Martin Roasts, The Carol Burnett Show, Tony Orlando and Dawn, The Monkees, Emergency!, and variety series hosted by Leslie Uggams and by Glen Campbell. She also appeared occasionally on game shows, and was a celebrity judge on The Gong Show. She appeared on Lucille Ball's last (but short-lived) sitcom, Life with Lucy, as Mrs. Wilcox in the episode "Lucy Makes a Hit with John Ritter". She appeared eight times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and has made more than 200 other television guest appearances.

Buzzi is an accomplished voice actress. She voiced the character Nose Marie in the Hanna-Barbera animated series Pound Puppies (1986). She also voiced Mama Bear in Berenstain Bears (1985) and performed hundreds of guest voices for many other cartoon series, including The Smurfs, The Angry Beavers and Mo Willems' Sheep in the Big City. She has appeared frequently on Sesame Street in comedy sketch clips from her six years on that show, and she is often heard as the voice of outlandish failed torch singer Suzie Kabloozie. While she was a regular performer on Sesame Street, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work as Ruthie, a shopkeeper.

Buzzi performed in numerous national television commercials, most notably for Clorox 2, Liquid Swan soap, Clairol hair products, Ban roll-on deodorant, and Santa Anita Raceway, but probably her best known voice was for Granny Goodwitch, antagonist to the Sugar Bear in the animated commercials for Sugar Crisp cereal. She originated the Goodwitch character in the animated TV series Linus! The Lion Hearted (1964-65).

Buzzi appeared in the "Weird Al" Yankovic video "Gump" and similarly appeared in other music videos with the rock groups B-52's and The Presidents of the United States of America. She appeared on Saved by the Bell (playing Screech Powers's wacky mother as an Elvis fanatic), The Muppet Show, You Can't Do That on Television (during its CTV-produced incarnation Whatever Turns You On), and numerous other television shows. She played the role of the eccentric Nurse Kravitz on NBC's daytime soap opera Passions. In 2006 and 2007, she made guest appearances on the children's TV series Come on Over.

Buzzi had a successful nightclub act all across the United States including in Las Vegas at the Sahara Hotel and at the MGM Grand. She only performed the act for one year because she did not like the smell of cigarette smoke and disliked traveling all the time. Her shows were all sold out and she was offered an extended stay in Las Vegas but declined.

Buzzi has had featured roles in more than 20 feature films, including Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, Freaky Friday, The North Avenue Irregulars, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, The Villain, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland and a number of westerns for the European market known as the Lucky Luke series in which she plays the mother of the Dalton Gang.

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1964-1965	Linus the Lionhearted	Granny Goodwitch	3 episodes
1967-1973	Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In	Regular Performer	141 episodes
1967	The Steve Allen Comedy Hour	Herself
1967	The Monkees	Mrs. Weatherspoon	1 episode
1967-1968	That Girl	Pete Peterson	5 episodes
1969	That's Life		1 episode
1969	In Name Only	Ruth Clayton	TV Movie
1970-1982	Walt Disney anthology television series	Granny	6 episodes
1970-1974	The Dean Martin Show	Herself	16 episodes
1970-1973	Love, American Style	Beverly	2 episodes
1971	Night Gallery	Hungry Witch	1 episode
1972	The Singles		TV Movie, also starring Michele Lee and John Byner
1972	Here's Lucy	Annie Whipple	1 episode
1973-1976	Medical Center	Rose Jenkins	2 episodes
1974	Lotsa Luck	Wilma Wallachek	1 episode
1974	Paradise		TV Movie, also starring Luther Adler
1974	ABC Afterschool Special	Cleaning Lady	1 episode
1975-1976	The Lost Saucer	Fi	16 episodes
1976	Emergency!	Amy Merkle	1 episode
1977-1978	Baggy Pants and the Nitwits	Gladys	16 episodes
1977	Once Upon a Brothers Grimm	Queen Astrid	TV Movie
1978-1987	The Love Boat	Herself	2 episodes
1979	Legends of the Superheroes	Aunt Minerva	Part Two of a Two Part TV Special
1979	You Can't Do That on Television	Ms. Fitt	2 episodes
1979-1980	CHiPs		2 episodes
1979	Whatever Turns You On	Miss Fit
1980	"Myra"	Mrs. Paige	Animated Short
1981	Alice	Chloe	1 episode
1981	Aloha Paradise	Herself	1 episode
1982	Trapper John, M.D.	Laura Morley	1 episode
1983	Gun Shy	Mrs. Mound	1 episode
1983	Days of Our Lives	Leticia Bradford	unknown episodes
1983	Alvin and the Chipmunks		13 episodes
1984	Masquerade		1 episode
1984	Don't Ask Me, Ask God	Jonesey's Wife	TV Movie, also starring Pat Robertson and Steve Allen
1985	Paw Paws	Aunt Pruney Paw	unknown episodes
1985	George Burns Comedy Week	Juliette	1 episode
1985	The Berenstain Bears	Mama Bear	26 episodes
1985	The Jetsons		1 episode
1986	Check It Out!	Tiffany Cobb, Mrs. Cobb's Daughter	1 episode
1986	Life with Lucy	Mrs. Wilcox	1 episode
1986	Kids Incorporated: Rock in the New Year	Blanche	TV Movie
1986-1987	Pound Puppies	Nose Marie	26 episodes
1987	Milroy, Santa's Misfit Mutt	Mrs. Claus (voice)	TV Short (also starring Buddy Ebsen)
1988	Rockin' with Judy Jetson	Felonia Funk (voice)	TV Movie
1988-1990	The Munsters	Dracula's Mom	2 episodes
1988-1991	Out of This World	Mrs. Miller	3 episodes
1989	"Marvin: Baby of the Year"	Chrissy's Mother (voice)	TV Short
1990	Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers	Ma	1 episode
1990	Gravedale High	voice role	unknown episodes
1990	Saved by the Bell	Roberta Powers	1 episode
1991	They Came from Outer Space	Carol	1 episode
1991	The New Adam-12	Mrs. Woolridge	1 episode
1992	Lucky Ed's Tabloid News	Sample Lady	TV Movie
1992	Darkwing Duck	Alien Crow (voice)	2 episodes
1992	Lucky Luke	Ma Dalton	1 episode
1992	Major Dad	Mattie Fae Tillman	1 episode
1993	I Yabba-Dabba Do!	Additional Voices	TV Movie
1993	Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa		1 episode
1993	Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby	Additional Voices	TV Movie
1993	The Pink Panther		1 episode
1993-1998	Sesame Street	Ruthie	14 episodes
1993-1994	Cro	Nandy	20 episodes
1994	All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever!	Ruthie (voice)	TV Movie
1995	Savage Dragon	Various Voices	unknown episodes
1997	The Jamie Foxx Show	Judge Lekeisha Roshanda Jackson	1 episode
1998	Sabrina the Teenage Witch	Delilah	1 episode
1998-2001	7th Heaven	Telephone Operator	2 episodes
1999	Boys Will Be Boys	Mrs. Rudnick	TV Movie, also starring Randy Travis and Mickey Rooney
1999	Diagnosis Murder	Liz Summers	1 episode
2000	Rocket Power	Dog Owner	1 episode
2000	100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd	Old Lady	1 episode
2000	The Angry Beavers	Mrs. Beaver	1 episode
2000-2001	Sheep in the Big City	Delilah	7 episodes
2003	Passions	Nurse Kravitz	2 episodes
2006-2007	Come On Over	Ruthie	2 episodes

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1970	The Aristocats	Frou-Frou (singing voice)	also starring Phil Harris and Eva Gabor
1976	Freaky Friday	Opposing Coach	also starring Barbara Harris, Jodie Foster and John Astin
1977	The Rescuers	German Mouse (voice) / unconfirmed/uncredited	also starring Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor and Geraldine Page
1978	Record City	Olga
1979	The North Avenue Irregulars	Dr. Rheems	also starring Edward Herrmann, Barbara Harris and Susan Clark
1979	The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again	Old Tough Kate, aka 'Granny'	also starring Don Knotts and Tim Conway
1979	The Villain	Damsel in Distress	also starring Kirk Douglas, Ann-Margret, and Arnold Schwarzenegger
1979	Skatetown, U.S.A.	Elvira
1980	I Go Pogo	Miz Beaver / Miss Mam'selle Hepzibah (voice)
1981	Chu Chu and the Philly Flash	Consuelo	also starring Alan Arkin, Carol Burnett and Jack Warden
1983	The Being	Virginia Lane
1984	Surf II	Chuck's Mom
1986	Bad Guys	Petal McGurk	also starring Adam Baldwin
1988	Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw	Nose Marie (voice)
1988	Dixie Lanes	Betty
1989	Up Your Alley	Marilyn
1989	My Mom's a Werewolf	Madame Gypsy
1990	Wishful Thinking	Jody	also starring Murray Langston
1990	Diggin' Up Business	Widow Knockerby
1994	The Fight Before Christmas	Maw
1999	The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland	Ruthie
2000	Nothing But The Truth	Lois Troy
2004	"Adventures in Homeschooling"	Gertie Hemple	Short Film, also starring Dan Castellaneta
2006	Fallen Angels	Perril

Awards

Buzzi received five Emmy Award nominations and won the Golden Globe Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 1973 for her work on Laugh-In.

On November 22, 2014, Women in Film (Dallas, Texas chapter) awarded Buzzi their highest achievement honor, the Topaz Award, at their annual gala.

She was inducted in 2002 into the Television Hall of Fame (presented by the National Broadcasters Association, which bestowed the honor to Buzzi as well as the producers, director and cast of Laugh-In.

In 1971 she was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.

Buzzi received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Pasadena Playhouse of the Performing Arts. She was one of the first recipients of the Pasadena Playhouse Alumni Achievement Award.

Buzzi received a Clio Award for Best Spokesperson in a television commercial for her series of Clorox-2 commercials, and was among the first of only a few Caucasian women to ever win an NAACP Image Award.

In 2008 Ruth Buzzi was named a "Distinguished Woman of Northwood" by the Board of Regents of Northwood University.

Personal life

Buzzi lives with her husband Kent Perkins on a 600-acre (200 ha) cattle and horse ranch in Stephenville, Texas. She is a charter member of the Pasadena Playhouse Alumni Association. Buzzi paints as a hobby; she has never offered her oil paintings for sale to the public, but she has donated original works to charity, where they have sold in excess of $6,000.

She supports numerous children's charities including Make a Wish Foundation, the Special Olympics, The Thalians, St. Jude's Hospital, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and is a children's art summer camp sponsor through Dallas Museum of Biblical Art. Buzzi is active in fundraising for the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch in Medina, Texas and other animal causes.

Buzzi and her husband are avid automobile collectors. Their collection focuses on post-war English vehicles including Rolls-Royce and Jaguar, although it also includes several American convertibles and muscle cars. Some of her vehicles have been in television commercials, featured in parades, and her blue Bentley convertible was featured on the cover of Vogue with Jessica Simpson behind the wheel. with some of their cars having been loaned to and displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California including a 1957 Chevrolet convertible that was exhibited as part of the display honoring the cars of Steve McQueen. Buzzi's 1960 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud drophead coupe convertible was on display for the "Century of Elegance" exhibit. The museum has also featured a 1965 Chrysler Imperial convertible previously owned by Katharine Hepburn, donated to the museum by Buzzi and Perkins in 2001 and remains there for special exhibition. Buzzi and Perkins won first place in their category with their 1961 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II drophead coupe at the Concours d'Elegance national championship in Amelia Island, Florida. The vehicle won first place in the Los Angeles Rolls Royce Owners Club's "most elegant car" competition.

Buzzi has been name-dropped in numerous songs, including House of Pain's "I'm A Swing It", The Bled's "Ruth Buzzi Better Watch Her Back", and the Loretta Lynn/Conway Twitty duet "You're the Reason Our Kids are Ugly".

[ Source: Wikipedia ]