
Red Buttons
Biography
Although Red Buttons is best known as a stand-up comic, he is also a successful songwriter, an Academy Award-winning actor (and has been nominated for two Golden Globe awards) and an accomplished singer. Born Aaron Chwatt on February 5, 1919 (Aquarius) in New York City's Lower East Side, stood at a height of 5' 6" (1.68 m). Buttons (who got his name from a uniform he wore while working as a singing bellhop), also known as Cpl. Red Buttons, started his show-business career singing on street corners as a child. At 16 he got a job as part of a comedy act playing the famed Catskills resort area in upstate New York (his partner was future actor Robert Alda). Buttons worked the burlesque circuit as a comic and even landed a role in a Broadway play, "Vicki", in 1942. He soon joined the U.S. Marine Corps, and in 1943 was picked for a role in Moss Hart's service play "Winged Victory" on Broadway, and soon afterwards journeyed to Hollywood to make the film version. After his discharge from the service he returned to Broadway, both in plays and as a comic with several big-band orchestras. He was successful enough that he got his own TV series, The Red Buttons Show (1952), on CBS. It lasted three years and won Buttons an Emmy for Best Comedian. He worked steadily for the next several years, and in 1957 got his big film break in the drama Sayonara (1957) with Marlon Brando, in which he played an American soldier stationed in Japan who struggled against the societal and racist pressures of both American and Japanese cultures because of his love for a Japanese woman. His performance garnered him an Academy Award, and more film roles followed. He played a paratrooper in The Longest Day (1962), was nominated for a Golden Globe for Harlow (1965) and again for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). He had a part in the TV series The Double Life of Henry Phyfe (1966) and has done pretty much every kind of TV show there is, from variety to comedy to soap operas. He gained further renown in the 1970s for his appearances on the "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" where he performed his "Never Got a Dinner" act to great acclaim. He has played Las Vegas for years, has a star on Hollywood Boulevard (corner of Hollywood and Vine) and has appeared in numerous telethons and charitable events, for which he has been honored by such organizations as the Friars Club and the City of Hope Hospital. He died July 13, 2006 at the age of 87 in Century City, California, USA from vascular disease.
Acting (49 movies)

The Poseidon Adventure
1972

Pete's Dragon
1977

Hatari!
1962

Harlow
1965

The Story of Us
1999

Gay Purr-ee
1962

The Longest Day
1962

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
1969

Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July
1979

Sayonara
1957

Five Weeks in a Balloon
1962

18 Again!
1988

Stagecoach
1966

When Time Ran Out...
1980

Viva Knievel!
1977

Movie Movie
1978

Your Cheatin' Heart
1964

C.H.O.M.P.S.
1979

The Ambulance
1990

A Ticklish Affair
1963

Darryl F. Zanuck: 20th Century Filmmaker
1995

Goodnight, We Love You
2004

The Big Circus
1959

Winged Victory
1944

Imitation General
1958

The Users
1978

Leave 'Em Laughing
1981

A Marriage of Strangers
1959

Who Killed Mary Whats'ername?
1971

Gable and Lombard
1976

Telethon
1977

Reunion at Fairborough
1985

Night of 100 Stars II
1985

Power
1980

One, Two, Three
1961

Breakout
1970

Up from the Beach
1965

George Burns Celebrates 80 Years in Show Business
1983

Footlight Varieties
1951

It Could Happen to You
1994

Joys
1976

Side Show
1981

George M!
1970

Louis Armstrong: Chicago Style
1976

The Muppets Go Hollywood
1979

Twentieth Century Fox: The First 50 Years
1997

George Burns: His Wit and Wisdom
1989

The All-Star Christmas Show
1958

Flannery and Quilt
1976
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