Red Buttons, 87; Long Career No Joke

Red Buttons, the impish former burlesque comic who became an early TV sensation and an Academy Award-winning character actor during a career that spanned more than seven decades, died Thursday. He was 87.

Buttons died of vascular disease at his home in Century City, his family said.

"Red was one of the few comedians who was a great actor, and he opened the doors to a lot of us," comedian Jack Carter, a longtime friend, told The Times on Thursday.

Comic Norm Crosby, another friend, remembered Buttons as "one of the brightest, most creative" comedians.

"He made a whole career out of one routine: 'I never had a dinner.' It was just brilliant," Crosby said. "He kept coming up with new lines all the time. That, to me, is what comedy is all about: keeping fresh and keeping current and changing with the times."

A product of New York's Lower East Side, Buttons had already performed in Minsky's Burlesque and in Broadway plays and musicals by the time he became an overnight hit on television in 1952 with the launch of "The Red Buttons Show" on CBS.

A comedy-variety show, it featured the likable Buttons' monologues, dance numbers and sketches with regulars and guests. Among the comic's recurring characters were a punch-drunk prizefighter named Rocky Buttons, a juvenile delinquent called Muggsy and a dumb "dialect" German named Kleeglefarven.

The diminutive comic -- 5 feet 6 and 140 pounds -- inspired children around the country to mimic him singing his signature "Ho Ho Song," in which he hopped around singing, "Ho Ho! Hee Hee! Ha Ha! Strange things are happening."

The Academy of Radio and Television Arts and Sciences named Buttons Comedian of the Year in 1954.

But his time at the top on TV was short-lived.

His show's popularity slipped in the second season and it was canceled. It was then picked up by NBC, which turned the variety show into a situation comedy in midseason before canceling it in the spring of 1955.

After the show was canceled, Buttons said years later, "I couldn't get arrested." Indeed, as he said at the time, "I found out how tough show business can be."

Over the next two years, he worked only 14 weeks, primarily in nightclubs, with only three guest shots on "The Perry Como Show" and a role in a "Studio One" production.