Ruth Buzzi

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.

Early successes:

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").

On Laugh-In and related work:

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. 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 summer stock 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.

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.

Continued success on television:

Buzzi was featured on the second season on the comedy That Girl as Marlo Thomas's friend Margie "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, until September 2, 1976 (16 episodes). In 1979, she co-starred on the Canadian children's comedy show You Can't Do That on Television (also known as Whatever Turns You On).

Dean Martin's producer Greg Garrison hired her for his comedy specials starring Dom DeLuise. She recorded the single "You Oughta Hear the Song" in 1977 which reached number 90 on Billboard's national Country Music chart; Buzzi joked in 2022 in hindsight: "Here's a medley of my hit song: I'd like to thank the millions and millions of you who didn't buy a copy. I got to spend quality time at home in '78 instead of standing in front of all those aggravating audiences."

Buzzi was a guest star on many television series: as Chloe, the wife of phone company worker Henry Beesmeyer (Marvin Kaplan) on Alice (1981); on Down to Earth (1985); 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 Glen Campbell. She also appeared occasionally on game shows and was a celebrity judge on The Gong Show. She appeared in Lucille Ball's last comedy show, 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.

Buzzi 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 joined the cast of Sesame Street in 1993 as a shopkeeper, Ruthie, as part of the "Around the Corner" set expansion. Ruthie ran Finders Keepers, which sold items previously owned by fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters. After the set was removed in 1999, she continued to appear on the show in inserts, usually in costume as other characters. She also voiced Suzie Kabloozie and her pet cat, Feff, in animated inserts that were shown on the show from 1994 to 2008. She reprised her role as Ruthie in Sesame Street Stays Up Late!, Sesame Street's All Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever, and Elmopalooza, as well as the direct-to-video production The Best of Elmo and the feature film The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland.

Buzzi appeared in the "Weird Al" Yankovic video "Gump" and similarly appeared in other music videos with the B-52's and the Presidents of the United States of America. She appeared on Saved by the Bell, The Muppet Show, two episodes of You Can't Do That on Television in 1979 (as well as the entire run of the You Can't Do That On Television's spinoff 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. She had featured roles in more than 20 films, including Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, Freaky Friday, The North Avenue Irregulars, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, The Villain, The Being, Surf II, 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.

In 2021, she retired from acting.

Buzzi was a charter member of the Pasadena Playhouse Alumni Association. She painted as a hobby; however, she had never offered her oil paintings for sale to the public, choosing to donate original works to charity, where they sold in excess of $6,000.

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

Buzzi lived with her husband, actor Kent Perkins, on a 600-acre (240 ha) cattle and horse ranch near Stephenville, Texas. They were avid automobile collectors. Their collection focused on post-war English vehicles, including Bentley, Rolls-Royce, and Jaguar, although it also includes several American convertibles and muscle cars. Some of their cars have been donated or lent to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, including a red, fuel-injected 1957 Chevrolet convertible that was exhibited from 1993 to 2011 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.

Buzzi was named 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".

Buzzi was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2012. In July 2022, it was reported that Buzzi had suffered a series of strokes and was improving.

Buzzi died of complications from Alzheimer's disease during hospice care at her home, in Stephenville, Texas, on May 1, 2025, at age 88.