Red Buttons

Red Buttons was born Aaron Chwatt on February 5, 1919, in New York City, to Sophie (née Baker) and Michael Chwatt. At sixteen years old, Aaron got a job as an entertaining bellhop Because of his red hair and the large, shiny buttons on his bellhop uniform, he was introduced as "Red Buttons”.

Later that same summer, in worked in the Catskill Mountains (Borscht Belt). His straight man was Robert Alda. In 1939, Buttons started working for Minsky's Burlesque and in 1941, José Ferrer chose Buttons to appear in a Broadway show The Admiral Had a Wife. The show was a farce set in Pearl Harbor; due to open on December 8, 1941. It never did, as it was deemed inappropriate after the Japanese attack. In later years, Buttons would joke that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor to keep him off Broadway.
Drafted into the United States Army Air Forces, Buttons appeared in the Army Air Forces' Broadway show Winged Victory in 1943, along with Mario Lanza, John Forsythe, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb. A year later he appeared in Darryl F. Zanuck's movie version of Winged Victory. Buttons also entertained troops in the European Theater in the same unit as Mickey Rooney.

After the war, Buttons continued to do Broadway shows. In 1952, he received his own variety series on television, The Red Buttons Show," which achieved high levels of success. In 1953, he recorded a two-sided hit with Strange Things Are Happening and The Ho Ho Song.

In the film Sayonara, he played Joe Kelly, an American airman stationed in Kobe, Japan during the Korean War, who marries Katsumi, a Japanese woman (played by Miyoshi Umeki), but is barred from taking her back to the United States. Co-starring with Marlon Brando, Button’s moving portrayal of Kelly. won him a best supporting actor Academy Award.

Buttons also performed in numerous feature films, including the African adventure Hatari! with John Wayne, the war epic The Longest Day, the biopic Harlow, the disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, the dance-marathon drama They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, the family comedy Pete's Dragon, the disaster film When Time Ran Out with Paul Newman and the age-reversal comedy 18 Again! with George Burns.
In 1966, Buttons again starred in his own TV series, a spy spoof called The Double Life of Henry Phyfe. Buttons also made many memorable guest television appearances on programs including The Eleventh Hour, Little House on the Prairie, It's Garry Shandling's Show, ER, Roseanne, and Knots Landing.

He became a nationally recognizable comedian, and his "Never Got A Dinner" routine was a standard of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast for many years. He’s included on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time.
Buttons received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television, his star being located at Hollywood and Vine.

Red Buttons died of complications from high blood pressure on July 13, 2006, at age 87 at his home in Century City, Los Angeles.

Click picture and listen to Red's
"Never Had A Dinner Routine".