Buddy Hackett stepped onto the stage like a storm, loud, rough, reckless, making audiences laugh until they could hardly breathe with just a stammered line, a twisted face, and a look in his eyes as if he were about to explode. But behind the man who seemed born to make people laugh was a Brooklyn child whose own body had once betrayed him, who carried the mark of Bell’s palsy on his face, and who learned to turn ridicule into a weapon for survival.
He was not handsome by Hollywood standards, not elegant like the nightclub stars, and he never tried to make himself seem classier in order to be accepted. Buddy Hackett used the very roughness, the pain, and the things life mocked him for to create a fierce kind of laughter. From the stages of the Catskills, the nightclubs of Las Vegas, Broadway, and television to The Music Man, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and his voice role as Scuttle in The Little Mermaid, he proved that true talent does
not need to be perfect. It only needs to be real enough that people cannot look away, but that laughter could not erase every shadow. War, the pressure of the stage, declining health, heart disease, diabetes, and his quiet final years cast a layer of sadness over this comedy legend that few people ever saw.
So, who was Buddy Hackett really? America’s loudmouth clown, or a man who used laughter to hide a lifetime of pain? Buddy Hackett was born on August 31st, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York into a working-class Jewish family in the Borough Park neighborhood. His birth name was Leonard Hacker. His father, Philip Hacker, worked as an upholsterer and occasionally pursued small invention ideas of his own.
His mother, Anna Geller, worked in the garment industry, a job familiar to many immigrant families in New York at the time. Their life was not wealthy, but it was not desperately poor, either. It was a world of crowded apartments, small shops along the streets, long conversations around the dinner table, and a community where almost everyone knew one another’s business.
In that environment, humor was not something reserved only for the stage. It existed in everyday life. The stories retold during family meals, the teasing between neighbors, the noisy arguments that ended in laughter, all of it became a natural part of Leonard’s childhood. Many years later, when audiences heard Buddy Hackett tell stories on stage, they often had the feeling that he was not performing, but simply continuing a conversation that had begun long ago in Brooklyn. Leonard’s childhood was not
entirely peaceful. When he was young, he developed Bell’s palsy, a form of facial nerve paralysis that left lasting effects on his facial expressions and voice. In an entertainment industry that placed great value on appearance and polish, that could have become a major barrier. His face was not as symmetrical as those of the movie actors of that era.
His voice also carried its own distinct tone, at times sounding as if it were stumbling over the very words he wanted to say. But, what is remarkable is that Leonard did not spend his childhood trying to hide that difference. He grew up with it. Many years later, when he stepped onto the stage under the name Buddy Hackett, audiences remembered not only his funny stories, but also the way he spoke, the way he paused, and the way his face reacted to every small detail.
What might once have made a child feel insecure eventually became an inseparable part of his identity as a performer. At New Utrecht High School, Leonard joined the football team and the drama club. These two activities may not seem closely connected, but both revealed a trait that would follow him throughout his life.
He liked standing in front of a crowd. On the football football field, he became familiar with the pressure of hundreds of eyes watching him. On the school stage, he began to feel the special appeal of making other people pay attention to him. This was not yet a dream of becoming a star. It was much simpler than that.
Leonard enjoyed the feeling of connecting with an audience. During his school years, he began working at the famous resorts of the Jewish community in the Catskills. This was where thousands of families from New York came every summer for vacation, and it was also the cradle of many American comedians in the 20th century.
Leonard did all kinds of jobs. He was a bellhop, a waiter, and a busboy. But the most important job was that of a tummler, the person responsible for stirring up the atmosphere, organizing games, talking with guests, and keeping the entire resort lively. The Catskills became Leonard Hacker’s real school.
No one taught him how to write a comedy script. No one taught him how to build a stage persona. Instead, he learned how to read the faces of the people in front of him. He learned how to recognize when a story was losing the audience. He learned how to pull a room’s attention back with just one well-timed line.
Those skills later became the foundation for Buddy Hackett’s entire career. His first failure also came very early. During one performance at the Golden Hotel in Hurleyville, Leonard stepped onto the stage hoping to become a real comedian. The result was almost a disaster. Many years later, he recalled that he did not get even a single laugh.
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It was an important lesson. Audiences do not automatically laugh just because the person on stage wants them to laugh. Laughter has to be earned. During that period, he also used the stage name Butch Hacker. The name carried more of the flavor of the Brooklyn streets than of the stage lights.
According to stories Buddy later told, he once earned extra money through amateur boxing matches. Those small payments did not make him rich, but they reflected the environment in which he grew up. This was not the youth of a formally trained artist. This was the youth of a Brooklyn boy who was always trying to make a living, always trying to get attention, and always trying to make other people remember him.
In 1942, shortly after graduating from high school, Leonard Hacker joined the United States Army. He served in an anti-aircraft artillery unit for 3 years during World War II. Like so many young men of his generation, his youth was interrupted by war. The days in the Catskills, the moment standing before crowds, and the vague dreams of the stage had to give way to uniforms, discipline, and a world sinking into conflict.
This was not Leonard’s story alone. An entire generation of Americans came of age in that way, stepping from school into the military before they they had even had time to understand what they wanted to do with their lives. When he returned from the war, Leonard Hacker did not come back to to civilian life with a clear plan.
He knew he wanted to stand in front of an audience, but he did not yet know exactly how. The early years after World War II became a period of researching and experimenting see or strike. He began working at the Pink Elephant Club in Brooklyn, a club where many young performers found their first opportunities. It was there that Leonard Hacker gradually became Buddy Hackett.
The new name sounded more approachable, easier to remember remember, and more suitable for the stage than the name he had carried since birth. Buddy continued, returning to the Catskills, the place that had once served as his first school. But this time, he was no longer just a tumbler or the person organizing games for resort guests.
He began appearing as a real comedian. Successful nights were mixed with nights that came close to complete failure. There were times when he walked off stage having received almost no laughter at all. Instead of making him give up, those failures became part of his apprenticeship. The Catskills gave Buddy something no school could teach, the ability to read an audience, feel the rhythm of a room, and change the way he told a story in the middle of a performance.
During this period, he also began moving farther beyond New York. Los Angeles opened up new opportunities, though success did not come immediately. Hollywood at the time was built around handsome faces, polished voices, and carefully controlled images. Buddy Hackett fit almost none of those standards.
He was short, heavy set, had a face marked by Bell’s palsy, and spoke with a thick Brooklyn voice. The very qualities that made him stand out in front of live audiences were not always advantages in the eyes of the movie studios. Las Vegas also began to enter his life in the early 1950s. At that time, the city was transforming into America’s new entertainment center.
Buddy quickly realized that he fit that environment better than almost anywhere else. Night rooms allowed him to improvise, stretch out a story, speak directly to the audience, and create a sense of intimacy that television or film could rarely provide. Later, he would often call himself a saloon comic, a comedian of lounges and nightclubs, because that was where he felt most comfortable.
Alongside clubs and nightclub stages, Buddy began to find his way to Broadway. This was an important step because Broadway not only brought professional prestige, but also opened the door to national television. In the play Lunatics and Lovers, he attracted the attention of Max Liebman, one of the most influential television producers of the time.
It was the first time a powerful figure in the entertainment industry saw Buddy as as more than a nightclub comedian. Liebman recognized his special ability to command the stage through his own personality rather than relying on familiar comedy formulas. Thanks to Liebman’s attention, Buddy began appearing in television specials.
That was the first step that brought him to audiences on a national scale. However, his career at this point was still far from stable. Buddy did not yet have a clearly defined image. He was not a singer. He was not a movie leading man. He was not entirely, like traditional comedians, either. Even the people running the entertainment industry did not know where to place him, but that very difficulty in classifying him gradually became Buddy Hackett’s greatest advantage.
In an era when many performers tried to become alike in order to be accepted, he began to draw attention because he was unlike anyone else. In the early 1950s, Buddy Hackett was still moving between clubs, small stages, and occasional screen opportunities. He had found his audience, but Hollywood still had not found a way to use him.
The studios were used to working with easily recognizable images, the heroic young man, the handsome comedian, or comic pairs built according to familiar formulas. Buddy belonged to none of those groups. He carried with him a thick Brooklyn voice, an asymmetrical face, and a storytelling style that often veered away from every expected path.
In 1950, he appeared in King of the Pins, a Columbia Pictures short film about old The role role was not large, and it did not create any major breakthrough, but it was the first time Buddy had the chance to enter a professional film environment. While the studios were still watching him, he continued returning to the place where he felt most comfortable, the live stage and real audiences.
In the years that followed, a story emerged that Buddy would tell many times in interviews and on television. According to him, after Curly Howard was no longer able to continue performing, he was once considered for a place in the Three Stooges. Buddy said that he met Moe Howard and Larry Fine before deciding to turn down the opportunity.
He did not want to become anyone’s replacement. Although the accuracy of the story continued to be debated many years later, it clearly reflected the way Buddy viewed his career. From the beginning, he wanted to be remembered as Buddy Hackett, not as a substitute version of another famous figure. The real turning point came in 1953.
In nightclubs and comedy clubs, Buddy began performing a routine called The Chinese Waiter. On stage, he transformed into a waiter trying to manage a series of requests, misunderstandings, and awkwardly funny situations. Audiences reacted very strongly to the routine. Rooms began filling up more whenever Buddy appeared.
His name spread faster than at any previous point in his career. The appeal of The Chinese Waiter became so strong that Buddy recorded the routine and was invited to bring it to the screen in the film Walking Baby Back Home with Donald O’Connor and Janet Leigh. For the first time, part of his stage identity was transferred directly into film.
It was also the moment when Hollywood began to realize that the man from Brooklyn was not merely a local performer from the Catskills or the nightclubs. In just a few short years, The Chinese waiter became almost inseparable from Buddy Hackett’s name. The routine opened up new contracts, larger stages, and a wider audience.
But, time also turned it into a clear example of the changes in American comedy culture. What once made audiences in the early 1950s laugh would later be seen as a form of comedy based on stereotypes from an older era. The most famous routine from the early stage of Buddy Hackett for also became one of the most debated parts when viewed from many decades later.
In 1954, as the door to Hollywood began to open wider, Buddy was still not a movie star. He was still a performer being tested, being observed, and searching for his place in the entertainment industry. However, for the first time since leaving the military, the name Buddy Hackett no longer appeared only in local performance rooms.
It had begun to enter the larger conversations of the American entertainment industry. In 1954, Buddy Hackett received the biggest opportunity of his film career up to that point when he was chosen to replace Lou Costello in Fireman Save My Child. Costello had to leave the project because of health problems, and Bud Abbott also did not continue with it.
Universal brought Hugh O’Brian into the other role and hoped the duo could open a different path after the successful era of Abbott and Costello. For Buddy, this was the first time he was placed in a position that had the potential to completely change the course of his career. That expectation did not last long.
The film did not achieve the commercial success Universal had hoped for, and the plan to build Buddy Hackett and Hugh O’Brian into a new comedy team was quickly abandoned. Hollywood still had not found a way to use this man from Brooklyn. He was not like the comedy of the 1950s, and he was not easy to place into an existing mold.
While the studios were still struggling to find an answer, Buddy continued returning to the stage and to live audiences. Television offered another path. In 1956, NBC launched the sitcom Stanley with Buddy in the lead role. The series told the story of Stanley, the operator of a newsstand inside a New York hotel, and it was produced by Max Liebman, the man who had noticed him during his Broadway days.
The cast also included Carol Burnett, who was then just beginning her career. This was the first time Buddy became the central face of a national network television program. Stanley lasted only 19 weeks before coming to an end. The show did not develop the long-lasting life that NBC had hoped for, but it helped Buddy appear more regularly before audiences across America.
At the same time, he continued appearing on entertainment programs that were extremely popular on television. His name gradually moved beyond the nightclubs and resorts where he had begun his career. In the late 1950s, Buddy appeared on the Perry Como Show, What’s My Line?, and many other variety programs.
In 1957, he and his old friend Lenny Bruce appeared on the Patrice Munsel Show, where the two called themselves the Not Ready for Primetime Players, many years before that phrase became famous in American television culture. From 1959 to 1961, he continued taking guest roles, including two episodes of The Rifleman.
Film had still not given him a breakthrough role, but Buddy Hackett had become a familiar face on the small screen as he entered the 1960s. In the early 1960s, Buddy Hackett appeared more and more frequently on American television. He became a familiar guest on variety programs and talk shows, places where a performer did not have to cling tightly to a fixed script.
When sitting across from a host, Buddy would often tell a simple story and then let it expand in its simple direction. Audiences were not only waiting for the next joke, they were waiting to see where the story would turn next. One of the people who recognized that value early was Jack Paar.
His appearances on The Tonight Show helped Buddy reach a larger audience than any stage had ever given him before. The more he appeared on national television, the farther his name traveled beyond the world of the Catskills and the nightclubs where he had begun his career. His growing presence on television also brought Buddy closer to Hollywood.
After years building his name in clubs, variety programs, and live performance, he began receiving larger scale film opportunities. In 1961, Buddy appeared in Everything’s Ducky with Mickey Rooney. The film did not become a box office phenomenon, but it marked the first time he and Rooney worked together before reuniting in a much larger project ahead.
In 1962, Buddy appeared in The Music Man as Marcellus Washburn. The film was adapted from the successful Broadway musical and brought together many major Hollywood names. As the old friend of Harold Hill, Buddy brought to the screen the naturalness he had spent years developing on stage. The Shipoopi performance quickly became one of the most remembered moments of the film.
For millions of viewers, this was the first time they saw Buddy Hackett in a major motion picture rather than on television or in nightclubs. Only a year later, he appeared in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The film brought together an unusually large cast of comedians for that era and was directed by Stanley Kramer.
Buddy played Benji Benjamin paired with Mickey Rooney in a treasure hunt across America. The film became one of the most famous comedies of the 1960s and continued to be mentioned decades later. Among a cast that included Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, and many other names, Buddy still had moments strong enough for audiences to remember him.
By this point, his name was appearing everywhere. Television still invited him frequently. The showrooms in Las Vegas continued to fill with audiences. Hollywood began to see Buddy as a face capable of attracting the public. After years of moving through the Catskills, Broadway, television, and nightclubs, he had reached the position that many comedians of his generation pursued.
In 1964, Buddy returned to Broadway in I Had a Ball with Richard Kiley. While many actors moved completely into film once they had the chance, he continued moving between the stage, television, and movies. Buddy’s work schedule during this period stretched across several fields at the same time.
He could appear on a national television program, perform in Las Vegas, and then return to the Broadway stage during the same phase of his career. However, the door to Hollywood only opened to a certain degree. Although audiences loved him and he appeared in several successful films, Buddy was rarely placed at the center of a major project.
The studio saw in him an excellent supporting character, someone who could make a scene more alive, but not the kind of actor they wanted to build into a box office leading star. In the biggest films of this period, his name usually stood beside other figures rather than standing alone on the promotional posters.
Buddy continued moving forward, but the deeper he entered Hollywood, the clearer the distance became between how he saw himself and how the film system saw him. The showrooms, television, and live audiences seemed to understand very clearly who Buddy Hackett was. Hollywood was still trying to find a box suitable enough to place him in.
The problem was that Buddy had never been the kind of person who could fit neatly into any box. In 1968, Buddy Hackett appeared in The Love Bug as Tennessee Steinmetz, the bearded and eccentric mechanic who accompanied the famous Volkswagen, Herbie. The film became a major commercial success for Disney and brought him to a wider audience than any project before it.
While nightclubs and late-night programs helped make him beloved by adults, The Love Bug brought him into the living rooms of American families and to children who were hearing the name Buddy Hackett for the first time. In many ways, this should have been the moment that opened a new chapter. Buddy had appeared in successful films, was a familiar face on national television, and now had become part of the Disney world.
From the outside, everything looked like the journey of a performer gradually moving toward the position of a leading movie star. But the closer he moved to the center of Hollywood, the more he faced a different reality. The studios liked him. Audiences liked him. Directors liked him.
The only problem was that no one truly knew where to place him. He was not like the comic actors Hollywood was used to building. He did not possess the appearance of a traditional silver screen star. He was not the kind of actor who could easily become the center of a long-running film franchise. The very things that made audiences love Buddy on stage were also the hardest things to control in front of the camera.
His spontaneity, the stories that veered away from their original path, and the feeling that he could lead an entire room anywhere with just a few words. The Love Bug became one of the films associated with his name for decades when Disney continued expanding the Herbie franchise with new installments.
Buddy did not return as Tennessee Steinmetz. Later, he would mention that with a certain sense of regret. A role that had once brought him to millions of young viewers did not continue alongside the later successes of the film series. If Hollywood only gave Buddy Hackett certain limits, say Las Vegas gave him an entire stage.
In the 1970s, while the film industry still had not truly found the right place for for him, the biggest casinos and showrooms in America offered their own answer. They did not need Buddy to become a movie star. They only needed him to step onto the stage and start telling stories. Buddy’s name quickly became one of the most familiar names on the marquees of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and the network of nightclubs across America.
Audiences did not buy tickets to meet Tennessee Steinmetz or any other character. They came to meet Buddy Hackett himself. What Hollywood had never fully been able to exploit became his greatest asset in the world of live performance. His shows rarely operated the same way two nights in a row.
A question from the audience, as event that had just happened that day, or a sudden memory could change the entire direction of the performance. Stories about Brooklyn, the Catskills, family, Jewish cemeteries, Japan, or touring trips simply followed one another. Buddy often began at one point and then appeared in a completely different place many minutes later.
What was remarkable was that the audience always was following him. His name continued to appear on national television. Buddy became a familiar guest of Johnny Carson during the period when the show was at its greatest influence. Carson often only needed to offer a topic and then let Buddy guide the rest.
Many conversations moved from childhood memories, marriage, and the military to trips overseas with almost no need for any clear structure. His storytelling and improvisational ability made him one of the most anticipated guests on the program. The more he appeared, the clearer a paradox became.
Buddy Hackett did not become a movie star in the way Hollywood had once imagined successful comedians would, but he became someone audiences wanted to listen to more than many actual movie stars. They were not waiting for him to transform into another character. They wanted to hear Buddy Hackett himself tell the next story.
During this same period, he appeared in famous Lay’s potato chips commercials with the slogan, “Nobody can eat just one.” His image appeared more and more often on American television. In 1974, he published the poetry collection, The Naked Mind of Buddy Hackett, revealing another side beyond the comedy stage.
HBO specials also helped him continue maintaining his his audience during the period when cable television was beginning to expand. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Buddy Hackett no longer had to prove his place in the world of live performance. From the Catskills to Las Vegas, from small clubs to the largest showrooms in America, he had built a loyal audience that lasted across generations.
While comedy trends kept changing, Buddy still stood there with the very tools that had followed him from the beginning. A story, a memory, an audience listening, and the ability to turn any conversation into a performance. In 1978, Buddy Hackett returned to a story that had appeared very early in his career when he played Lou Costello in the television film Bud and Lou.
More than two decades after being chosen to replace Costello in Fireman Save My Child, this time he directly portrayed the very performer who had become part of American comedy history. The role created an interesting full circle in Buddy’s life. The man who had once refused to live under someone else’s shadow had now become a name large enough to represent an entire generation of performers who came before him.
In the 1980s, he continued appearing on television in various guest roles. The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, L.A. Law, and The Fall Guy helped Buddy maintain his public presence. While many colleagues of his generation began moving away from the spotlight, what was remarkable was not the number of roles, but his ability to adapt.
The American entertainment industry kept changing, but Buddy still found a way to survive within it without having to change himself too much. In 1989, Disney once again opened a new door when it invited him to voice Scuttle in The Little Mermaid. The talkative seagull character, always confident and often misunderstanding everything, quickly became one of the most beloved parts of the film.
For millions of children, this was the first time they came to know Buddy Hackett. A generation that had once grown up with him in nightclubs and late-night programs now had children of their own, and Buddy, in some way, continued to appear in the childhood of the next generation. Entering the 1990s, he continued taking part in film and television projects such as Polly and the series Action, while also maintaining his live performance schedule.
In the final years of the century, audiences he him again in the Tuesdays with Buddy segment on Craig Kilborn’s show. What was interesting was that by this point, Buddy was no longer appearing to introduce a new film or promote a new project. Audiences simply wanted to hear him tell stories.
After decades of standing before the public, Buddy Hackett himself had become the greatest attraction. His presence across many decades was eventually recognized with official honors. In 1998, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Two years later, the Palm Springs Walk of Stars gave him a golden palm star.
But perhaps what was more special was that these honors came at a time when Buddy no longer had to prove who he was. From the Catskills, Broadway, Las Vegas and Johnny Carson to Disney, he had passed through nearly every form of American popular entertainment while still preserving the very thing that had made audiences recognize him from the earliest days.
As the entertainment industry entered an era completely different from the one in which he had begun, Buddy Hackett was still there. Not as a movie star dominating the box office or a television icon built by the system. He existed in his own way. One generation of audiences after another would unexpectedly encounter him somewhere and realize that the man telling stories had never truly left the stage.
On June 12th, 1955, Buddy Hackett married Sherry Cohen. That marriage began when he was still a performer trying to find his place in the entertainment industry and it lasted until the day he died nearly half a century later. During that time, Buddy passed through the Catskills, Broadway, Las Vegas, Hollywood, Disney and national television. Shows came and disappeared.
Stages has opened and closed. Many friends from his generation left his life one by one. Sherry was still there. What was remarkable was that Buddy rarely turned his married life into part of his public image. On stage, he often told comic stories about husbands and wives, arguments, and awkwardly funny family situations.
Audiences laughed because everything seemed chaotic. But those who knew him in real life saw a different reality. Behind the man who could make an entire room double over with laughter was a life far more stable than what the public often imagined about performers. The busiest years of his career were also the years in which Buddy’s family gradually became complete.
He and Sherry had three children, Sandy, Ivy, and Lisa. Among them, Sandy Hackett later followed his father’s path. For many years, it Sandy appeared as the opening act for Buddy’s shows. This was not only the story of a son following in his father’s footsteps. It was also a rare image showing that the world Buddy Hackett had built had begun to continue through the next generation.
The family was largely kept outside the spotlight. While audiences saw Buddy in Las Vegas hotels, on television, or in Disney films, his daily life still revolved around his wife and children, his home, and fairly ordinary routines. The more famous he became, the more he seemed to try to preserve a space that did not belong to the public.
Perhaps that was also one of the reasons the most important relationships in his life lasted so long. In the late 1990s, the public still had the chance to see Buddy again on television. He joined the series Action, continued taking guest roles, and occasionally appeared on entertainment programs. One of the most memorable stops was the Tuesdays with Buddy segment on Craig Kilborn’s show.
Instead of promoting a new film or a new project, Buddy sat in front of the the and told stories from his life. Memories of the Catskills, Las Vegas, Johnny Carson, tours, and old friends appeared one after another. By this point, audiences were no longer merely listening to jokes. They were listening to a piece of American comedy history being retold by the very person who had lived inside it.
In 1998, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Two years later, the Palm Springs Walk of Stars gave him a golden palm star. Those honors came when Buddy had entered the final stage of his career after more than half a century working in the entertainment industry.
He was still invited to appear at many events, but his pace of work was very different from the peak years in Las Vegas. His final years passed mostly at his beachfront home in Malibu, California. Heart disease continued to progress. Problems related to diabetes also affected his health more and more clearly. Nearly a week before his death, Buddy suffered a stroke.
His body, already weakened, no longer had the ability to recover as it once had. On June 30, 2003, Buddy Hackett died at his home in Malibu at the age of 78. The main cause was determined to be heart disease along with health complications that had lasted for many years before that.
He passed away just two months before his 79th birthday. The news quickly spread across Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the American comedy community. Those who had worked with him remembered a performer who could turn any conversation into a performance. Colleagues recalled the rare improvisational ability that had helped him survive across many different generations of entertainment.
From the Catskills stages, the nightclubs of Las Vegas, and live television to Disney and Hollywood, Buddy Hackett had been present in American entertainment life for so long that many audiences his could hardly remember a time when he had not been there. When he died, it was not only a performer leaving the stage.
A part of the comedy world that had taken shape in the middle of the 20th century also quietly closed with him. Buddy Hackett left behind a fairly rare kind of mark in the history of American entertainment. For most of his career the public seemed to understand him faster than the very entertainment industry that had created him.
Audiences knew they liked listening to Buddy tell stories. They knew they wanted to see him appear on stage. Meanwhile, Hollywood never truly found a mold accurate enough to define him. Many performers are remembered for one role. Many others are tied to a film, a television program, or a character that became iconic.
Buddy belonged almost to none of those groups. He passed through more than half a century of the entertainment industry without ever being contained within a single image. Those who worked with him often did not begin by mentioning his films or his television appearances. They spoke of the way Buddy entered a room. An ordinary conversation could stretch into a story.
A story could turn in many different directions before suddenly returning to its starting point. What audiences waited for was not the ending. They waited to see where Buddy would take them next. As the Catskills resorts gradually disappeared as the era of the nightclub receded into the past and as many of the stages that had made his name no longer existed, part of that performance style remained preserved in old recordings.
Not in the form of a perfect routine or a carefully staged performance. It existed in the moments when Buddy seemed to forget that the camera was even there and simply told stories the way he had done since he was a boy in Brooklyn. Perhaps that is also why Buddy Hackett continues to be rem- remembered by very different generations of audiences.
One person encountered him through Johnny Carson. Another met him in The Love Bug. Someone else knew only the voice of Scuttle in The Little Mermaid. They came from different moments in time, but they all recognized the same thing. Behind every character was always a man who was not trying to become anyone other than himself. Many years after Buddy Hackett died, the stages that had made his name had changed, and his first audiences had also gradually grown older.
But whenever an old recording appears again, everything seems to begin in the same way. A host asks a question, Buddy leans forward. Then a few minutes later, the entire room forgets what the original question was. There are performers remembered for one film. There are performers remembered for one song.
Buddy Hackett left behind thousands of stories. That is also the most fitting way to remember him. A man stepped onto the stage, began to speak, and then made the entire room forget where it had planned to go before he appeared.
