Our acute shortage of older comedians grows ever worse with the passing of Red Buttons, who died this morning at the age of 87.
If you never got to see Red in person, you missed a wonderful experience. I was fortunate to be present perhaps a half-dozen times at local events — once at a tribute to his former writer, Larry Gelbart; another time at Stan Freberg's anniversary party — when Red got up and launched into a monologue that, as the saying goes, brought the house down. He performed with a devilish twinkle and a spot-on sense of timing, always pausing the precise number of micro-seconds before delivering a punch line. The guy was just plain funny.
For many years, he was a frequent performer at roasts where he employed his "Never got a dinner" routine to great success. He was very fussy about that material. He had piles of lines but he always wanted fresh ones. When I worked with him on a variety show in the seventies, he said he'd do the bit if we, the writing staff, wrote some new material for it. I think we wrote around a hundred jokes to get the five or six he thought were up to his standards…and we didn't mind it at all. Because Red knew what worked for him and you had to admire the devotion to delivering the best possible routine.
Most of the obits (like this one) will probably emphasize Red's 1957 Academy Award for his work in Sayonara — and the man was a very fine actor. I thought he was especially good in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? But there are plenty of great dramatic actors around. We're running out of great old comedians…and at an alarming pace.