Red Buttons (born Aaron Chwatt) was an American actor and comedian, best known for playing the lead role of Private John Steele in the 1962 international ensemble cast film The Longest Day. For Warner Bros, he originally voiced Robespierre from 1962 musical comedy film Gay Purr-ee.
For Disney, he played Hoagy in the 1977 live-action feature film Pete's Dragon.
Early life and career[]
Aaron Chwatt was born in New York City's Lower East Side, Buttons started his show-business career singing on street corners as a child and got a job as part of a comedy act playing the famed Catskills resort area in upstate New York. Buttons worked the burlesque circuit as a comic and even landed a role in a Broadway play, "Vicki", in 1942. After his discharge from the service he returned to Broadway, both in plays and as a comic with several big-band orchestras. He was successful enough that he got his own TV series The Red Buttons Show (1952), on CBS. It lasted three years and won Buttons an Emmy for Best Comedian.
He worked steadily for the next several years, and got his big film break in the 1957 film Sayonara, playing an American soldier stationed in Japan, who struggled against the pressures of both cultures because of his love for a Japanese woman. His performance garnered him an Academy Award, and more film roles followed. He also played a paratrooper in The Longest Day (1962), was nominated for a Golden Globe for Harlow (1965) and again for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). Additionally, he had a part in the TV series The Double Life of Henry Phyfe (1966) and gained further renown in the 1970s for his appearances on the "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast", where he performed his "Never Got a Dinner" act to great acclaim.
Role[]
Trivia[]
- He auditioned for the role of Philoctetes in Hercules before the role was given to Danny DeVito. In addition, he also suggested DeVito for the role.[1]
References[]
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This page uses content from the English Wikipedia page Red Buttons. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. Text from Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. |