I'll bet back in the day when Red Buttons was plucked from the Catskills to do
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Red Buttons
bkoganbing — 19 years ago(July 13, 2006 10:47 PM)
I'll bet back in the day when Red Buttons was plucked from the Catskills to do
a television show, a whole lot of people must have confused him with that other
and better known Red named Skelton who already brought a built in movie following to television.
If they did they weren't confused for long. Buttons was an infectious fellow,
a sort of Jewish everyman that folks could identify with. Lots of years at the
Catskills Borscht Belt honed those comedy skills razor sharp.
Buttons made the reverse journey that Skelton did, he went from television to
movie stardom, one of the first. He had done a couple of bit parts in films
before. But he gave an electrifying performance in Sayonara under Joshua Logan's direction.
I remember back in the day the great acclaim Sayonara had. Today you would never get away with casting Mexican Ricardo Montalban as a Japanese Kabuki Actor, but then it was hailed. The Japanese not too many years earlier were the enemy and not a human enemy at that.
Buttons performance as the American sergeant who elects to commit hara-kiri with his Japanese bride, Miyoshi Umeki rather than be separated will tear your
heart out even today. Miyoshi won Best Supporting Actress that year herself,
the first time a citizen of her country was so honored.
And Red was given his well deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Although
I would say he never had a part as great as in Sayonara, the Oscar led to a
string of really great films that Red Buttons was an integral part of.
Personally I can't forget Hatari and the Rube Goldberg contraption he put
together to capture monkeys. Vector and trajectory were his bywords.
Or in The Longest Day where he was left hanging on a church steeple while his
fellow paratroopers were being massacred below.
Or Five Weeks in A Balloon as part of that intrepid team exploring the west
African coast.
Red kept going to the end, performing on television as late as last year. A
real professional to the end. A long way for a kid named Aaron Chwatt from
the Bronx.
Red Buttons, RIP a lot of laughs with a few tears mixed in. -
just1Hitch — 19 years ago(July 14, 2006 09:13 AM)
Appreciated your astute comments but Red was born in the lower Eastside of Manhattan although he later moved to the Bronx.
I don't think I want to go to the pictures. Oh?Why not? I've seen everything worth seeing. -
The_Magical_Negro — 19 years ago(July 14, 2006 01:01 PM)
Godspeed, Mr. Buttons. Until recently, I wasn't aware of the great accomplishments that came earlier in his career, but I enjoyed his acting in Wonder Woman and as Mr. Rubadeux on ER
"I was almost killed by some maniac in black pajamas!!" Lucius Fox, the Batman Begins video game -
theowinthrop — 19 years ago(July 15, 2006 08:34 AM)
Funny how in one ten day weeks three figures of our youth pass on who seem so interconnected.
Jan Murray and Red Buttons both rose from Catskill comics to television, and (although Murray never had the success there that Buttons did) movies. June Alyson (another New Yorker, by the way) rose to movie stardom. She ended, like Buttons, with an additional career as spokesperson in television commercials. Perhaps "Depends" is a more personal and intimate product than Florida condominiums, but both Alyson and Buttons were doing those commercials in the 1980s to 1990s. In fact, Buttons made such an impact doing his commercials that in the movie CROSSING DELANCEY Amy Irving's grandmother comments that Irving's parents are living in Florida "with Red Buttons". It is rare for a living actor's name to crop up in a film script like that (i.e.,
William Demerest, Tyrone Power, Alan Ladd, and Betty Hutton in a scene in the 1950 film SUNSET BOULEVARD).
To me Buttons demonstrates that given the right chances a person could take their talents to the heights. He had become a household name with his television comedy show, with it's "Strange things are happening!". Then the show became an industry joke as a revolving door for comedy writers. After that, where he seemed a has-been, he still appears in television drama and is tapped for SAYONARA, winning his Oscar (and helping Myoshi Umeki win hers). And after that the career never flags. I think that his dramatic ability managed to raise him above the fray. It ensured that he he could always be depended upon to add to a film, like THE LONGEST DAY, HARLOW, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, and even (briefly) ONE,TWO,THREE. But he always recalled his comedy roots as well. Hence his appearance in those roasts, and his emerging routine about famous people's comments ("or Sunny Von Bulow, who said, "Stop Needling Me!" - that one fell flat on THE TONIGHT SHOW, Button noticed that, and said, "Well, they all don't work!"). If he could not find a winning combination to save his variety comedy show (even firing Neil Simon at one point), he did find the winning combination to have an outstanding career.
Rest in peace Aaron.