Red Buttons, comic was 87 *

ButtonsButtons began in burlesque, had his own TV show in the early 1950s and won a supporting actor Academy Award for the 1957 film Sayonara, which starred Marlon Brando. His real name was Aaron Chwat Öin and he came out of the same Lower East Side tenements as Eddie Cantor, George Burns, Jimmy Durante, Fannie Brice and George and Ira Gershwin. Buttons died today at home in Century City, according to publicist Warren Cowan on the L.A. Times website.

* Carl Reiner remembers his friend: On KPCC's "Patt Morrison." Audio.

Photo: Steve Granitz/Wireimage.com


More by Kevin Roderick:
Ralph Lawler of the Clippers and the age of Aquarius
Riding the Expo Line to USC 'just magical'
Last bastion of free parking? Loyola Marymount to charge students
Matt Kemp, Dodgers and Kings start big weekend the right way
LA Times writers revisit their '92 riots observations
Recent Hollywood stories on LA Observed:
Hollywood Reporter gets political
Rejected Joe Eszterhas' Maccabees script is "a Jewish Braveheart'
Publicist Michael Sands dies after choking on sample at Gelson's
Moving day at KCET
Mel Gibson and Joe Eszterhas exchange words over Maccabee script *

New at LA Observed
Follow us on Twitter

On the Media Page
Go to Media
On the Politics Page
Go to Politics

LA Biz Observed
Arts and culture

Sign up for daily email from LA Observed

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner


Advertisement
LA Observed on Twitter and Facebook