Red Buttons, comic was 87 *

Buttons 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