Ruth Buzzi’s career is a comical testament that she possessed a versatile talent that kept her busy working for 70 years.
I got to know Ruth through mutual friends Jim Nabors and Phyllis Diller while working on cookbook projects in the early 2000s that included chapters with recipes from famous folk.
And for many years, Ruth would traditionally join her pals Nabors and Hoosier roots gal, the late great Florence Henderson, at the Indianapolis 500 Race, where she could be seen riding and waving from a convertible in the Saturday parade. Meanwhile, Jim and Flo had annually had singing duties on race day. Jim would croon “Back Home in Indiana” while his friend of Mrs. Brady claim-to-fame would sing “God Bless America.”
Ruth’s own career launch claim-to-fame was playing a frumpy and frowning stage improv character of her own invention she named Gladys Ormphby. She was cast on the groundbreaking “push-the-envelope” comedy variety show “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” which transformed her into a household name. She made over 200 television appearances during a 45-year career.
Ruth died Thursday, May 1 at age 88 at her ranch in Texas, her agent Mike Eisenstadt announced Friday to the Associated Press.
During the pandemic, Ruth had embraced social media, primarily Facebook, to stay in comedic communication with her fans. A day before her passing, her husband Kent Perkins, also her devoted caregiver in recent years, used Ruth’s Facebook fans to alert she was gravely ill and had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in recent years and was now in hospice care.
“She wants you to know she probably had more fun doing those shows than you had watching them,” Perkins said.
Though still associated with the controversial NBC variety show that ran from 1968 to 1973 and her castmates Lily Tomlin, giggling Goldie Hawn and silly hair band scarf wearing Jo Anne Worley, the latter who is originally from Lowell, Indiana, Ruth made countless guest star appearances on other TV variety shows and sitcoms that touted the names of her friends like Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett and Dean Martin.
According to her AP obituary, Ruth was first spotted by “Laugh-In” creator and producer George Schlatter from her various character skit supporting roles on “The Steve Allen Comedy Hour.”
The funny foil for her Gladys character was a doddering old man character played by Arte Johnson (who died at age 90 in 2019) in their popular reoccurring sketches on “Laugh-In,” usually set in a park landscaping on a courting bench. Usually simply referred to as “the dirty old man character,” he had a name: Tyrone F. Horneigh.
“Gladys embodies the overlooked, the downtrodden, the taken for granted, the struggler,” Ruth is quoted explaining in her AP obituary.
“So when she fights back, she speaks for everyone who’s been marginalized, reduced to a sex object or otherwise abused. And that’s almost everyone at some time or other.”
In a February column I published earlier this year, I mentioned a Halloween memory from my childhood forever etched in my mind, as well as the memories of my older sister Pam, who was cast by our Mom to don Ruth’s famously drooping stockings and hairnet for a costume contest.
In 1977, when I was in second grade, Mom had us dress as Tyrone and Gladys, the funny “little old man and little old lady” character alter-egos of Arte and Ruth. Mom made sure Pam wielded the same surprise weapon wielded by Gladys, a stiff handbag purse perfect for hitting others over the head as punishment.
This wayward backhand bonk was often felt on the head of a tipsy Dean Martin during his celebrity roast TV specials. But that Halloween, it was my head that felt the lumps. When our costume creations only earned us a second place, Mom insisted we would have taken home first place had Pam started hitting the American Legion panel of judges over the head with her Gladys-type purse before their final selection.
Born Ruth Ann Buzzi on July 24, 1936, in Westerly, Rhode Island, she was the daughter of Angelo Buzzi, a nationally known stone sculptor. Her father and later her brother operated Buzzi Memorials, according to the Associated Press, a gravestone and monument maker in Stonington, Connecticut, where she was head cheerleader in high school.
Buzzi enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse at age 17 and, two years later, was traveling with singer Rudy Vallee in a musical and comedy act earning her an Actors’ Equity union card before she graduated from the playhouse’s College of Theatre Arts.
One of her first national television appearances was on “The Garry Moore Show” in 1964, just after Carol Burnett was replaced by Dorothy Loudon on the series. On Broadway, she was in the original cast of “Sweet Charity” with Gwen Verdon in 1966.
She always remained a favorite recognizable voice for kids, since she did hundreds of guest voices in cartoon series including “Pound Puppies,” “Berenstain Bears,” “The Smurfs” and was Emmy nominated for her six-year run as shopkeeper Ruthie on “Sesame Street.”
She married husband Perkins in 1978, and the couple moved from California to Texas in 2003 with a 640-acre stately cattle ranch as their new home near Stephenville, Texas. Following the pandemic, she retired from show business.
When I interviewed her in 2010 in Chicago, she told me that before getting her touring break with Rudy Vallee, she worked as a housekeeper and earned $10 an hour, which she described as “considerable” for the early 1960s.
“I was good at it too,” Ruth said.
“I could make as much as $80 a day. The part I didn’t like was having to work for rich people.”
Ruth, who seemed larger than life because of her exaggerated comedy characters, was not very tall. She was only 5 foot 3 inches and was always conscious of her weight. In my second cookbook in 2007, I included her sausage and beans recipe. Another favorite recipe from her file was for a homemade tomato sauce for pasta which she said she clipped from WeightWatchers in the 1970s.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a radio host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at PhilPotempa@gmail.com or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Ruth Buzzi’s WW Tomato Sauce for Pasta
Serves 4
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/3 cup onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, grated
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes
Directions:
Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. When oil shimmers, add onion; cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent, 2-3 minutes.
Add garlic, oregano and salt; cook 1 minute.
Add tomato paste; cook, stirring, 1 minute more.
Add canned tomatoes (if whole, use your hands to crush them); bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; simmer until sauce thickens, 5-10 minutes.
