Comic actress Ruth Buzzi, best known for her work on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, died on May 1. She was 88. The rubber-faced actress got her start in revues, road shows and Off-Broadway, acting as Dom DeLuise’s partner in a comedy magic act. She was a rising TV actress when cast in Laugh-In (where her most famous character was handbag-wielding spinster Gladys Ormphby—I do a depressingly good Gladys Ormphby imitation). Buzzi was never out of work thereafter, voicing numerous cartoons, doing Dean Martin roasts, guesting on sitcoms and doing the occasional film. Buzzi told Lee Steele of the AP in 2018 that “I never took my work for granted, nor assumed I deserved more of the credit or spotlight or more pay than anyone else. I was just thrilled to drive down the hill to NBC every day as an employed actor with a job to do.” She added that “I’m happily retired . . . grateful for all the incredible people I got to work with and all the wonderful things I have been allowed to do in the past half century, there’s not really too much I’d change, even if I could.”
Ruth Buzzi on The Dean Martin Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzmd7vmaSMQ
