And I just recently watched Sayonara for the first time. He was a versatile actor - he could do comedy or drama just as handily. One of the great scene-stealers.
Great Og, they’re dropping like flies out there. 
His real name was Aaron Chwatt ? No wonder he went by Red Buttons. I never knew that.
It’d be nice if I’d remember to post a link to an article. He was guest-starring on Roseanne as late as the mid-90s, and was still good.
And he never got a dinner!
Dead Buttons.
I loved all those roast monologues when I was a kid, and quite memorable in Sayonara, The Longest Day and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?. RIP.
Coincidentally, he’s mentioned in the July 13 episode of Jeopardy!
What?
Whaaat?
I just saw *They Shoot Horses * for the first time last night. Although I generally think that Red Buttons is way too hammy (think Poseidon Adventure), I was really impressed by his performance in They Shoot Horses.
“It’s all dem bells”
Yeah, he could be a bit hammy, which is why his dramatic performance in Sayonara is so incredible. He was restrained and believable and was incidentally a good offset to Marlon Brando’s somewhat annoying portrayal of the officer.
Another one of those actors where, upon hearing that they have died, my first thought is “Didn’t he die, like, 20 years ago?”
Who will do the figure skating commentary next Olympics?
How could you tell? Everybody in Poseidon Adventure was way too hammy!
Including the boat!
My favorite performance was as the (real life) soldier whose chute catches on a church spire in France during D-Day in The Longest Day. (Today the church has a bronze statue of the actual man draped by chute chord from its spire.) The first time I saw that movie and didn’t know if he was going to live or die was great tension- you could easily have done an entire movie just around that guy.
Also cool was seeing him on Roseanne with his (on the show) girlfriend Estelle Parsons and her (on the show) mother Shelley Winters. What other show could boast three Oscar winners as supporting characters in an episode?
Shalom Aaron.
Hammy? Hell, I just watched Pete’s Dragon again with my kids! Now, that’s hammy!
Slight hijack- what a stellar cast that movie had- Red Buttons, Mickey Rooney, Helen Reddy, Jim Dale, Shelly Winters… Loved it.
Bwahahahahahahaha!