Update 7-8-03


Hi,

There's other mail, but this is more immediate, and the other news can wait.  An article from last week's Kearney, Nebraska Hub:

Top Comedian Also Best Of Relatives, Kearney Man Recalls
By Mike Konz
      Kearney - America will remember Buddy Hackett as a wacky comedian and a favorite guest on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, but Jerry Bittman of Kearney will remember him as a second father.  "The day my father passed away in 1962, Buddy was performing on the West Coast.  He canceled his show and flew back."
      Bittman, 56, a native of New York City, has lived in Kearney about 13 years. He was 15 when he lost his father.  "Buddy was like a second father to me, and my father and Buddy were like brothers."  Hackett and Bittman's father, a furrier, were actually cousins, but they were closer than the relationship suggests.  "My father supported him a few years until he made it big."  Hackett was always known among the Bittman clan by his given name of Leonard Hacker.
      Today, Bittman wondered whether there would be a funeral for the comedian.  He said Hackett didn't want services, but instead intended to leave money in his will so friends and relatives could toss a party.  Bittman also recalled some of the good times he spent with Hackett when he was younger.  "Buddy took me to all these ball games and shows and a country club in New Jersey."  Among the famous comedians who frequented the country club were Joey Bishop, Shecky Green, and Jan Murray.
      Hackett's road to fame followed the path of many famous comedians of his time, with early shows in New York State's Borscht Belt. He also performed on Broadway, in Hollywood, and was Las Vegas' top-paid comedian.  It was while Hackett was performing at the Concord Hotel in the Catskill Mountains that one of the funniest stories occurred.
      Jan Murray also was performing there and had hurt his back.  Murray and his manager were heading into town to a chiropractor when they bumped into Hackett, and he rode along.  Bittman said comedians love practical jokes, so when Murray, his manager, and Hackett reached the chiropractor's office and Hackett saw the doctor had just one arm, he figured it was a prank.  How could a one-arm man be a chiropractor?
      "Buddy laid the chiropractor on the table and began giving him a massage, but Jan Murray pleaded with him. 'No, no, Buddy. My back really is hurt, and this guy really is a chiropractor.'  Embarrassed, Hackett sent his apologies the next day along with a gift for the chiropractor -- a single cuff link."

Also from Jerry:  Thanks for the nice words.  The article that I sent you was meant for your reading -- it was not intended for the updates.  Besides, I thought it would
be way too long and take up too much space.
      But I would like to thank everyone who e-mailed me.  Stuie Kandel remembers going to Buddy's house over in New Jersey, with Kenny Seelig and, I think, Andy Dolich and myself.  I really felt that in the early part of my life Buddy treated me like the son he did not have yet.  And after my Dad passed away in 1962, he acted more like a fill-in Dad.  
      Funny thing is last night a friend called me from Florida.  He said that now Buddy was with George Burns, Jack Benny, and all the other great comics.  And
I said to my friend, "No, he is hanging out with my father."  They were so very close.
      I am grateful to have so many memories of Buddy -- and stories that are so hysterical that the public is unaware of.  I was once asked what was it like being with such a big star.  My reply was that I considered him family, not as a star.  But after seeing so many stories on TV the last couple days and reading the papers from New York and Los Angeles and Las Vegas, I know he really did deserve that star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.       P.S.  I received a phone call last night from Ms. Barbara Pech -- she said the news article was such a nice tribute to Buddy that you should print it.  So if you have the room, be my guest.  Also, the Nudelmans' mom met Buddy when she was 18.
His friend Vic took her out, but she was always Buddy's dreamgirl.

(As part of the Hub article, there's also a small, faded picture of Buddy Hackett and Jerry, taken in 1957.  Sorry, I can't add it here, but it complicates the mass mailing.  Jerry's comment on the photo:  "Check out the picture at the end of the article.  Was I a dork or what?")

Further stories about Buddy Hackett, from The New York Times obituary, by Richard Severo:
      Buddy Hackett attended Public School 103 and then went on to New Utrecht High School.  He was a notoriously poor student and didn't like classwork, but he was selected to play on the line of the school's football team, which was not a bad place to be if you were five feet six inches tall and weighed 200 pounds.  While still in high school, he toured the Borscht Belt.  He got summer jobs as a waiter and a bellhop and later was considered talented enough to be hired as a "tummler," a job that he apparently was born to have.  A tummler, in Leo Rosten's [Yiddish dictionary] description was a "noise-maker, fun-generator, hilarity-organizer and organized buffoon" whose task was "to guarantee, to the blasé (but insatiable) patrons of a
summer resort that most dubious of vacation boons: never a dull moment!"
      Mr. Hackett served three years in the Army during World War II.  On a furlough in 1945, he bought a ticket to see "Oklahoma!" [and] he decided then and there that if he ever got out of the army, he would devote himself to show business.  He returned to Brooklyn and studied method acting. "I kept waiting for this guy Stanislavsky to show up," Mr. Hackett recalled.  When they told him to behave as though he were an egg, he laid down on the floor.  They asked him what he was doing. "I'm a fried egg," he replied.
      Mr. Hackett's irrepressible clowning was so familiar, in fact, that it always seemed to come as a surprise to audiences and critics when he would display solid acting talent in his movie and stage appearances.  When he appeared on Broadway in Lunatics and Lovers, Sidney Kingsley's farce about New York lowlifes in a Times
Square hotel, Brooks Atkinson, the theater critic of The New York Times, enthused that his role was "the best part Mr. Kingsley has written" and said "Mr. Hackett plays it with exuberance."  When Mr. Hackett appeared in the 1958 film version of Erskine Caldwell's novel God's Little Acre, portraying Pluto, the lovelorn Georgia rustic, he won praise from Variety for bringing "perception and depth and real acting to his role of ridicule and whimsy."  By 1964, Mr. Hackett's popularity was such that he could
carry a Broadway show.  After he got his first invitation to play Las Vegas, he was so excited that he forgot to pick up his paycheck for a month.  "They thought I was nuts," he said.

And thoughts from our classmates, first from Eric Hilton:  This news saddens me very much, as Buddy Hackett was one of my favorite comics.  I watch Mad, Mad World at least once every two to three months (I have it on DVD), just to remind me of how talented these comedians were, and that you can still be funny without being dirty.  I know almost every line, but Hackett and Winters were my favorite people in that movie.  What a bummer.

From Peggy Cooper Schwartz:  I still remember when Jerry Bittman did an oral report (I can't remember if it was at Forest Road or at South), and we first found out Buddy Hackett was his cousin.  I was really excited, as my Mom & Dad were such big fans of his.  I remember going to an outdoor fair with my family where he entertained.  He did a hysterically funny routine about a Chinese restaurant.  Condolences to Jerry and his family.  Buddy was indeed a "King of Comedy."

From Barnet Kellman:  I think I started the whole Buddy Hackett riff in the newsletter with my mention of Jerry Bittman's Dodger birthday party -- so imagine my shock and sadness to see that Buddy is gone.  I auditioned him once -- which was a big thrill for me.  He was one funny and filthy-mouthed man.  Goodbye, Buddy.  My condolences, Jerry.

One fast, time-sensitive reminder, from Paul DeMartino:  Again, July 26th is the Class Pool Party at Mark Yetman's house.  Everyone is welcome.  For more information, please e-mail me at:  PINA_1@msn.com.  Thanks.

The rest of the mail, and the trivia answers, next week.

The home page:  http://hometown.aol.com/falcons1965a


Rich