Award-winning actor and comedian Red Buttons has died at the age of 87 He was one of the first funny men to show that comedians could also be Oscar-winning actors. He won the Supporting Actor award for Sayonara (1957), in which he co-starred with Marlon Brando as a U.S. airman who embarks on a tragic romance with a Japanese woman. He was also a quick-witted master of his craft as a comedian. A longtime fixture at Friar's Club, few there could touch him.
Buttons started out in showbiz 70 years ago as a teenage singing bellhop named Aaron Chwatt, a name that he soon swapped for one suggested by his bellhop uniform and red hair. He played a memorable role in the original Poseidon Adventure and just last year, he earned an Emmy nomination for a guest role as a patient on ER.