Ruth Buzzi has died at the age of 88. The actress was best known for her Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated stint on the 1968–1973 sketch-comedy series Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.
Her family announced the news of her May 1 death in a post on Facebook, sharing that she “died peacefully in her sleep at home in Texas.”
Buzzi had been in “hospice care for several years with Alzheimer’s disease,” the post revealed.
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Buzzi suffered a series of strokes in July 2022 that left her “bedridden and incapacitated,” according to her husband Ken Perkins, who kept Buzzi’s friends and fans updated via Facebook.
“Ruthie is struggling with serious health issues, prognosis not encouraging,” he wrote on Facebook at the time. “But she still enjoys life, reading your messages and looking at photos you post! Amazingly, she absolutely remembers all our friends and family, and smiles when I read your birthday messages and wishes to her every day.”
Buzzi’s 86th birthday happened to fall on the day of Perkins’ post, and he shared details of how they were marking the day.
“This year she doesn’t want a cake; she wants pie with candles again, like last year. But not ‘chocolate meringue’ this time — apple crunch pie with vanilla ice cream. Immediate family will be with us this afternoon to sing ‘happy birthday’ and have some hot pie a la mode,” he wrote.
Perkins thanked fans for their support and celebrated his “happily ever after” with his wife of 43 years.
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In August of that year, Buzzi made light of the health scare, sharing on Twitter, “Some people have strokes of luck; I had the other kind. But thanks for all your love, messages, cards, letters and Sweet Tweets!”
She continued: “And although my final arrangements include cremation, I’m not quite ready to make an ash out of myself. xoxoxo”
Born in Westerly, R.I., in 1936, Buzzi enjoyed early TV success as a performer on The Gary Moore Show and The Steve Allen Comedy Hour and was part of the original cast of the Broadway musical Sweet Charity in 1966.
Buzzi made an indelible impression as a regular performer on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Her most notable contribution was the curmudgeonly, hair-netted spinster Gladys Ormphby, who was just one of several hilarious characters she played during her tenure on the series from 1968 to 1973.
During that time, she won the 1973 Golden Globe for best supporting TV actress and received two Primetime Emmy nominations, in 1969 and 1972. She received a total of five Emmy nominations throughout her career.
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She remained on Laugh-In for all five seasons. “I just wish we were all still back doing the show,” she told PEOPLE in 1993.
Buzzi also had a variety of voice acting roles, including that of Suzie Kabloozie on Sesame Street from 1993 to 2006, and Mama Bear on The Berenstain Bears. She received Daytime Emmy nominations for both. Her other credits included The Monkees, That Girl, Here’s Lucy, Freaky Friday, CHiPs, Alice, The Love Boat and 7th Heaven.
She was married to Basil Keko from 1965 to 1975. In 1978, she married Perkins.
Buzzi and Perkins did not have any children, which she joked about in a 2015 tweet: “I would have probably had kids, but my cat’s allergic.”
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