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Red Buttons: New York
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Red Buttons, who has died of vascular disease aged 87, was one of the last of the great generation of American Jewish comedians. Not quite as biting as Jackie Mason, but with a sense of the ridiculous like Jack Benny or George Burns and a great storyteller like Milton Berle. He was never happier than when performing in the "Borsht Belt", hotels in New York State's Catskill Mountains, which have featured people such as Mel Brooks, Danny Kaye and Jerry Lewis.
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In a tale Buttons often told, he started in show business by singing sad songs on the streets of New York, in front of a hand-lettered sign that said, "I'm an orphan." He was not an orphan, but grew up with his parents in a comfortable Bronx home near Biograph Studios, where silent movies were made. As a teenager he earned his stage name by working as a singing bellhop in a snooty bar, wearing a uniform with shiny red buttons that matched his hair.
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For the next two years, Mr. Buttons appeared mainly in nightclubs, although he made an occasional television guest appearance. He was 36 and rich, but newspaper articles at the time called him a has-been.
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