Ruth Buzzi (July 24, 1936 - May 1, 2025) was a comic actress best known for her work on the 1960s sketch comedy series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, notably playing the drab spinster Gladys Ormphby, continually harassed by dirty old man Tyrone (Arte Johnson). Her other roles on the series included barfly Doris Swizzler and gossip columnist Busy Buzzi. She was active as an animation voice actress beginning in the sixties and increasing from the 1980s onward.
In 1971, she appeared in the Goldie Hawn TV special Pure Goldie, which also featured Kermit the Frog, and was briefly turned into a Muppet herself. Buzzi guest starred on The Muppet Show episode 104 in 1976, and made a brief appearance in The Muppets Go Hollywood in 1979.
Sesame Street[]
From 1993 to 1999, Buzzi played Ruthie, the owner of the Finders Keepers store, on Sesame Street and in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland.
Beginning in 1994, and lasting beyond her tenure as Ruthie, she also performed the voice of Suzie Kabloozie and her cat, Feff, in recurring Sesame Street inserts written and directed by Mo Willems.
In addition, she reprised her Laugh-In character Gladys Ormphby in a number of sketches, including the celebrity version of "A New Way to Walk."
In 1999, she appeared alongside Big Bird and Roscoe Orman to accept a TV Guide Award.
In 2001, Buzzi appeared as the Fairy Godplant in Episode 3971, granting Stinky the Stinkweed's wish to be bigger.
Career[]
Prior to Laugh-In, Buzzi had appeared on other network variety shows and played the Good Fairy and other ensemble roles in the original Broadway run of Sweet Charity. She was seen or heard in several Disney projects, including The North Avenue Irregulars, Freaky Friday, and The Apple Dumpling Gang (with Tim Conway and Don Knotts, as one of her standard feisty old ladies), in addition to providing singing vocals for The Aristocats and the featurette It's Tough to Be a Bird.
Buzzi was a prolific TV performer, playing Fi on the Sid and Marty Krofft series The Lost Saucer, making semiregular appearances on The Dean Martin Show and celebrity roasts, and guest starring on The Monkees, The Carol Burnett Show, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Alice, That's Life, CHiPs, The Love Boat, and Saved by the Bell. Voice credits include Granny Goodwitch in Post Sugar Crisp cereal commercials and on Linus the Lionhearted, several Hanna-Barbera projects (The Berenstain Bears as Mama Bear, plus Paw Paws, The Jetsons, and others), the 1990s The Pink Panther (Granny), Darkwing Duck, Sheep in the Big City, and the CTW animated series Cro (Nandy).