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This past week saw the deaths of two actresses who occupied unique niches in the entertainment universe. One, Priscilla Pointer, was best known for playing the mother of several notable stars on the big screen, and who made her own film debut alongside her Oscar-nominee real-life daughter. The other, Ruth Buzzi, was a versatile comedienne who gained pop culture immortality as a regular on one of TV’s biggest hits of the late ’60s and early ’70s.
The daughter of an illustrator and a sculptor, Priscilla Pointer was born in New York City in 1924. Her stage career began in the late ’40s, when along with Broadway appearances she was featured in the original touring companies of A Streetcar Named Desire, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and other plays. With her first husband, theatre director Jules Irving, Pointer co-founded the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop in 1952. Priscilla made her TV debut in the 1954 adventure series China Smith, but took a lengthy break from performing, in part to raise her three children. Two of them–actress Amy Irving and director/producer David Irving–would follow in her footsteps.
In 1969 Pointer returned to acting, guest starring in such shows as N.Y.P.D., Adam 12, and Quincy. The 1976 horror classic Carrie was the first film for both Amy and Priscilla, playing Bates High prom survivor Sue Snell and her mother, respectively. That same year Pointer appeared in the action picture The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, produced by son David. She was cast as Diane Keaton’s conservative mother in the 1977 drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar, ill-fated LAPD officer Ted Danson’s mother in 1979’s The Onion Field, and in 1980 reunited with her daughter for two movies, The Competition and Honeysuckle Rose.
1981 saw Pointer land her biggest small-screen role on the hit CBS drama Dallas. As Rebecca Barnes Wentworth, she was the mother of Southfork regulars Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval), Pamela Barnes Ewing (Victoria Principal), and Katherine Wentworth (Morgan Brittany). Her maternal film career in the ’80s included turns with Sean Penn in 1984’s The Falcon and the Snowman and Kyle MacLachlan in Blue Velvet two years later. There were also non-parental parts in other films, from Mommie Dearest (1981) and Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). A 1987 live-action version of Rumpelstiltskin gave Pointer the chance to work with both Amy (the lead actress) and David (who directed).
After roles in L.A. Law, E/R, Judging Amy, Cold Case and other ’80s and ’90s series and such films as 1996’s Carried Away (her sixth with Amy), Priscilla began winding down her performing career. The versatile actress, a loyal mother in front of and behind the camera, passed away in late April at a Connecticut assisted living facility at the age of 100.
Also the daughter of a sculptor, Ruth Ann Buzzi was born in 1936 in Rhode Island, later moving with her family to the nearby (and aptly named) town of Stonington, Connecticut. After graduating high school she went cross-country and studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts; Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman were among her classmates.
Already a seasoned stage performer before graduating college (including work in a travelling revue with singer Rudy Vallee), Ruth came to New York and won roles in a number of off-Broadway shows. Her TV debut was in 1964 on The Gary Moore Show, and she was a regular the next two years on pair of short-lived variety series, The Entertainers and The Steve Allen Comedy Hour. She also had a recurring role in the second season of the ABC sitcom That Girl as Ann Marie’s (Marlo Thomas) friend Margie “Pete” Peterson.
Buzzi’s big break came in 1967 when she was tapped by producer George Schlatter to join the ensemble cast of an NBC special, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Hosted by the comedy duo of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, the one-off’s success led to it becoming a regular series in January of 1968. Buzzi and a crew of regulars which included Judy Carne, Henry Gibson, Goldie Hawn, Arte Johnson, and Jo Anne Worley took part in fast-paced sketches, dance routines, and satirical news segments that poked fun at modern society while testing the limits of TV standards. Along with such recurring characters as drunken wife Doris Swizzle, gossip columnist Busy Buzzi, and Flicker Farkle (“Hiiiii!!!”) of the Farkle Family, Ruth was best known for playing frumpy spinster Gladys Ormphby. Always trying to find a boyfriend, the only male Gladys attracted was “dirty old man” Tyrone F. Horneigh (Johnson), whose park bench advances she fended off with a whack from her oversized purse. Apart from hosts Dick and Dan and announcer Gary Owens, Buzzi was the only cast member to appear in all six seasons.
In between her Laugh-In duties Ruth did voice work for Disney (1970’s The Aristocats and the Oscar-winning short It’s Tough to Be a Bird) and guest starred on The Monkees, The Carol Burnett Show, and even Night Gallery. When the show ended in 1973, she found roles in such live-action Disney films as Freaky Friday and The North Avenue Irregulars, as well as the western comedy The Villain with Kirk Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ruth appeared as Gladys in several episodes of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. Buzzi and Jim Nabors were androids from the future in the 1975 Sid and Marty Krofft Saturday morning series The Lost Saucer, and in 1977 she reteamed with Arte Johnson to play Gladys and Tyrone as superheroes (!) in the never-to-be-forgotten cartoon series Baggy Pants and the Nitwits.
The 1980s and ’90s found Buzzi in such varied films as Chu Chu and the Philly Flash (1981), The Being (1983), My Mom’s a Werewolf (1989), and The Adventures of Elmo in Groucland (1999). Her television work was split between guest spots on The Love Boat, Alice, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and other shows, and voices for such animated series as Alvin and the Chipmunks and Pound Puppies. She played Ruthie the Shopkeeper on Sesame Street and appeared on the daytime dramas Days of Our Lives and Passions. Retiring from performing just a few years ago, the beloved comedienne passed away from complications of Alzheimer’s at her family’s Texas ranch on May 1. She was 88 years old.