Red Buttons

The son of a milliner from New York City's Lower East Side, Aaron Chwatt became a performer after winning an amateur contest at age 12. Six years later, he was a singing bellboy in a Bronx tavern. (It was from the uniform that he took his famous moniker, Red Buttons.) A talented and versatile performer of stage, screen, and television, Buttons was equally at home in dramatic or comedic roles, but it was as a burlesque comedian working in the Catskills Mountains that he first made a name for himself. Buttons first appeared on Broadway playing a supporting role in Vickie (1942). He appeared in the play Winged Victory a short while later, and reprised his role in the 1944 screen version.



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