Buddy Hackett (August 31, 1924 - June 30, 2003) was an American comedian and actor. In his later life, he and his wife set up the Sinigata Animal Sanctuary in the San Fernando Valley, California. "Rubber-faced funnyman"

Comedian, actor, author and composer, educated at New Utrecht High School and a member of ASCAP since 1936. He appeared in the Broadway musicals "Lunatics and Lovers" and "I Had a Ball", and he composed the music for his Chinese-waiter comedy recording "Chinese Rock and Egg Roll".

Brooklyn-born Buddy Hackett was known mainly as a nightclub comic, especially in Las Vegas, where he first performed in 1952 and wound up being one of the biggest headliners in that city's history. Hackett always referred to himself as a "saloon comic" and preferred the intimacy of his stage act--where he would often bring members of the audience up on stage with him--to films and TV. He, along with Lenny Bruce, pioneered "blue" comedy, although Hackett's career didn't suffer nearly as much as Bruce's did because of it. Hackett's act was noted for its, at the time, "adult" content, and at one point he was sued by a woman who attended one of his shows and said she was "shocked and offended" at the language (she lost the suit). Contrary to his nightclub image, however, Hackett's appearances in films were mostly of the family type, such as his roles in the "Herbie" series of comedies for Disney about a Volkswagen Bug with a mind of its own and as Robert Preston (I)'s sidekick in Music Man, The (1962). In 1954 Hackett was paired by Universal Pictures with 'Hugh OBrian as a potential comedy team to replace the studio's reigning team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello (I), They actually did replace the famous team in the film Fireman Save My Child (1954), due to Costello's illness (Bud and Lou can still be glimpsed in long shots). Hackett took the part that Costello was playing (an eerie coincidence considering that more than 20 years later he would actually play Costello in the TV movie Bud and Lou (1978) (TV)) and O'Brian took Abbott's place, but the film wasn't successful and Universal dropped its plans to make a team out of the two. Hackett also had a showy part in the ensemble comedy It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), partnered with Mickey Rooney (I). Despite his success in movies, however, he still preferred his nightclub work and played Vegas and clubs in other cities whenever possible. He had a reputation among his fellow comics as a brilliant ad-libber and someone who knew exactly how far to take a joke before it ran its course, something not all comedians managed to do, which is why he dropped his famous "Chinese waiter" routine; he stopped doing it one day because he said "it just stopped being funny" and never did it again. He died at his Malibu beach house in 2003 of natural causes.