Passage: Buddy Hackett, 78

Like Milton Berle, Henny Youngman and Red Buttons, the pudgy, rubbery-faced Hackett earned his comedic wings playing the Jewish nightclub circuit -- the "borscht belt" -- in upstate New York before heading west to TV and the movies. Hackett, born Leonard Hacker in Brooklyn in 1924, saw his career take off after appearing on the popular Jack Paar Show in the early '50s. Even though he appeared in a number of movies (The Music Man, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), television and on Broadway, Hackett was first and foremost a nightclub comic. Known for his salty language and acerbic wit, he held court on stages from Atlantic City to Las Vegas until his retirement in 1996.