Well, I guess it's true. Celebrity deaths always come in threes. First we lost the great comedian Jan Murray, then we lost the amazing June Allyson and now one of my personal favorites: Mr. Red Buttons. At the age of seven, Red (whose real name was Aaron Chwatt) began performing on street corners for pennies singing the popular songs of the day. At age age twelve, he entered every amateur talent contest he could find. When he was sixteen, red auditioned and got the job as an entertaining bell hop at a tavern called Ryan's Tavern in NYC. With his red hair and his uniform with a thousand buttons he was dubbed "Red Buttons" by Dinty Moore, the famed orchestra leader (and for whom the stew is named) He worked for $1.50 a week plus room and board-- (and we compalin) He used to bill himself working for the famed Minsky as "the only Burlesque comedian with his own teeth" Of course, I will always remember the day i got an autograph from him and just how gracious he was about giving it. But I laughed at this genuinely warm and witty entertainer. One night he slew me when he said this during a celebrity roast on the Dean Martin Comedy Hour: "Mrs. Noah who said to Mr. Noah-- it's your turn to clean under the elephants tonight-- never got a dinner" Oh how I laughed and I laughed and even today, it will pop into my head and i will laugh at it all over again. His performance in "Sayonara" was top rate and so was his role in "Pete's Dragon" There are so few great comedians left. And here's a comedian who even did Shakespeare-- "A Mid-Summer's Night Dream" no less with Basil Rathbone and the legendary Leopold Stokowski conducting a new score for the work in 1956. Not bad! He has been honored by the City of Hopeand the Friar's Club Lifetime Achievement Award. So now I will say what I say when any great comedian dies but personalize it here: "Red Buttons, after a lifetime of laughter on earth-- go make God laugh-- Lord knows he needs it after dealing with modern man! Until next time. Really hot day here by the way 106 degrees they claim and 110 tomorrow according to weatherbug-- let's hope they're wrong!