“EIGHTY isn’t old. You’re old when your doctor doesn’t X-ray you anymore, he just holds you up to the light.” When Red Buttons quipped about his longevity in 1999 the pint-sized entertainer could look back on a comedy career that had already spanned seven decades.

At 7 he was singing on street corners for pennies. In his twenties he was starring on Broadway and by the 1950s he was one of America’s favourite stand-up comedians. And when the laughter stopped and his popularity waned, he went on to become one of the cinema’s most respected character actors, winning an Oscar and starring in box-office hits such as The Poseidon Adventure and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Red-haired and with cheerful looks, Red Buttons had all the hallmarks of being a natural comic right from the start. He was born Aaron Chwatt in 1919, the son of a Jewish milliner on the Lower East Side of New York, the square mile that produced showbiz giants such as George Burns and Jimmy Durante.

He sang and danced in the streets as a child and at 12 won an amateur talent contest. Six years later he was working as a singing bellboy in a local tavern. The uniform and bright red buttons inspired his stage name.

He got his comic training in burlesque, revue-type entertainment that often featured strippers, in the resorts of the Catskill Mountains. He billed himself as “The Only Burlesque Comedian with his own Teeth”. He earned just $1.50 a week and his straight man was the singer and actor, Robert Alda, whose son, Alan, later became the star of the TV series M*A*S*H and is currently in The West Wing.

In 1942 Buttons got a big break and appeared in a show on Broadway. But his stage success was short-lived and he was drafted into the army. This unexpectedly led to his screen debut and he was cast in the film version of the forces stage show, Winged Victory. When the film was released it made Buttons a household name and he joined Mickey Rooney entertaining the troops throughout Europe. They were among the first troops to enter the ruins of Berlin and performed at the Potsdam Conference.

After being demobbed Buttons was back on Broadway cracking gags, but this time in cinemas with the big bands of the day. He married his first wife, Roxanne, in 1947 but they divorced three years later. The same year he married Helayne McNorton and they divorced in 1963.

The turning point in his career came in 1952 when CBS television gave him his own series, The Red Buttons Show. It was a huge success and was watched weekly by millions. Buttons sang, danced and clowned about in comic sketches and his catchphrase, “Strange things are happening”, caught on with the nation.

But the show’s popularity did not last and in 1955 it was axed. Buttons’s career took a nosedive but he made a big comeback two years later when he starred alongside Marlon Brando in Sayonara, directed by Joshua Logan. He played Joe Kelly, an American soldier stationed in Japan during the Korean War who defied the then racist policies of the US Army, fell in love and married a local girl. He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1957.

For the next 40 years Buttons was rarely out of work as a screen actor. He appeared in scores of films, including The Longest Day (1962), Stagecoach (1966) and Pete’s Dragon (1977). John Wayne, the star of the African adventure film Hatari! (1962), said of his co-star: “Red is the only guy who could steal a movie from a monkey.”

He gave an award-winning performance in the tragic dance band marathon drama They Shoot Horses, Don't They? opposite Jane Fonda and he nearly stole the disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure from the stars Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters.

Buttons never forgot his comic roots. He made hundreds of guest appearances in his later career and on TV shows such as Roseanne and The Bill Cosby Show and he frequently appeared in cabaret in Las Vegas and in New York. His fans included Woody Allen and Robin Williams and he said of his humour: “I’m a Jew who is doing comedy — not a Jewish comic.”

For many years he was known as the master of the Hollywood “roast”, the tribute lunches given for top names in entertainment. While other celebrities paid glowing tributes to the star being honoured, Buttons would send them up mercilessly. Of Liz Taylor he quipped: “She has a big heart. She’s just built a half-way house for girls who don't want to go all the way.” And of the hard-drinking crooner Dean Martin he joked: “If Dracula bit Dean in the neck, he’d get a Bloody Mary.”

Buttons was a tireless charity worker and in his seventies he was honoured with the Israel Cultural Award with an annual fellowship in his name by the Israel Cancer Fund. “I have whole forests in Israel planted in my name,” he said.

In 1995 he opened in his one- man show, Buttons on Broadway, at the New York Ambassador Theatre to rave reviews. It was the same theatre in which he had starred in New York’s last burlesque show, 53 years earlier. “I've come full circle,” he said to a packed first-night audience. “It's been a long ride, but in the end its the laughs you remember.”

His third wife, Alicia, whom he married in 1964, died in 2001. He is survived by a son and a daughter.

Red Buttons, actor and comedian, was born on February 5, 1919. He died on July 13, 2006, aged 87.