21 Facts About Buck Henry

Buck Henry later appeared in Albert Brooks's Defending Your Life, and the Robert Altman films The Player and Short Cuts.

Buck Henry co-created Get Smart with Mel Brooks for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.

Buck Henry served as a 10-time host of Saturday Night Live and was the inaugural member of the show's Five Timer's Club, a humorous designation used to denote people who have hosted at least five episodes of SNL.

Buck Henry was born on December 9,1930, in New York City, as Buck Henry Zuckerman.

Buck Henry's mother was Ruth Taylor, a silent film actress, star of the original version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and his father was Paul Steinberg Zuckerman, an Air Force brigadier general and stockbroker.

Buck Henry attended The Choate School, at the time an all-boys institution.

Buck Henry earned a bachelor's degree in English literature and a senior fellowship in writing at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he wrote for the university humor magazine, the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, and met movie director Bob Rafelson.

Buck Henry served in West Germany first as a helicopter mechanic and then transferred to Special Services, where he toured with the Seventh Army Repertory Company, performing in a play he both wrote and directed.

Buck Henry was often presented as an eccentric, but was otherwise taken seriously by the broadcasters who interviewed him.

Buck Henry became a cast member on The New Steve Allen Show and the US version of That Was the Week That Was.

Buck Henry was a co-creator and writer for the secret agent comedy television series Get Smart, with comedian Mel Brooks.

Two TV projects created by Buck Henry had short runs: Captain Nice with William Daniels as a reluctant superhero, and Quark, with Richard Benjamin in command of a garbage scow in outer space.

Buck Henry shared an Oscar nomination with Calder Willingham for their screenplay for The Graduate, in which he appeared in a supporting role as a hotel desk clerk.

In 1997, Buck Henry was the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award.

Buck Henry co-directed Heaven Can Wait, the remake of Here Comes Mr Jordan, with the movie's star Warren Beatty and appeared in the film as an officious angel, reprising the character originally played by Edward Everett Horton.

Buck Henry received a second shared Oscar nomination, this time for Best Director.

Later in his career, Buck Henry became known for guest-starring and recurring roles on television.

Buck Henry appeared in an episode of Murphy Brown as Dr Victor Rudman, a fractal scientist who dated Murphy.

Buck Henry hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live ten times between 1976 and 1980, making him the show's most frequent host during its initial five-year run and on November 19,1977, Buck Henry became the first to host five times.

Buck Henry's head began to bleed and he was forced to wear a large bandage on his forehead for the rest of the show.

Buck Henry died of a heart attack at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on January 8,2020, at age 89.