Comedian Buddy Hackett dies

MALIBU, Calif., July 1 (UPI) -- Buddy Hackett, the rubber-faced clown, died at his Malibu home at the age of 78.

The cause of death was not immediately clear. Hackett had been suffering from a chest cold although he had been in "robust good health" until a few days ago, according to a family spokesperson.

Hackett hadn't worked professionally since 1996 when he stopped performing after experiencing shortness of breath onstage, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Hackett was born Leonard Hacker in 1924 in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of an upholsterer. It was during the summers that a teenage Hackett first went to work as a waiter and bellhop in the Catskills, the resort breeding ground for countless "borscht belt" comedians.

Over the decades, Hackett's look helped make him inimitable: the rotund body with the cross-eyed gaze and the delivery in which he seemed to be talking out of the side of his mouth.