DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Duke women's basketball coach Kara Lawson on Monday hired former Kentucky head coach Kyra Elzy as an assistant, reuniting the former Tennessee teammates on the Blue Devils’ staff.
Lawson called the hiring a “big day” for Duke basketball in a statement that noted Elzy’s strong national reputation in recruiting and developing players such as three-time first team All-American Rhyne Howard, the No. 1 overall selection of the 2022 WNBA draft by the Atlanta Dream. The Blue Devils coach also praised Elzy’s integrity, tactical skills and passion, which she believes will elevate the program.
“She is one of the best relationship builders I’ve been around,” Lawson said of Elzy. “She’s been an elite player and coach. I look forward to pursuing championships together again.”
Elzy said she is “elated beyond belief” to join Duke and added, “It is also a tremendous privilege to work with my sister and former teammate.”
Lawson and Elzy were Tennessee teammates from 1999-2001 under legendary coach Pat Summitt, winning the SEC Tournament in 2000 and reaching the NCAA title game before falling to UConn.
Elzy coached Kentucky to a 64-62 upset of top-seeded South Carolina to win the 2022 Southeastern Conference Tournament and earn a second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. She was 61-60 over four seasons as Wildcats coach before being fired in March after consecutive losing seasons. Elzy had also worked as a Kentucky assistant and associate coach during two stints totaling 12 years with the program.
Elzy also worked 2012-16 in the same capacities at her alma mater in addition to stops at Western Kentucky and Kansas.
AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball
FILE - Duke head coach Kara Lawson works the sideline against Ohio State, March 24, 2024, in Columbus, Ohio. On Monday, June 10, 2024, Lawson hired former Kentucky head coach Kyra Elzy as an assistant, reuniting the former Tennessee teammates on the Blue Devils’ staff. (AP Photo/Aaron Doster, File)
FILE - Kentucky head coach Kyra Elzy directs her players in a NCAA college basketball game against Tennessee, March 5, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. On Monday, June 10, 2024, Duke women's basketball coach Kara Lawson hired Elzy as an assistant, reuniting the former Tennessee teammates on the Blue Devils’ staff. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ruth Buzzi, who rose to fame as the frumpy and bitter Gladys Ormphby on the groundbreaking sketch comedy series “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” and made over 200 television appearances during a 45-year career, has died at age 88.
Buzzi died Thursday at her home in Texas, her agent Mike Eisenstadt said. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and was in hospice care. Shortly before her death, her husband Kent Perkins, had posted a statement on Buzzi's Facebook page, thanking her many fans and telling them: “She wants you to know she probably had more fun doing those shows than you had watching them.”
Buzzi won a Golden Globe and was a two-time Emmy nominee for the NBC show that ran from 1968 to 1973. She was the only regular to appear in all six seasons, including the pilot.
She was first spotted by “Laugh-In” creator and producer George Schlatter playing various characters on “The Steve Allen Comedy Hour.”
Schlatter was holding auditions for “Laugh-In” when he received a picture in the mail of Buzzi in her Ormphby costume, sitting in a wire mesh trash barrel. The character was clad in drab brown with her bun covered by a hairnet knotted in the middle of her forehead.
“I think I hired her because of my passion for Gladys Ormphby,” he wrote in his 2023 memoir “Still Laughing A Life in Comedy.” “I must admit that the hairnet and the rolled-down stockings did light my fire. My favorite Gladys line was when she announced that the day of the office Christmas party, they sent her home early.”
The Gladys character used her purse as a weapon against anyone who bothered her, striking people over the head. On “Laugh-In,” her most frequent target was Arte Johnson’s dirty old man character Tyrone F. Horneigh.
“Gladys embodies the overlooked, the downtrodden, the taken for granted, the struggler,” Buzzi told The Connecticut Post in 2018. “So when she fights back, she speaks for everyone who’s been marginalized, reduced to a sex object or otherwise abused. And that’s almost everyone at some time or other.”
Buzzi took her act to the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts in Las Vegas, where she bashed her purse on the heads of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Lucille Ball, among others.
“Ruth Buzzi brought a singular energy and charm to sketch comedy that made her a standout on ‘Laugh-In’ and the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. Her characters, especially the unforgettable Gladys Ormphby, captured the delightful absurdity of the era," said Journey Gunderson, executive director of the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York.
Her other recurring characters on “Laugh-In” included Flicker Farkle; Busy-Buzzi, a Hollywood gossip columnist; Doris Swizzler, a cocktail-lounge regular who got drunk with husband Leonard, played by Dick Martin; and an inconsiderate flight attendant.
“I never took my work for granted, nor assumed I deserved more of the credit or spotlight or more pay than anyone else,” Buzzi told The Connecticut Post. “I was just thrilled to drive down the hill to NBC every day as an employed actor with a job to do.”
Buzzi remained friends through the years with “Laugh-In” co-stars Lily Tomlin and Jo Anne Worley.
Born Ruth Ann Buzzi on July 24, 1936, in Westerly, Rhode Island, she was the daughter of Angelo Buzzi, a nationally known stone sculptor. Her father and later her brother operated Buzzi Memorials, a gravestone and monument maker in Stonington, Connecticut, where she was head cheerleader in high school.
Buzzi enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse at age 17. Two years later, she traveled with singer Rudy Vallee in a musical and comedy act during her summer break. That earned her an Actors’ Equity union card before she graduated from the playhouse’s College of Theatre Arts.
Buzzi moved to New York and was immediately hired for a lead role in an off-Broadway musical revue, the first of 19 such shows she performed in on the East Coast.
She got her national television break on “The Garry Moore Show” in 1964, just after Carol Burnett was replaced by Dorothy Loudon on the series. She played Shakundala the Silent, a bumbling magician’s assistant to Dom DeLuise’s character Dominic the Great.
Buzzi was a regular on the CBS variety show “The Entertainers” whose hosts included Burnett and Bob Newhart.
She was in the original Broadway cast of “Sweet Charity” with Gwen Verdon in 1966.
Buzzi toured the country with her nightclub act, including appearances in Las Vegas.
She was a semi-regular on “That Girl” as Marlo Thomas’ friend. She co-starred with Jim Nabors as time-traveling androids on “The Lost Saucer” in the mid-1970s.
Her other guest appearances included variety shows hosted by Burnett, Flip Wilson, Glen Campbell, Tony Orlando, Donny and Marie Osmond and Leslie Uggams.
She appeared in Ball’s last comedy series “Life With Lucy.”
Buzzi guested in music videos with “Weird Al” Yankovic, the B-52’s and the Presidents of the United States of America.
She did hundreds of guest voices in cartoon series including “Pound Puppies,” “Berenstain Bears,” “The Smurfs” and “The Angry Beavers.”
She was Emmy nominated for her six-year run as shopkeeper Ruthie on “Sesame Street.”
Her movie credits included “Freaky Friday,” “Chu Chu and the Philly Flash,” “The North Avenue Irregulars” and “The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again.”
Buzzi was active on social media and had thousands of followers whom she rewarded with such one-liners as “I have never faked a sarcasm” and “Scientists say the universe is made up entirely of neurons, protons and electrons. They seem to have missed morons.”
She married actor Perkins in 1978.
The couple moved from California to Texas in 2003 and bought a 640-acre ranch near Stephenville.
Buzzi retired from acting in 2021 and suffered a series of strokes the following year. Her husband told The Dallas Morning News in 2023 that she had dementia.
—-
Associated Press National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.
FILE - "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" cast members, from left, Lily Tomlin, Henry Gibson, Ruth Buzzi and Gary Owens pose for the media Tuesday, April 2, 2002, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, file)
FILE - "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" co-stars Ruth Buzzi and Gary Owens share a laugh during NBC's 75th Anniversary Party, in Los Angeles, Jan. 9, 2002. (AP Photo/Rene Macura, File)
