“The first thing that struck me about Buddy Hackett was the switchblade in his hand. I could tell it meant a lot to him by the devoted way he held onto the thing, even while saying “Hello.” His round brown eyes were anything but blank, yet returned at once to his blade. He was sharpening it, so tenderly, as if with a feather. This happened in Budapest. Buddy, who is now starring in the musical, I Had a Ball, on Broadway, was there to star in a Cinerama comedy called The Golden Head. Curiosity was what had drawn me to the Hungarian capital. It is a fabulous place, steeped in human cruelty and human love, where bullets pockmark the walls, everyone sings, and the girls smile as suggestively as tearing silk.”
Alexander Eliot story about Buddy Hackett from Vogue 1965