Brenda Buell Vaccaro (born November 18, 1939) is an Academy Award- and Tony Award-nominated, as well as Emmy- and Golden Globe Award-winning American stage, television and film actress.
Vaccaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian American parents Christine M. (née Pavia) and Mario A. Vaccaro (originally a lawyer), both of whom were pioneers in Italian cuisine. She was raised in Texas, where her parents co-founded Mario's Restaurant (a nationally recognized restaurant) and where Vaccaro graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1958. She returned to New York City to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and made her Broadway debut in the short-lived 1961 comedy Everybody Loves Opal, for which she won the Theatre World Award.
Vaccaro's Broadway credits include Cactus Flower (1965), How Now, Dow Jones (1967), The Goodbye People (1968), the female version of The Odd Couple, (1985), and Jake's Women (1982). The husky-voiced actress has been nominated for the Tony Award three times, for Best Featured Actress in a Play (Cactus Flower), Best Actress in a Musical (Dow Jones), and Best Actress in a Play (The Goodbye People).
Vaccaro co-starred in the 1969 Dustin Hoffman/Jon Voight film Midnight Cowboy, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. For her performance in the 1975 film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough she garnered an Academy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Additional screen credits include Airport '77, Capricorn One, Supergirl, The Mirror Has Two Faces and House by the Lake aka, Death Weekend.
Vaccaro's many television credits include a number of television movies and a regular role in the short-lived 1984 series Paper Dolls in addition to guest appearances on The Fugitive, The Defenders, Coronet Blue, The Name of the Game, Marcus Welby, M.D., McCloud, The Streets of San Francisco, The Love Boat, St. Elsewhere, Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls, Columbo, Touched by an Angel, Friends, The King of Queens, and Nip/Tuck. She has been nominated for an Emmy Award three times and won for Best Supporting Actress in Comedy-Variety, Variety or Music for The Shape of Things in 1974. She also starred in a series of commercials for Playtex.
Later she went on to supply the voice for Johnny Bravo's mother Bunny Bravo in the animated cartoon series. She had also made a later appearance on The Smurfs as Scruple, an apprentice of Gargamel, opposite Paul Winchell.
