Buff Cobb (born Patrizia Cobb Chapman, October 19, 1927 – July 12, 2010)Hevesi, Dennis

''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', July 21, 2010. was an Italian-born American

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...

and, with then-husband

Mike Wallace Myron Leon Wallace (May 9, 1918 – April 7, 2012) was an American journalist, game show host, actor, and media personality. He interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers during his seven-decade career. He was one of the original correspo ...

, host of one of television's first

talk-show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Sh ...

shows.

Early life and career

Patrizia Cobb Chapman was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

, Italy, to opera singer Frank Chapman, whose own father was the ornithologist and pioneering writer of field guides

Frank Michler Chapman Frank Michler Chapman (June 12, 1864 – November 15, 1945) was an American ornithologist and pioneering writer of field guides. Biography Chapman was born in West Englewood, New Jersey and attended Englewood Academy. He joined the staff o ...

, and playwright Elizabeth Cobb, whose father was the author and humorist

Irvin S. Cobb Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (June 23, 1876 – March 11, 1944) was an American author, humorist, editor and columnist from Paducah, Kentucky, who relocated to New York in 1904, living there for the remainder of his life. He wrote for the ''New York Worl ...

. When she was young, her parents divorced and her father married mezzo-soprano opera singer

Gladys Swarthout Gladys Swarthout (December 25, 1900 in Deepwater, Missouri – July 7, 1969 in Florence, Italy) was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer and actress. Career While studying at the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, a group of friends arr ...

. Additional , July 21, 2010. Her family moved first to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

and then to

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

, where Cobb graduated from high school. She began her acting career with stock companies, and then won bit parts in movies including '' Anna and the King of Siam'' (1946), and toured with

Tallulah Bankhead Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American actress. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead also appeared in several prominent films including an award-winning performance in Alfred Hitchcock's ''Lif ...

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combina ...

's play ''

Private Lives ''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetuall ...

'' from 1946 to 1948. At 19, she married attorney Greg Bautzer, the first of her four husbands, divorcing him after six months. At 20, she married her second husband, actor William Eythe, in Manhattan in 1947. She sued for divorce after seven months, but reconsidered two days later before going on with the divorce in 1948.

Talk-show pioneer

Cobb, while touring with ''

'' in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, Illinois, met broadcast journalist

. As Wallace later recalled, Mike Wallace Buff Cobb 1951

By that time the program had gone from radio to become the pioneering CBS television talk show ''Mike and Buff''. Based in

, it ran from August 20, 1951, to February 27, 1953.McNeil, Alex. ''Total Television'', 4th edition (

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.CBS' first color TV programs. By November 1951, it had been retitled ''Mike and Buff'' and was broadcast in black-and-white on weekday afternoons. Beginning June 1951, the two also co-hosted a second show, ''All Around the Town'', in which Wallace and Cobb conducted live interviews from locales including

Coney Island Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to th ...

, the

New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company' ...

, backstage at the original Broadway production of ''

Guys and Dolls ''Guys and Dolls'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on " The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933) and "Blood Pressure", which are two short stories by Damon Runyon, and als ...

'' starring

Sam Levene Sam Levene (born Scholem Lewin; August 28, 1905 – December 28, 1980) was a Russian Empire-born American Broadway theatre, Broadway, film, radio, and television actor and Television director, director. In a career spanning over five decades, ...

as Nathan Detroit, and numerous restaurants.Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh. ''The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present'', 8th edition (

Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remain ...

: New York, 2003), p. 37. Initially a thrice-weekly late-afternoon show, and it moved to a Saturday 6-6:45 p.m. slot from November 10, 1951, to January 1952. It returned as a prime time series, sponsored by the soft drink

Pepsi Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo. Originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and then shortened to Pepsi in 1961. History Pepsi was ...

on Saturday nights at 9-9:30 p.m. from May to June 1952. ''

'' critic

Jack Gould John Ludlow Gould (February 5, 1914 – May 24, 1993) was an American journalist and critic, who wrote commentary about television. Early life and education Gould was born in New York City into a socially prominent family and attended the Loomis ...

wrote in 1951 that "the presentation of Mike and Buff constituted an object lesson in how television can be eminently educational without being self-conscious about it." Cobb was also a panelist for two years on the 1952 to 1960 TV quiz show ''

Masquerade Party ''Masquerade Party'' was an American television game show. During its original run from 1952 to 1960, the show appeared at various times on every television network except DuMont ( ABC, NBC, and CBS). A syndicated revival was produced for one ...

'', joining

Ogden Nash Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by ''The New York Times'' the country's bes ...

, bandleader

Bobby Sherwood Robert J. Sherwood Jr. (May 30, 1914 – January 23, 1981) was an American guitarist, trumpeter, bandleader, and radio host. Early years Sherwood's parents were Bob and Gail Sherwood. When they lived in Kokomo, Indiana, he operated a movie th ...

and others from 1953 to 1955 on the show, which during her tenure ran Monday nights on CBS before switching to Wednesday nights on ABC.

Later life

Cobb and Wallace divorced in either 1955Streible, Dan
Sidebar at "Wallace, Mike: U.S. Broadcast Journalist"

The Museum of Broadcast Communications The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) is an American museum, the stated mission of which is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform and entertain through our archi ...

WebCitation archive
or 1957 (accounts differ). Cobb's fourth husband, H. Spencer Martin, died in 1987. She had a half brother, Thomas Cobb Brody. In the 1960s, she and partners including

Paul Vroom Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...

produced two

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

shows: a revival of

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

's '' Too True to Be Good'', which ran 94 performances and two previews at the

54th Street Theatre The Adelphi Theatre (1934–1940 and 1944–1958), originally named the Craig Theatre, opened on December 24, 1928. The Adelphi was located at 152 West 54th Street in Manhattan, with 1,434 seats.Internet Broadway Database''Adelphi Theatre''(Ret ...

from March 9 to June 1, 1963; and

Jerry Devine Jerry may refer to: Animals * Jerry (Grand National winner), racehorse, winner of the 1840 Grand National * Jerry (St Leger winner), racehorse, winner of 1824 St Leger Stakes Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Jerry'' (film), a 2006 Indian fil ...

's '' Never Live Over a Pretzel Factory'', which played nine performances and five previews from March 20 to April 4, 1964, at the

Eugene O'Neill Theatre The Eugene O'Neill Theatre, previously the Forrest Theatre and the Coronet Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 230 West 49th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The theater was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and ...

. The following decade, she and partner

Shepard Traube Shepard may refer to: *A common misspelling of shepherd *Alan Shepard, American astronaut and member of the Apollo 14 moon mission *Shepard, Alberta, Canada *Shepard, Missouri, a ghost town *Shepard (name) *Shepard tone, a sound consisting of a supe ...

produced Devine's ''

Children of the Wind A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younge ...

'', which ran six performances and one preview from October 23–27, 1973, at the

Belasco Theatre The Belasco Theatre is a Broadway theater at 111 West 44th Street, between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Originally known as the Stuyvesant Theatre, it was built in 1907 and d ...

.Buff Cobb
at the

Internet Broadway Database The Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It was conceived and created by Karen Hauser in 1996 and is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade a ...

. Cobb died in a nursing home in

Lebanon, New Hampshire Lebanon is a city in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 14,282 at the 2020 census, up from 13,151 at the 2010 census. Lebanon is in western New Hampshire, south of Hanover, near the Connecticut River. It is the hom ...

, at age 82.

Awards/nominations

* 1963

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

nomination, Best Producer of a Play, with Paul Vroom and Burry Fredrik, for a revival of

's '' Too True to Be Good''.

References

External links

*
"Bill marries Buff Cobb"
(annotated photo) at Flickr.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Cobb, Buff 1927 births 2010 deaths Television personalities from California American film actresses Italian emigrants to the United States Actresses from Santa Monica, California American theatre managers and producers 21st-century American women