Vilma buffman

Zev Buffman (October 11,

Taylor, the epitome of screen glamour since the mids, had almost no stage experience. But Buffman, a brash Israeli-born impresario, asked her if she would act in a play. Smitten by talking to the actors at the backstage party that night and hoping to recover from a career lull, he recalled, she quickly agreed. It was a hit. Bringing Taylor to the stage was a signature moment in a career that started in the s with bit parts in Hollywood films and blossomed when Buffman turned to producing shows on Broadway and elsewhere.

He died March 31 at a hospital in Seattle, near Whidbey Island, where he had moved from Florida in His wife, Vilma Greul Buffman, said the cause was pancreatic cancer. He was His father, Mordechai, ran two movie theaters, and his mother, Clara Torbin Bufman, was a homemaker. Both had immigrated from Ukraine. DeMille, who remonstrated him for not addressing him as Mr.

But he also asked Buffman to keep offering advice. Frustrated at being cast only in minor roles, he turned to producing in the late s. He bought the old Hollywood Canteen, which had provided entertainment to servicemen during World War II, and converted it to a dinner theater. It closed after eight performances.