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Leonard Hacker(August 31, 1924 – June 30, 2003) was an American comedian and actor. In his later life, he and his wife set up the Singita Animal Sanctuary in the San Fernando Valley, California. Buddy Hackett was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Jewish heritage, the son of an upholsterer. The family lived in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn at 504 Kosciuszko Street. He grew up on 54th and 14th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn. He served three years with an anti-aircraft unit during World War II. He married, and had a son and two daughters.

Hackett became known to a wider audience when he appeared on television in the 1950s and 1960s as a frequent guest on such talk shows as those of Jack Paar and Arthur Godfrey, telling brash, often off-color jokes, and mugging at the camera. During this time, he also appeared as a panelist on What`s My Line?. In 1960, he appeared as himself in an episode of NBC`s short-lived crime drama Dan Raven, starring Skip Homeier, set on the Sunset Strip of West Hollywood. Hackett also appeared many times on the game show Hollywood Squares, in the late 1960s. Hackett became widely known from his role in the 1963 box-office success It`s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. After starring on Broadway in I Had a Ball, Hackett appeared opposite Robert Preston in the 1962 film adaptation of The Music Man. Children became familiar with him as lovable hippie auto mechanic Tennessee Steinmetz in Disney`s The Love Bug (1968). He appeared as Art Carney`s replacement on The Jackie Gleason Show, and in the 1958 film God`s Little Acre. His later career was mostly as a guest on variety shows and prime time sitcoms, such as Boy Meets World, in its 4th season.

Hackett died on June 30, 2003, at his beach house in Malibu, California, at the age of 78. His son, Sandy Hackett, said his father had been suffering from diabetes for several years which was aggravated by his obesity. Hackett did much for Duke University`s bariatric program in which he was a patient and had participated in their famed Rice diet program.