Brenda Buell Vaccaro was born in Brooklyn to Italian immigrant parents, Mario Angelo Vaccaro and Christina Mario Onorato Vaccaro. She spent her early childhood in Dallas, Texas, where her parents co-founded the popular Mario's Restaurant in 1943. At the age of twelve, Vaccaro acted on stage for the first time, playing the role of Angelina in the Harrison Rhodes play 'The Willow Tree'.
Vaccaro studied drama for two years under Sanford Meisner and David Pressman at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in Manhattan. She made her Broadway debut in 1961 and won a Theatre World Award for her role as Gloria Gulock in the comedy play 'Everybody loves Opel'. She went on to receive three Best Actress Tony nominations for her performances in Cactus Flower, the musical How Now Dow Jones and The Goodbye People.
Vaccaro made her screen debut in a 1961 episode of the procedural police drama series Naked City. She appeared in small parts on television while supporting herself with temporary work as a waitress, a bathing suit model and a candy packer. At the end of the decade, she came to critical attention as Shirley, the socialite who picks up male prostitute Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy.
She was also singled out for critical praise for her roles as tough magazine editor Linda Riggs in Once Is Not Enough and as Soviet spy Ethel Rosenberg in Stanley Kramer's TV movie Judgment: The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Vaccaro has been variously described by her peers as 'idiosyncratic', "an enormously strong personality" and "a subtle comedic genius".
In her own words, "I'm a very organic actress, my feet are firmly planted on the ground, and I know what the tools are." Vaccaro has appeared in many other notable screen credits, including Mafia wife Rosalie Bonanno in Honor Thy Father, the resourceful Diane in The House by the Lake, the wife of an astronaut in Capricorn One, and the sister and partner-in-crime of Al Pacino's Dr. Jack Kevorkian in You Don't Know Jack.
Latterly, Vaccaro has popped up in small roles, including as the wife of Hollywood wheeler-dealer Marvin Schwarz in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. For the small screen, Vaccaro briefly starred in her own western series as 1870s frontier schoolteacher Sara Yarnell. She has also had a semi-regular role as a neurotic mother in the psychological thriller series Gypsy.
Vaccaro has provided the voice for the mischievous character Scruple in episodes of the animated kid's show The Smurfs and also that of scatterbrained Bunny in Johnny Bravo. A lifelong liberal Democrat, Brenda Vaccaro is a member of Actor's Equity, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. She has been married four times and has been married to her fourth husband, Guy P. Hector, since 1986.
