Buzzi was born at Westerly Hospital, Westerly, Rhode Island, the daughter of Rena Pauline and Angelo Peter Buzzi, a nationally recognized stone sculptor. Her father, who came from an Italian family, immigrated from Arzo, Switzerland in 1923. She was raised in the village of Wequetequock in the town of Stonington, Connecticut, in a rock house overlooking the ocean at Wequetequock Cove, where her father owned Buzzi Memorials, a business that her older brother Harold operated until his retirement in 2013.
Buzzi attended Stonington High School, where she was head cheerleader. At 17, she enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse for the Performing Arts, from which she graduated with honors.
Before graduation from college, Buzzi was already a working actress with a union card in musical and comedy revues. Her first job in show business was at 19, traveling with singer Rudy Vallee in a live musical and comedy act during her summer break from college; it allowed her to graduate with an Actors' Equity Association union card. She moved to New York City after graduation and was hired immediately for a lead role in an off-Broadway musical revue, the first of 19 in which she performed around the East Coast. She worked alongside other young performers just beginning their careers at the time, including Barbra Streisand, Joan Rivers, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters, and Carol Burnett. She performed in New York musical variety shows, and she made numerous television commercials, some of which won national awards including the Clio Award.

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