Brenda Buell Vaccaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian immigrants Mario Angelo Vaccaro and Christina Mario Onorato Vaccaro (née Pavia). Her early childhood was spent in Dallas, Texas, where her parents co-founded Mario's Restaurant in 1943. Vaccaro began acting at the age of twelve, playing the role of Angelina in the Harrison Rhodes play 'The Willow Tree'.
She studied drama for two years at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in Manhattan under Sanford Meisner and David Pressman. In 1961, Vaccaro made her Broadway debut and won a Theatre World Award for her role as Gloria Gulock in the comedy play 'Everybody loves Opal', starring Eileen Heckart.
Vaccaro's breakthrough on screen came in a 1961 episode of the procedural police drama series Naked City. She then appeared in small parts on television while supporting herself with temporary work as a waitress, a bathing suit model, and a candy packer.
Her notable screen credits include Mafia wife Rosalie Bonanno in the crime drama Honor Thy Father (1973),the resourceful Diane in The House by the Lake (1976),the wife of an astronaut involved in a faked Mars mission in Capricorn One (1978),and the sister and partner-in-crime of Al Pacino's Dr. Jack Kevorkian in You Don't Know Jack (2010).
Vaccaro has also had a successful career in television, starring in her own western series as 1870s frontier schoolteacher Sara in Yarnell (1976) and having a semi-regular role as a neurotic mother in the psychological thriller series Gypsy (2017). Her guest appearances have been diverse, ranging from The Streets of San Francisco (1972) and Murder, She Wrote (1984) to Ally McBeal (1997) and The Golden Girls (1985).
Vaccaro has provided the voice for the mischievous character Scruple in episodes of the animated kid's show The Smurfs (1981) and that of scatterbrained Bunny in Johnny Bravo (1997). She has been a popular guest on talk shows and a frequent panelist on quiz programs.
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 is currently married to French-born realtor Guy P. Hector.
