Zane Buzby grew up in
East Meadow, New York, and graduated with honors from
Hofstra University with degrees in performance and dramatic literature. She began her show business career as an assistant film editor working for
The Beatles'
Apple Films on
The Concert for Bangladesh and
The Holy Mountain by
Alejandro Jodorowsky. Her first major acting credit was in the
Carl Reiner film
Oh, God! (1977). She appeared in the films
Up in Smoke (1978) (opposite
Cheech & Chong),
Americathon (1979) (opposite
John Ritter), ''
National Lampoon's Class Reunion'' (1982) scripted by
John Hughes),
Jerry Lewis' film
Cracking Up (1983), and the
Rob Reiner film
This Is Spinal Tap (1984). She also co-starred in and directed the feature film comedy
Last Resort (1986), starring
Charles Grodin. Buzby became a television director (mentored by
James Burrows and producer Edgar J. Scherick), and went on to amass over 200 directing credits in episodic television, including directing episodes of
The Golden Girls,
Married... with Children,
Newhart,
My Sister Sam,
Head of the Class,
My Two Dads,
Charles in Charge,
Blossom; and the pilots for
Sister, Sister,
ADAM starring comedian/actor
Adam Ferrara, and
The Rock starring
Joy Behar. Buzby directed the pilot of
HBO's comedy concert "Women of the Night" starring
Martin Short,
Ellen DeGeneres,
Rita Rudner,
Judy Tenuta and
Paula Poundstone. Buzby has devoted herself to philanthropy, assisting
Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe. She is the founder of The Survivor Mitzvah Project (SMP), a humanitarian effort bringing emergency aid to the last survivors of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. She is also the founder of SMP's Holocaust Educational Archive, a growing repository of thousands of letters and photographs from Holocaust survivors in nine countries and hundreds of hours of videotape shot in 6 countries in Eastern Europe, depicting never before recorded testimony and locations illustrating the "Holocaust in the East". She and husband Conan Berkeley are working on a documentary film titled
Family of Strangers, about The Survivor Mitzvah Project's emergency efforts to help the last survivors of the Holocaust. Shot on location in six countries, the film spans 17 years of emergency aid expeditions led by Buzby in remote areas of
Belarus,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Moldova,
Transnistria, and
Ukraine. ==Awards==