Bob Newhart, the iconic stand-up comedian known for his dry and understated humor that propelled him to fame through two highly acclaimed CBS sitcoms, passed away Thursday morning at the age of 94.
The Chicago native, celebrated for his Grammy-winning album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” in 1960, died at his residence in Los Angeles following a brief illness, as confirmed by his longtime publicist, Jerry Digney.
Despite his renowned career, Newhart notably did not receive an Emmy Award until 2013, when he was honored for his guest role as Arthur Jeffries, also known as Professor Proton, on CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.”
In 1972, MTM Enterprises cast the unassuming comedian as clinical psychologist Bob Hartley, practicing in Chicago, a city close to Newhart’s heart. “The Bob Newhart Show” quickly became a beloved sitcom, boasting a stellar supporting cast including Suzanne Pleshette, Peter Bonerz, Marcia Wallace, Bill Daily, and Jack Riley.
Newhart concluded the series in 1978 after 142 episodes — and surprisingly, despite its popularity, he received no Emmy nominations and the show won no awards. Feeling the series had exhausted its creativity, he decided to end it. However, he returned to CBS in 1982 with another MTM comedy.
In “Newhart,” he portrayed Dick Loudon, a New York author who becomes the owner of the Stratford Inn in Vermont. The show remained a fixture for eight seasons, also featuring a strong ensemble cast (Mary Frann, Tom Poston — who later married Pleshette — Julia Duffy, Peter Scolari, and the memorable handymen “Larry, Darryl, and their other brother Darryl,” played by William Sanderson, Tony Papenfuss, and John Voldstad).
The series concluded its eight-season run with one of television’s most memorable endings, as Newhart’s character wakes up in the middle of the night as Bob Hartley, in bed with Pleshette in their Chicago apartment, suggesting that his entire second series had been a dream.
Bob Newhart was known for his distinctive pauses and stammering, which became his trademarks, while his wry observations stemmed from his keen observational skills.
“I tend to find humor in the macabre. I would say 85 percent of me is what you see on the show. And the other 15 percent is a very sick man with a very deranged mind,” he explained during a 1990 interview with Los Angeles magazine.
He was honored with induction into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1992.
George Robert Newhart was born on Sept. 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Illinois. A devoted Cubs fan, he celebrated with the team during their victory parade down La Salle Street after Chicago clinched the National League pennant in 1945. (He was ecstatic when the Cubs finally ended their 108-year World Series drought by winning in 2016.)
Bob Newhart never imagined a career in show business; in fact, such a flashy profession seemed contrary to his Midwestern sensibilities, which likely contributed to his appeal with Middle America.
After attending St. Ignatius College Prep and earning a commerce degree from Loyola University, Newhart spent two years in the Army before pursuing law school, where he didn’t succeed. He then worked as an accountant with U.S. Gypsum and later the Glidden Co., which specialized in paint.
“There’s some connection between numbers, music, and comedy. I can’t quite explain it, but I know it’s there,” he once shared in an interview with a college business professor. “It’s like 2 and 2 equals 5 for comedians. You take this fact and that fact, and somehow, you arrive at this absurd fact.”
To break the monotony at work, Newhart and a friend entertained themselves with prank phone calls. He honed these into his signature comedic style: the one-sided phone conversation (leaving the audience to imagine the other side).
He and his friend also sold a syndicated radio show, performing five-minute comedy routines five days a week for a meager $7.50.
In 1959, a disc jockey friend in Chicago introduced Newhart to a Warner Bros. Records executive. At that time, the former accountant turned copywriter had only three routines, but he quickly expanded his material and secured a contract with the recording company.
“When I started in the late fifties, I didn’t think, ‘Oh, here’s a great gap to fill — I’ll be a balding ex-accountant specializing in low-key humor,’” he recalled. “That’s just who I was, and that’s where my mind naturally went, so being that way was natural for me.”
Recorded live at a nightclub in Houston, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” became the first comedy album to top the charts, selling 1.5 million copies as one of the best-selling “talk” albums. The album included classics like “Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue” and “Driving Instructor.”
Arriving at a time when edgier comedians like Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl were gaining popularity, “The Button-Down Mind” earned Newhart his third Grammy for Best Comedy Performance and secured him spots on major shows like The Ed Sullivan Show.
Following two more successful albums, Newhart was offered a weekly TV variety series for the 1961-62 season. The inaugural “The Bob Newhart Show” won an Emmy for outstanding program achievement in humor that year, along with a Peabody Award.
Despite its success, Newhart soon found himself overwhelmed. “I took full responsibility for the program seven days a week, 24 hours a day, despite having a great production team,” he once admitted.
He turned down several sitcom offers, returning to nightclubs and honing his acting skills with TV guest spots and films, beginning with Don Siegel’s “Hell Is for Heroes” (1962) alongside Steve McQueen, and continuing with movies like “Hot Millions” (1968), Mike Nichols’ “Catch-22” (1970), and Norman Lear’s “Cold Turkey” (1971).
Co-creators Dave Davis and Lorenzo Music had long wanted to collaborate with Newhart. “Lorenzo and I wrote a segment for Bob on Love American Style. Bob wasn’t available, so we got Sid Caesar. A few years later, we wrote a script for Bob on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Again, he wasn’t available,” Davis recalled in an oral history of the sitcom. “After we became story editors on Mary’s show, MTM Enterprises asked Lorenzo and me to develop a pilot. We knew exactly what we wanted: a show with Bob.”
Newhart recounted, “Arthur Price [MTM co-founder] was my manager. He asked if I was interested. For 12 years, I’d been on the road doing stand-up, mostly one-night shows where the next day you’re off somewhere 5,300 miles away. I wanted a normal life where I could be home with my family. “I didn’t have many demands. I just didn’t want the show to portray the dad as a lovable idiot who constantly gets into trouble, leaving the wife and kids to bail him out.”
In 1992, Newhart launched another series, “Bob,” portraying a cult comic book artist, but it failed to attract an audience. The same fate befell “George & Leo,” where he played a bookstore owner opposite Judd Hirsch.
He made notable TV appearances on NBC’s “ER,” portraying a doctor facing macular degeneration (earning him another Emmy nomination), and on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” as Morty Flickman, husband to Lesley Ann Warren’s character. More recently, Newhart starred as Judson in a trilogy of “The Librarians” telefilms and subsequent series for TNT.
Newhart’s film roles included “Little Miss Marker” (1980); playing the president in Buck Henry’s “First Family” (1980), with Gilda Radner as his spirited daughter; as Papa Elf in Will Ferrell’s “Elf” (2003); and in “Horrible Bosses” (2011). He lent his distinctive flat Midwestern cadence to voice work in two “Rescuers” films.
Chicago honored Newhart with a statue on Michigan Avenue, near the office building seen in the opening credits of “The Bob Newhart Show,” featuring his likeness seated in a chair next to an empty psychiatrist’s couch. The statue was later relocated to Navy Pier.
In 2002, he became the fifth recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and published his memoirs, “I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This,” four years later. Newhart was married to Virginia “Ginny” Quinn, daughter of character actor Bill Quinn, from January 1963 until her passing in April 2023 at age 82. They were introduced on a blind date by comedian Buddy Hackett (Ginny was babysitting Hackett’s children).
“Buddy came back one day and said in his own way, ‘I met this young guy named Bobby Newhart, he’s a comic, he’s Catholic, and you’re Catholic, maybe you should marry each other,’” Ginny recalled in a 2013 interview.
Ginny was the one who suggested the brilliant ending for the “Newhart” show during a Christmas party attended by Pleshette. The Newharts were close friends with Don Rickles and his wife, Barbara, often vacationing together. Survivors include his children, Robert Jr., Timothy, Courtney, Jennifer, and 10 grandchildren.
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