Bob Newhart, legendary comedian, dead at 94

CNN

By Dan Heching and Todd Leopold, CNN

(CNN) — Bob Newhart, whose stammering, deadpan unflappability carried him to stardom as a standup comedian and later in television and movies, has died, according to a statement from his longtime publicist Jerry Digney. He was 94.

Digney said Newhart died in Los Angeles on Thursday morning after a series of short illnesses. He called the star’s passing an “end of an era in comedy.”

Over the course of five decades, Newhart’s popularity rarely waned, whether it was as the recording star of the comedy album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” (the first comedy album to win the Grammy for album of the year), the lead in two top-rated television sitcoms, or a supporting actor in movies including “Catch-22” (in which he played the timid Maj. Major), “Cold Turkey” and “Elf.”

He remains best known for the television shows, “The Bob Newhart Show” (1972-78) and “Newhart” (1982-90), both of which were built around his persona as a reasonable man put-upon by crazies.

Finding success

Born George Robert Newhart in Oak Park, Illinois on September 5, 1929, Newhart was originally an accountant and advertising copywriter.

In 2022, he mused about his time as an accountant, joking, “in my case, I don’t think it’s amazing that a bad accountant could become a comedian.” He added that “there’s something about numbers and music and comedy, I’m not sure what it is,” going on to mention some comedy contemporaries that has an interest in music like he did.

He first rose to fame with his comedy album, 1960’s “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.” The album was a phenomenon of its time and one of the best-selling albums of the year. It was No. 1 for 14 weeks on Billboard’s album chart and a multiple Grammy Award-winner, beating out Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte and Nat “King” Cole for album of the year. He also hit No. 1 with the follow-up, “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!”

“The Bob Newhart Show” debuted in 1972. (This is not to be confused with his Peabody and Emmy Award-winning variety show of the same name that aired for one season beginning in 1961.) He played a Chicago psychologist, Bob Hartley, who ministered to a host of eccentric patients.

In “Newhart,” he took on the role of Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon, who tried to maintain his sanity while surrounded by comical locals.

In both cases, his characters found refuge with their wives, played by Suzanne Pleshette in “The Bob Newhart Show” and Mary Frann in “Newhart.”

The latter show’s finale remains one of the most famous in television history. In the final “Newhart” episode, Newhart’s town is purchased by a Japanese millionaire. Golfers at a new course regularly batter the inn with their drives, and one day – in the midst of an argument with townspeople – Newhart is hit by a golf ball. After a quick fade to black, he awakens… as Hartley, his character from “The Bob Newhart Show,” in bed with Pleshette.

“Honey, wake up! You won’t believe the dream I just had,” he tells her, to uproarious audience laughter.

“That was my wife Ginny’s idea,” Newhart explained to Parade magazine in 2013. “She said, ‘You should end the show by waking up in bed with Emily and explain a dream you had about owning an inn in Vermont.’ We used it!”

The actor was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for his “Newhart” series three times in the outstanding lead actor category. He didn’t win an individual acting Emmy until 2013, when he was recognized in the outstanding guest actor category for his portrayal of Professor Proton on “The Big Bang Theory.”

He was nominated for a total of nine Emmys throughout the course of his career.

Newhart was a frequent guest on the era’s variety and talk shows, and a regular fill-in host on the “Tonight Show,” switching out for his friend Johnny Carson 87 times.

Newhart never really retired, continuing to make television appearances in recent years on “Big Bang” and “Young Sheldon,” along with “Hot in Cleveland” and “The Librarians.”

Other film work from the star included turns in “Horrible Bosses” and “In & Out.”

A late-career Christmas present

His performance as Papa Elf in the 2003 beloved Christmas comedy “Elf,” Newhart believed, “outranks, by far, any role I may have ever played,” he shared in an email interview with CNN last fall on the occasion of the film’s 20th anniversary.

“My agent sent me the script and I fell in love with it,” he said, later adding that he told his wife that the movie was “going to be another ‘Miracle on 34th Street,’ where people watch it every year.”

“In my opinion, there has not been anything like it in the interim,” he added. “People wanted to believe in it. … People need that charming, wonderful thing about the Christmas spirit and its way of powering the sleigh.”

The actor and comedian was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1993, and has had his material added to the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. He won the Kennedy Center’s 2002 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Newhart is survived by four children, Jennifer, Courtney, Timothy and Robert, and numerous grandchildren, according to his publicist. His wife of 60 years, Virginia “Ginnie” Newhart, passed away last year.

This story has been updated.

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CNN’s David Daniel contributed to this report.