LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bob Newhart, the deadpan accountant-turned-comedian, has become one of the most famous people ever. TV Stars of His Time, who went gold with classic comedy album, dies at 94
Jerry Digney, Newhart’s publicist, says the actor died Thursday in Los Angeles.
NewhartBest remembered now as the star of two successful television shows of the 1970s and 1980s that bore his name, he began his career as a standup comic in the late 1950s. He gained nationwide fame in 1960 when his routine was captured on vinyl as “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” which won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
Comedians of the era, including Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Alan King, and Mike Nichols and Elaine May, often drew laughs with their aggressive attacks on modern mores, and Newhart was an anomaly. His vision is modern, but he rarely raises his voice above a hesitant, almost stuttering delivery. His only prop was a phone.
In one memorable short film, he portrayed the creator of Madison Avenue persuading Abraham Lincoln to stop tinkering with the Gettysburg Address and stick with his speechwriters’ drafts.
“Did you change the four score and the seven score to 87?” Newhart asks in disbelief. “Abe, it means a grabber… It’s like Mark Antony saying, ‘Friends, Romans and countrymen, I have something to say to you.’
Another favorite is “Merchandising the Wright Brothers,” in which he tries to persuade the aviation pioneers to start an airline, even though he admits that the distance of their first flight can limit them.
“Well, look, if we land every 105 feet, that’s going to affect our time to the beach.”
Newhart was initially wary of signing on for a weekly television series, fearing it would overstate his content. Nevertheless, he accepted NBC’s attractive offer, and “The Bob Newhart Show” premiered on October 11, 1961. Despite Emmy and Peabody awards, the half-hour variety show was canceled after one season, a source of Newhart’s comedy decades later.
He waited 10 years before hosting another “Bob Newhart Show” in 1972. It was a situational comedy about Newhart as a Chicago psychologist living in a penthouse with his schoolteacher wife, Suzanne Pleshette. Their neighbors and his patients, especially Bill Dailey as an airline navigator, were a wacky, neurotic group that provided a great counterpoint to Newhart’s deadpan commentary.
The highly acclaimed series of the 1970s ran until 1978.
Four years later, the comedian started another show called “Newhart”. By this time he was a successful New York writer who decided to reopen a long-closed Vermont Inn. Again Newhart is a quiet, reasonable man, surrounded by a group of eccentric locals. Again the show was a huge hit on CBS for eight seasons.
It was in memorable fashion in 1990 with Newhart — in his old Chicago psychologist character — waking up in bed with Pleshette and telling her about a strange dream he’d had: “I was an innkeeper in this crazy little town in Vermont. … Craftsman missed things, and then these three There were woodmen, but only one of them spoke!”
The stunt parodied an episode of “Dallas” where a major character was killed and later revealed the death was a dream.
Two later series were comparative duds: “Bob,” in 1992-93, and “George & Leo,” in 1997-98. Despite being nominated multiple times, her only Emmy came for a guest role on “The Big Bang Theory.” “I think they think I’m not acting. It’s just pop pop,” he sighs, not winning television’s highest honor in his prime.
Over the years, Newhart also appeared in many films, usually in comedic roles. Among them: “Catch 22,” “In and Out,” “Legally Blonde 2” and “Elf,” the little daddy of Will Ferrell’s adopted full-sized son. Recent work includes “Horrible Bosses” and TV series. Librarians” and “The Big Bang Theory” spin-off “Young Sheldon.”
Newhart married Virginia Quinn, known to friends as Ginny, in 1964 and remained with him until then. Her death in 2023. They had four children: Robert, Timothy, Jennifer and Courtney. Newhart was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson and liked to poke fun at the thrice-divorced “Tonight” host, saying at least some comedians have enjoyed long marriages. He was especially close to fellow comedian and family man Don Rickles, whose scathingly insulting humor memorably clashed with Newhart’s droll understatement.
“We’re apples and oranges. I’m Jewish, he’s Catholic. He’s short and I’m a screamer,” Rickles told Variety in 2012. A decade later, Judd Apatow chronicled their friendship in the short documentary “Bob and Dan: A Love Story.” Will pay tribute.
After growing bored with his $5-an-hour accounting job in Chicago, Newhart turned to comedy. To pass the time, he and a friend, Ed Gallagher, began making silly phone calls to each other. Eventually, they decided to record them as comedy shows and sell them to radio stations.
Their efforts failed, but the recordings came to the attention of Warner Bros., which signed Newhart to a recording contract and signed him to a Houston club in February 1960.
“A scared 30-year-old guy walked off stage and played his first nightclub,” he recalled in 2003.
Six of his practices were recorded during his two-week date, and the album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” was released on April Fools’ Day 1960. It sold over 750,000 copies and was called “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!” At one point the albums hit No. 1 and No. 2 on the sales charts, and in 1960 the New York Times called him “the first comedian in history to make a hit.”
In addition to winning Album of the Year at the Grammy for her debut, Newhart also won Best New Artist of 1960, and “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!” Won Best Comedy Spoken Word Album.
Newhart was booked for “The Ed Sullivan Show” and numerous appearances at nightclubs, concert halls and college campuses across the country. However, he hated clubs because they were haunted drunkards.
“Every time I get out of a scene and put one of those birds in its place, it kills the routine,” he said in 1960.
In 2004, he received another Emmy nomination, this time for guest star in a drama series, and another honor for a role on “ER.” In 2007, the Library of Congress announced the inclusion of “The Button-Down Mind of.” Bob Newhart” in the Register of Historic Recordings.
Newhart wrote in 2006 with his memoir “I Shouldn’t Do This!” Made the bestseller list. He was also nominated for another Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album (a category that includes audiobooks) for reading the book.
“I will always compare what I do to the man who is convinced that he is the last sane man on earth … Paul is revered by the psychopaths who scream, ‘This is madness.'” Newhart wrote.
George Robert Newhart was born into a German-Irish family in Chicago and was called Bob to avoid confusion with his father, who was also named George.
At St. Ignatius High School and Loyola University in Chicago, he entertained his fellow students by imitating stars such as James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Durante, and others. After graduating with a degree in business, Newhart served two years in the Army. Returning to Chicago after his military service, he entered law school at Loyola, but dropped out. He eventually landed a job as an accountant for the state unemployment department. Bored at work, he spends his spare time acting at a stock company in suburban Oak Park, which leads to telephone bits.
“I wasn’t part of some comedy troupe,” Newhart wrote in his memoir. “Mike (Nichols) and Elaine (May), Shelley (Berman), Lenny Bruce, Johnny Winters, Mort Sahl—we didn’t all get together and say, ‘Let’s change the comedy and slow it down.’ , ‘What mother-in-law?’ What we did reflected our lives and related to them.
Newhart continued to appear on television infrequently after her fourth sitcom ended, vowing in 2003 to work as long as she could.
“It has been 43 years of my life; (Leaving) will feel like something is missing,” he said.
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Former Associated Press writer Bob Thomas contributed to this report.
