Bob Newhart, the beloved comedy legend who starred in two classic sitcoms, has died at 94. Newhart’s death was confirmed by his publicist Jerry Digney, who said he died after a series of short illnesses, per Variety.
The beloved comedian was a fixture of television for decades as the star of two classic, self-titled sitcoms, The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart. In later years, he had memorable performances in the film Elf and The Big Bang Theory.
Newhart was born on September 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Illinois. He received a degree from Loyola University Chicago and served as a Staff Sergeant in the US Army during the Korean War from 1952-1954. After the war, he worked as an accountant and advertising copywriter. It was during this time he developed the comedy routines that would send him to stardom, playing the deadpan, soft-spoken “straight man” on one side of a phone conversation, reacting to absurd situations.
This act made him a hit on the stand-up circuit and formed the basis of his smash-hit live comedy album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. The album was the first comedy record to hit #1 on the Billboard Charts, at the time becoming the 20th best-selling album of all time. It was also the first comedy album to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and Newhart also received the Grammy for Best New Artist. He continued to release successful albums throughout the ’60s and ’70s.
Newhart became a staple of classic television and had his own variety show, The Bob Newhart Show in 1961, which only ran for one season but won the Emmy Award for Best Comedy Series. He had better success with his first sitcom, also titled The Bob Newhart Show, which ran for six seasons on CBS from 1972 to 1978. The show depicted the work and home life of Newhart’s Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Bob Hartley.
Newhart was one of the few TV stars to make lightning strike twice: his second sitcom Newhart, in which he starred as Vermont innkeeper/talk show host Dick Loudon, ran from 1982 to 1990. Newhart had one of the most memorable finales in TV history, showing Newhart’s character from The Bob Newhart Show waking up in bed (next to Newhart’s former co-star Suzanne Pleshette), implying that all of Newhart was just a dream in the earlier character’s mind.
Later sitcom vehicles like Bob and George & Leo had less success, running for just one season, but Newhart remained a fixture of television, with recurring roles on ER and Desperate Housewives. He also had a memorable recurring role on the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory as former science TV host “Professor Proton.” He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for the role — the long-overdue first-ever Emmy Award for the TV legend.
While better known for his comedy and TV work, Newhart also appeared in several films, including Catch-22, In & Out, and Disney’s The Rescuers. Perhaps his most-remembered movie role was in the 2003 Christmas comedy Elf: he played Papa Elf, the human Buddy’s adopted father at the North Pole.
Rest in peace to the comedy legend Bob Newhart, who gave us so many laughs and two classic sitcoms in his incredible career.