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Bob Newhart George Robert Newhart (September 5, 1929 – July 18, 2024) was an American comedian and actor. He was known for his deadpan and stammering delivery style. Beginning as a stand-up comedian, he transitioned his career to acting in television. He received numerous accolades, including three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2002.[3] Newhart came to prominence in 1960 when his record album of comedic monologues, The ButtonDown Mind of Bob Newhart, became a bestseller and reached number one on the Billboard pop album chart.[4] His follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!, was also a success, and the two albums held the Billboard number one and number two spots simultaneously.[5] Newhart hosted a short-lived NBC variety show titled The Bob Newhart Show (1961) before starring as Chicago psychologist Robert Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show from 1972 to 1978 and then as Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on the series Newhart from 1982 to 1990. He also had two shortlived sitcoms in the 1990s, Bob and George and Leo. Newhart acted in films such as Catch-22 (1970), Cold Turkey (1971), In & Out (1997), and Elf (2003). He also voiced Bernard in the Disney animated films The Rescuers (1977) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990). Newhart played Professor Proton on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory from 2013 to 2018, for which he received the Emmy Award. He also reprised his role as Professor Proton in the prequel seriesYoung Sheldon. [6] George Robert Newhart[7] was born on September 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Illinois. [8] His parents were Julia Pauline (née Burns; 1901–1994), a housewife, and George David Newhart (1899–1987), a partowner of a plumbing supply business.[8] His mother was of Irish descent, while his father was of Early life and education Mission Hills, California Medium Album, film, television, stand-up Alma mater Loyola University Chicago (BBA) Years active 1958–2020 Genres Deadpan, satire, observational comedy Subject(s) American culture, American politics Spouse Virginia Quinn (m. 1963; died 2023) Children 4 [1] Relative(s) Paul Brittain (nephew) [2] Bill Quinn (father-inlaw) Website bobnewhartofficial .com (http://bobnewha rtofficial.com) Military service Service United States Army Years of service 1952–1954 Rank Staff sergeant Unit Armed Forces Radio Service German and Irish descent.[5][9] He went by his middle name, "Bob," to avoid confusion with his father.[7] The family name Newhart is of German origin (Neuhart).[10] One of his grandmothers was from St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.[11] He had three sisters.[8] Newhart was educated at Roman Catholic schools in the Chicago area, including St. Catherine of Siena Grammar School in Oak Park, and attended St. Ignatius College Prep (high school), graduating in 1947. He then enrolled at Loyola University Chicago, from which he graduated in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in business management.[8] Newhart was drafted into the U.S. Army and, until his discharge, in 1954, served as a U.S.-based clerk during the Korean War. [8][12] He briefly attended Loyola University Chicago School of Law, but did not complete a degree, in part, he said, because he had been asked to behave unethically during an internship.[5] After the war, Newhart worked for United States Gypsum as an accountant. He later said that his motto, "That's close enough," and his habit of adjusting petty cash imbalances with his own money showed that he lacked the temperament of an accountant.[5] In 1958, Newhart became an advertising copywriter for Fred A. Niles, a major independent film and television producer in Chicago.[13] There, he and a co-worker entertained each other with long telephone calls about absurd scenarios, which they later recorded and sent to radio stations as audition tapes. When the co-worker ended his participation by taking a job in New York, Newhart continued the recordings alone, developing routines.[14] Dan Sorkin, a radio station disc jockey, who later became the announcer-sidekick on Newhart's NBC series, introduced Newhart to the head of talent at Warner Bros. Records. Based solely on those recordings, the label signed him in 1959, only a year after it had come into existence. Newhart expanded his material into a stand-up routine that he began to perform at nightclubs.[5] He became famous mostly on the strength of his audio releases, in which he played a solo "straight man". Newhart's routine was to portray one end of a conversation (usually a phone call), playing the comedic straight man while implying what the other person was saying. Newhart's 1960 comedy Career 1958–1971: Comedy albums and stardom Awards Good Conduct Medal Newhart, Caterina Valente, and Carol Burnett in 1964 album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was the first comedy album to make number one on the Billboard charts and peaked at number two in the UK Albums Chart. [15][16] It won two Grammy Awards, Album of the Year, and Best New Artist. [3] Newhart told a 2005 interviewer for PBS's American Masters that his favorite stand-up routine was "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue", which appears on this album. In the routine, a slick promoter has to deal with Lincoln's reluctance to agree to efforts to boost his image. Chicago TV director and future comedian Bill Daily, who was Newhart's castmate on The Bob Newhart Show, suggested the routine to him. A follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!, was released six months later and won Best Comedy Performance – Spoken Word that year. His subsequent comedy albums include Behind the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (1961), The Button-Down Mind on TV (1962), Bob Newhart Faces Bob Newhart (1964), The Windmills Are Weakening (1965), This Is It (1967), Best of Bob Newhart (1971), and Very Funny Bob Newhart (1973). Years later, he released Bob Newhart Off the Record (1992), The Button-Down Concert (1997), and Something Like This (2001), an anthology of his 1960s Warner Bros. albums. On December 10, 2015, publicist and comedy album collector Jeff Abraham revealed that a "lost" Newhart track from 1965 about Paul Revere existed on a one-of-akind acetate, which he owns. The track made its world premiere on episode 163 of the Comedy on Vinyl podcast.[17] Newhart's success in stand-up led to his own short-lived NBC variety show in 1961, The Bob Newhart Show. The show lasted only a single season, but it earned Newhart a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and a Peabody Award. The Peabody Board cited him as "a person whose gentle satire and wry and irreverent wit waft a breath of fresh and bracing air through the stale and stuffy electronic corridors. A merry marauder, who looks less like St. George than a choirboy, Newhart has wounded, if not slain, many of the dragons that stalk our society. In a troubled and apprehensive world, Newhart has proved once again that laughter is the best medicine." In the mid-1960s, Newhart was one of the initial three co-hosts of the variety show The Entertainers (1964), with Carol Burnett and Caterina Valente, [18] appeared on The Dean Martin Show 24 times and on The Ed Sullivan Show eight times.[5] He appeared in a 1963 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "How to Get Rid of Your Wife"; and on The Judy Garland Show. He also appeared on series such as Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, Captain Nice, and Insight. Newhart guest-hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 87 times, and hosted Saturday Night Live twice, in 1980 and 1995. In 1964, he appeared at the Royal Variety Performance in London, before Queen Elizabeth II. [19] The cast of The Bob Newhart Show; standing (from left): Bill Daily, Marcia Wallace, Peter Bonerz; seated: Newhart and Suzanne Pleshette In 1962, Newhart filmed An Evening with Bob Newhart, thought to be the first pay-per-view television special, for Canadian-based Telemeter. [20] Newhart starred in two long-running sitcoms. In 1972, soon after he guest-starred on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, he was approached by his agent and his managers, producer Grant Tinker, and actress Mary Tyler Moore (the husband/wife team who founded MTM Enterprises), to work on a series called The Bob Newhart Show, to be written by David Davis and Lorenzo Music. He was very interested in the starring role of psychologist Bob Hartley, with Suzanne Pleshette playing his wry, loving wife, Emily, and Bill Daily as neighbor and friend Howard Borden. The Bob Newhart Show faced heavy competition from the beginning, launching at the same time as the popular shows M*A*S*H, Maude, Sanford and Son, and The Waltons. Nevertheless, it was an immediate hit. The show eventually referenced what made Newhart's name in the first place; apart from the first few episodes, it used an opening-credits sequence featuring Newhart answering a telephone in his office. According to co-star Marcia Wallace, the entire cast got along well, and Newhart became close friends with both Wallace and co-star Suzanne Pleshette. In addition to Wallace as Bob's wisecracking, man-chasing receptionist Carol Kester, the cast included Peter Bonerz as amiable orthodontist Jerry Robinson; Jack Riley as Elliot Carlin, the most misanthropic of Hartley's patients; character actor and voice artist John Fiedler as milquetoast Emil Petersen; and Pat Finley as Bob's sister, Ellen Hartley, a love interest for Howard Borden. Future Newhart regular Tom Poston had a briefly recurring role as Cliff "Peeper" Murdock, veteran stage actor Barnard Hughes appeared as Bob's father for three episodes spread over two seasons, and Martha Scott appeared in several episodes as Bob's mother. By 1977, the show's ratings were declining and Newhart wanted to end it, but was under contract to do one more season. The show's writers tried to rework the sitcom by adding a pregnancy, but Newhart objected: "I told the creators I didn't want any children, because I didn't want it to be a show about 'How stupid Daddy is, but we love him so much, let's get him out of the trouble he's gotten himself into'." Nevertheless, the staff wrote an episode that they hoped would change Newhart's mind. Newhart read the script and he agreed it was very funny. He then asked, "Who are you going to get to play Bob?"[21] Coincidentally, Newhart's wife gave birth to their daughter Jenny late in the year, which caused him to miss several episodes. 1972–1978: The Bob Newhart Show In the last episode of the fifth season, not only was Bob's wife, Emily, pregnant, but his receptionist, Carol, was, too. In the first show of the sixth season, Bob revealed his dream of the pregnancies and that neither Emily nor Carol was really pregnant. Marcia Wallace spoke of Newhart's amiable nature on set: "He's very low key, and he didn't want to cause trouble. I had a dog by the name of Maggie that I used to bring to the set. And whenever there was a line that Bob didn't like—he didn't want to complain too much—so, he'd go over, get down on his hands and knees, and repeat the line to the dog, which invariably yawned; and he'd say, "See, I told you it's not funny!". Wallace also commented on the show's lack of Emmy recognition: "People think we were nominated for many an Emmy, people presume we won Emmys, all of us, and certainly Bob, and certainly the show. Nope, never!" Newhart discontinued the series in 1978 after six seasons and 142 episodes. Wallace said of its ending, "It was much crying and sobbing. It was so sad. We really did get along. We really had great times together."[22] Of Newhart's other long-running sitcom, Newhart, Wallace said: "But some of the other great comedic talents who had a brilliant show, when they tried to do it twice, it didn't always work. And that's what... but like Bob, as far as I'm concerned, Bob is like the Fred Astaire of comics. He just makes it look so easy, and he's not as in-your-face as some might be. And so, you just kind of take it for granted, how extraordinarily funny and how he wears well." She was later reunited with Newhart twice, once in a reprise of her role as Carol on Murphy Brown in 1994, and on an episode of Newhart's short-lived sitcom, George & Leo, in 1997. Although primarily a television star, Newhart appeared in a number of popular films, beginning with the 1959 war story Hell Is for Heroes (where he did his one-sided telephone act in a bunker). In 1968, Newhart played an annoying software specialist in the film Hot Millions. His films include 1970's Alan Jay Lerner musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, the 1971 Norman Lear comedy Cold Turkey, Mike Nichols's war satire Catch-22, the 1977 Disney animated feature The Rescuers and its 1990 sequel The Rescuers Down Under as the voice of Bernard, and he played the President of the United States in the comedy First Family (1980). By 1982, Newhart was interested in a new sitcom. After he had discussions with Barry Kemp and CBS, the show Newhart was created, in which Newhart played Vermont innkeeper and TV talk show host Dick Loudon. Mary Frann was cast as his wife, Joanna.[22] Jennifer Holmes was originally cast as Leslie Vanderkellen, but left after former daytime soap star Julia Duffy joined the cast as Dick's inn maid and spoiled rich girl, Stephanie Vanderkellen. Peter Scolari (who had been a fan of Newhart's since he was 17) was also cast as Dick's manipulative TV producer, Michael Harris, in six of the eight seasons. Steven Kampmann, who was a neighbor for a while, was cast as Kirk Devane for two years, at a cafe he owned. Character actor Tom Poston played the role of handyman George Utley, earning three Primetime Emmy Award nominations as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1984, 1986, and 1987. Like The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart was an immediate hit, and again, like the show before it, it was also nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards but failed to win any. During the time Newhart was working on the show, in 1985, his smoking habit finally caught up to him, and he was taken to the emergency room for secondary polycythemia. The doctors ordered him to stop smoking. 1982–1990: Newhart In Norfolk, Virginia, c. 1991 In 1987, ratings began to drop. Newhart ended in 1990 after eight seasons and 182 episodes. The last episode ended with a scene in which Newhart wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette, who played Emily, his wife from The Bob Newhart Show. He realizes (in a satire of a famous plot element in the television series Dallas a few years earlier) that the entire eight-year Newhart series had been a single nightmare of Dr. Bob Hartley's, which Emily attributes to eating Japanese food before he went to bed. Recalling Mary Frann's buxom figure and proclivity for wearing sweaters, Bob closes the segment and the series by telling Emily, "You really should wear more sweaters" before the typical closing notes of the old Bob Newhart Show theme played over the fadeout. The twist ending was later chosen by TV Guide as the best finale in television history. With the exception of the series finale, Newhart simply said "meow" in the MTM Productions closing logo on all episodes. The finale's logo used a sound clip of the two brothers named Darryl shouting "QUIET!!!" in unison; prior to this, only their brother Larry ever spoke a word while they remained silent. In addition to stand-up comedy, Newhart became a dedicated character actor in film and television. Newhart played a beleaguered school principal in In & Out (1997), acted in the Will Ferrell Christmas comedy film Elf (2003), and made a cameo appearance as a sadistic but appreciative CEO at the end of the comedy Horrible Bosses (2011). He appeared on It's Garry Shandling's Show and Committed, reprised his role as Dr. Bob Hartley on Murphy Brown, and appeared as himself on The Simpsons. Newhart had a role on NCIS as Ducky's mentor and predecessor, a retired forensic pathologist, who was discovered to have Alzheimer's disease. In 1992, Newhart returned to television with a series about a cartoonist called Bob. The ensemble cast included Lisa Kudrow, but the show did not develop a strong audience and was cancelled shortly after the start of its second season, despite good critical reviews. On The Tonight Show following the cancellation, Newhart joked he had now done shows called The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, and Bob so that his next show was going to be called The. In 1997, Newhart returned again with George & Leo on CBS with Judd Hirsch and Jason Bateman (Newhart's first name being George); the show was cancelled during its first season. In 1995, Newhart was approached by Showtime to make the first comedy special of his 35-year career, Off the Record, which consisted of him performing material from his first and second albums in front of an audience in Pasadena, California. In 2003, Newhart guest-starred on three episodes of ER in a rare dramatic role that earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, his first in nearly 20 years.[5] In 2005, he began a recurring role in Desperate Housewives as Morty, the on-again/off-again boyfriend of Sophie (Lesley Ann Warren), Susan Mayer's (Teri Hatcher) mother. In 2009, he received another Primetime Emmy nomination for 1991–2012: Established career Newhart in 2004 reprising his role as Judson in The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice. On August 27, 2006, at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Conan O'Brien, Newhart was placed in a supposedly airtight glass prison that contained three hours of air. If the Emmys went over the time of three hours, he would die. This gag was an acknowledgment of the common frustration that award shows usually run on past their allotted time (usually three hours). Newhart "survived" his containment to help O'Brien present the award for Outstanding Comedy Series (which went to The Office). During an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Newhart made a comedic cameo with members of the ABC show Lost lampooning an alternate ending to the series finale. In 2011, he appeared in a small but pivotal role as a doctor in Lifetime's anthology film on breast cancer, Five. In 2013, Newhart appeared in an episode of the sixth season of The Big Bang Theory playing the aged Professor Proton (Arthur Jeffries), a former science TV show host turned children's party entertainer, for which he was awarded a Primetime Emmy Award. [23] It was Newhart's first Emmy. At that year's Emmy ceremony, Newhart appeared as a presenter with The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons and received a standing ovation. He continued to play the character periodically through the show's 12th and final season and on its spinoff Young Sheldon. [24] On December 19, 2014, the 85-year-old Newhart made a surprise appearance on the final episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, where he was revealed to be the person inside Secretariat, Ferguson's on-set pantomime horse. The show then ended with a scene parodying the Newhart series finale, with Ferguson and Drew Carey reprising their roles from The Drew Carey Show. In June 2015, Newhart appeared on another series finale, that of Hot in Cleveland, playing the father-in-law of Joy Scroggs (Jane Leeves). It marked a reunion with Betty White, who was a cast member during the second season of Bob 23 years earlier. The finale ends with their characters getting married. Newhart was known for his deadpan delivery and a slight stammer that he incorporated early on into the persona around which he built a successful career.[5] The hesitant stammer was his natural speaking style – "Truly, that's ... the ... way I talk"[25] – and he used it to build tension in the audience, "Tension is very important to comedy. And the release of the tension – that's the laugh."[26] On his TV shows, although he got his share of funny lines, he worked often in the Jack Benny tradition of being the "straight man" while the sometimes rather bizarre cast members surrounding him got the laughs. But Newhart said, "I was not influenced by Jack Benny", and cited George Gobel and Bob and Ray as his initial writing and performance inspirations.[14] 2013–2020: The Big Bang Theory and final roles Comedic style Several of his routines involved hearing half of a conversation as he spoke to someone on the phone. In a bit called "King Kong", a rookie security guard at the Empire State Building seeks guidance as to how to deal with an ape that is "between 18 and 19 stories high, depending on whether there's a 13th floor or not." He assured his boss he has looked in the guards' manual "under 'ape' and 'ape's toes'." His other famous routines included "The Driving Instructor", "The Mrs. Grace L. Ferguson Airline (and Storm Door Company)", "Introducing Tobacco to Civilization", "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue", "Defusing a Bomb" (in which an uneasy police chief tries to walk a new and nervous patrolman through defusing a live shell discovered on a beach), "The Retirement Party", "Ledge Psychology", "The Khrushchev Landing Rehearsal", and "A Friend with a Dog." In a 2012 podcast interview with Marc Maron, comedian Shelley Berman accused Newhart of plagiarizing his improvisational telephone routine style (although not any actual material of Berman's).[27] However, in interviews both years before and after Berman's comments, Newhart never took credit for originating the telephone concept, which he noted was done earlier by Berman and — predating Berman — Nichols and May, George Jessel (in his well-known sketch "Hello Mama"), and in the 1913 recording "Cohen on the Telephone". Starting in the 1940s, Arlene Harris also built a long radio and TV career around her one-sided telephone conversations, and the technique was later also used by Lily Tomlin, Ellen DeGeneres, and others.[28][14] Newhart met his future wife, Virginia Lillian "Ginnie" Quinn (December 9, 1940 - April 23, 2023)—daughter of character actor Bill Quinn—through introduction by Buddy Hackett. [5] Bob and Ginnie were married on January 12, 1963. The couple had four children: Robert (born 1965), Timothy (born 1967), Jennifer (born 1971), and Courtney (born 1977), followed by 10 grandchildren.[1] Both Roman Catholics, the couple raised their children in that faith.[29] Bob was a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd and the related Catholic Motion Picture Guild[30] in Beverly Hills, California. [31] Ginnie died at age 82 on April 23, 2023.[32][33] The Newhart and Rickles families were close, often vacationing together.[34] Don Rickles and Newhart appeared together on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on January 24, 2005, the Monday following Johnny Carson's death, reminiscing about their many appearances on Carson's show. The two also appeared together on the television sitcom Newhart and for previous episodes of The Tonight Show, where Newhart or Rickles were guest hosts. The friendship was memorialized in Bob & Don: A Love Story, a 2023 short documentary film by Judd Apatow, released by The New Yorker, featuring interviews, as well as home videos, with both families.[35] Personal life Family life For over 25 years, Newhart's family lived in a Wallace Neff–designed French Country–style mansion in Bel Air. The 9,169-square-foot (851.8 m2 ), five-bedroom home featured formal gardens, a lagoon-style pool with waterfall, and guest apartment. Newhart sold the property to developers in May 2016 for $14.5 million.[36][37][38] The new property owners razed the mansion and sold the empty 1.37- acre (0.55 ha) lot for $17.65 million in 2017.[39][40] In 1995, Newhart was one of several investors in Rotijefco (a blend of his children's names), which bought radio station KKSB (AM 1290 kHz) in Santa Barbara, California. Its format was changed to adult standards and its call sign to KZBN (his initials).[41] In 2005, Rotijefco sold the station to Santa Barbara Broadcasting, which changed its call sign to KZSB and format to news and talk radio. [42][43] Newhart was an early home-computer hobbyist, purchasing the Commodore PET after its 1977 introduction. In 2001, he wrote, "Later, I moved up to the 64 KB model and thought that was silly because it was more memory than I would ever possibly need."[44] In 1985, Newhart was hospitalized for secondary polycythemia, a condition attributed to his years of heavy smoking. He recovered after several weeks and eventually quit smoking.[5] Interests Health and death Newhart died from complications of several short illnesses at his home in Los Angeles on July 18, 2024, at the age of 94.[45][46][47][48] Upon his death President Joe Biden released a statement which read, "Today, we mourn the loss of Bob Newhart, a comedy legend and beloved performer who kept Americans laughing for decades."[49] Those who paid tributes to Newhart included Reese Witherspoon, Carol Burnett, Conan O'Brien, Alec Baldwin, Judd Apatow, Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik, Al Franken, Mark Hamill, and Jamie Lee Curtis. [50][51] Film work by Bob Newhart Year Title Role Notes 1962 Hell Is for Heroes Private First Class James E. Driscoll 1968 Hot Millions Willard C. Gnatpole 1970 On a Clear Day You Can See Forever Dr. Mason Hume Catch-22 Major Major Major 1971 Cold Turkey Merwin Wren 1977 The Rescuers Bernard Voice [52] 1980 Little Miss Marker Regret First Family President Manfred Link 1990 The Rescuers Down Under Bernard Voice [52] 1997 In & Out Tom Halliwell 1998 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie Leonard the Polar Bear Voice [52] 2003 Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde Sid Post Elf Papa Elf 2007 Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project Himself Documentary 2011 Horrible Bosses Lou Sherman Cameo Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 2012 Excavating the 2000 Year Old Man Himself Documentary 2013 Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic Himself [53] Documentary 2023 Once Upon a Studio Bernard Voice, short film; archival audio [52] Television work by Bob Newhart Year Title Role Notes 1960–1962 The Ed Sullivan Show Comedian 4 episodes 1961–1962 The Bob Newhart Show Himself, Host Variety series; 27 episodes 1962 An Evening with Bob Newhart Himself, Host Pay-per-view television special 1963 The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Gerald Swinney Episode: "How to Get Rid of Your Wife" 1963 The Judy Garland Show Guest Episode 14 taped November 30, 1963 1964 The Entertainers Himself, Co-Host 1965 Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre Charles Fenton Television film 1967 Captain Nice Lloyd Larchmont Episode: "Simon Says Get Married" 1967 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Hollywood Guest [54] Television film 1968–1970 Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In Guest Performer 3 episodes 1971 Decisions! Decisions! John Hobson Television film 1972 The Don Rickles Show Jerry, Brother-in-Law Episode: "Where There's a Will" 1973 Insight Marvin Halprin Episode: "Happy Birthday Marvin" 1974 Thursday's Game Marvin Ellison Television film 1972–1978 The Bob Newhart Show Dr. Robert "Bob" Hartley 142 episodes 1979 Insight God Episode: "Packy" 1980 Marathon Walter Burton Television film 1980, 1995 Saturday Night Live Host 2 episodes Television Year Title Role Notes 1982–1990 Newhart Dick Loudon 184 episodes 1991 The Bob Newhart Show: The 19th Anniversary Special Dr. Robert "Bob" Hartley Television special 1991 The Entertainers Todd Wilson Television film 1992 Bob Newhart: Off the Record Himself, Host Television special 1992–1993 Bob Bob McKay 33 episodes 1994 Murphy Brown Dr. Robert "Bob" Hartley Episode: "Anything But Cured" 1996 The Simpsons Himself Voice, episode: "Bart the Fink" 1997–1998 George and Leo George Stoody 22 episodes 2001 Mad TV Psychotherapist Episode #6.24 2001 Untitled Sisqo Project Bob Newhart NBC sitcom pilot [55] 2001 The Sports Pages Doc Waddems Television film 2003 ER Ben Hollander 3 episodes 2004 The Librarian: Quest for the Spear Judson Television film 2005 Desperate Housewives Morty Flickman 3 episodes 2005 Committed Blinky Episode: "The Return of Todd Episode" 2006 The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines Judson Television film 2008 The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice Judson Television film 2011 NCIS Doctor Walter Magnus Episode: "Recruited" 2011 Five Dr. Roth Television film 2013–2018 The Big Bang Theory Arthur Jeffries / Professor Proton 6 episodes 2014 Don Rickles: One Night Only Himself Pre-recorded appearance 2014 The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Secretariat / Himself Episode: "Final Show" 2015 Hot in Cleveland Bob Sr. Episode: "Vegas Baby/I Hate Goodbye" 2014–2017 The Librarians Judson 3 episodes 2017–2020 Young Sheldon Arthur Jeffries / Professor Proton 3 episodes Year Title Studio Formats Ref. 1960 The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart Warner Bros. Records LP/CD/Streaming [56] 1960 The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! Warner Bros. Records LP/CD/Streaming [57] 1961 Behind the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart Warner Bros. Records LP/CD/Streaming [57] 1962 The Button-Down Mind on TV Warner Bros. Records LP [57] 1964 Bob Newhart Faces Bob Newhart Warner Bros. Records LP/CD/Streaming [57] 1965 The Windmills Are Weakening Warner Bros. Records LP/Streaming [57] 1967 This Is It! Warner Bros. Records LP/Streaming [57] 1997 Button-Down Concert Nick at Nite Records CD/DVD [57] The Best of Bob Newhart (Warner Bros. Records, 1971) Masters (Warner Bros. Records, 1973) Bob Newhart (Pickwick Super Stars, 1980) Discography Live albums Compilation albums Something Like This...: The Bob Newhart Anthology (Warner Bros./Rhino, 2001) Year Association Category Performance Result Ref. 1961 Grammy Awards Best New Artist Bob Newhart Won [58] Best Album of the Year The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart Won [58] Best Comedy Performance – Spoken The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! Won [58] 1998 Best Comedy Album Button Down Concert Nominated [58] 2007 Best Spoken Word Album I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This! Nominated [58] 1962 Golden Globe Awards Best TV Star – Male The Bob Newhart Show Won [59] 1974 Best Actor in a Comedy – TV The Bob Newhart Show Nominated [59] 1975 Best Actor in a Comedy – TV Nominated [59] 1982 Best Actor in a Comedy – TV Newhart Nominated [59] 1983 Best Actor in a Comedy – TV Nominated [59] 1984 Best Actor in a Comedy – TV Nominated [59] 1985 Best Actor in a Comedy – TV Nominated [59] 1962 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series The Bob Newhart Show Nominated [60] 1985 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series Newhart Nominated [61] 1986 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series Nominated [62] 1987 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series Nominated [63] 2004 Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series ER Nominated [64] 2009 Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice Nominated [65] 2013 Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series The Big Bang Theory Won [66] 2014 Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Nominated [67] 2016 Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Nominated [68] Awards and nominations In 1993, Newhart was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. In 1996, Newhart was ranked number 17 on TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time" list.[69] In 1998, Billboard recognized Newhart's first album as number 20 on their list of most popular albums of the past 40 years, and the only comedy album on the list. On January 6, 1999, Newhart received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to television. In 2002, Newhart won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In 2004, Newhart was named number 14 on "Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time". On July 27, 2004, American cable television network TV Land unveiled a life-sized statue of Newhart as Hartley on the Magnificent Mile, at 430 N. Michigan Ave. where Hartley's office was in the opening credits. On November 1, 2004, the statue was permanently moved to the sculpture park in front of Chicago's Navy Pier entertainment complex.[70] On October 13, 2012, Loyola University Chicago honored him by naming their new theatre the Newhart Family Theatre.[71] On February 20, 2015, Newhart was honored with the Publicists of the International Cinematographers Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.[72] On September 1, 2022, the Edgewater Historical Society debuted a plaque celebrating "The Bob Newhart" show and its depiction of the Thorndale Beach Condominiums as the character's home.[73] It is now located at 5940 N. Sheridan across the street from the north tower depicted.[22]
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Bob Newhart, 94, Dies; Soft-Spoken Everyman Became a Comedy Star
He was a show-business neophyte when he stammered his way to fame in 1960. He went on to star in two of TV’s most memorable sitcoms.
Bob Newhart, who burst onto the comedy scene in 1960 working a stammering Everyman character not unlike himself, then rode essentially that same character through a long, busy career that included two of television’s most memorable sitcoms, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94.
His publicist, Jerry Digney, confirmed the death.
Mr. Newhart wasn’t merely unknown a few months before his emergence as a full-fledged star; he was barely in the business, though he had aspirations. In 1959, some comic tapes he had made to amuse himself while working as an accountant in Chicago caught the ear of an executive at Warner Bros. Records, which in 1960 released the comedy album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.”
The record shot to No. 1 on the charts, and at the 1961 Grammy Awards it improbably captured the top prize, album of the year. Among the nominees Mr. Newhart bested: Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte and Frank Sinatra.
He won two other Grammys that year as well, for best new artist and best spoken-word comedy performance, an honor that was given not to his first album but to his second, a hastily made follow-up titled “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!” For a while, his first two albums occupied the top two spots on the Billboard album chart.
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“Playboy magazine hailed me ‘the best new comedian of the decade,’” Mr. Newhart wrote in his autobiography, “I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This: And Other Things That Strike Me as Funny” (2006), describing this period. “Of course, there were still nine more years left in the decade.”
A Quick Transition
Unlike many entertainers who achieve fame almost overnight, Mr. Newhart was able to handle the unexpected success of the “Button-Down Mind” albums. He transitioned quickly and easily into television, landing a short-lived variety show, numerous guest appearances on the shows of Dean Martin and Ed Sullivan, regular work guest-hosting for Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” and, ultimately, “The Bob Newhart Show,” a celebrated sitcom in which he played a somewhat befuddled psychologist.
That series ran from 1972 to 1978, and in 1982 he followed it up with “Newhart,” another successful sitcom, in which he played a Vermont innkeeper. “Newhart” ran for eight seasons and ended with what is still viewed as one of the greatest finales in television history.
Mr. Newhart remained busy in television and films into his 80s. He won an Emmy in 2013 for a guest appearance as the beloved former host of a TV science show on “The Big Bang Theory.” He was nominated again for the same role a year later but lost to Jimmy Fallon, who won for hosting an episode of “Saturday Night Live.” And he reprised the role a few times, most recently in a 2020 voice-over, on the “Big Bang Theory” prequel series “Young Sheldon.”
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That Emmy was, surprisingly, his first. He had been nominated but winless at the Emmys of 1962, for writing; 1985, 1986 and 1987, as lead actor in a comedy (“Newhart”); 2004, as guest actor in a drama series, for his role in three episodes of “ER” as an architect losing his sight; and 2009, for his supporting role in the TV movie “The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice.”
Though he personally did not win an Emmy until he had been on television for half a century, his variety show — which ran for a single season in 1961-62 and which, like his later sitcom, was called “The Bob Newhart Show” — did win, in a category then called outstanding program achievement in the field of humor. It beat out “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Red Skelton Show,” “Hazel” and “Car 54, Where Are You?”
“I think the whole awards-giving process needs rethinking,” Mr. Newhart wrote in his autobiography. “For starters, they should bestow lifetime achievement awards at the beginning of a performer’s career. This way the person can still enjoy it while he is young, rather than giving it to him when he has lost most of his marbles and is standing onstage wondering why all these overdressed people are applauding.”
Nonetheless, he did not object when in 2002 he was given the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
From Accountant to Comedian
George Robert Newhart was born on Sept. 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Ill. His father, who worked for a plumbing and heating contractor, was also named George, which is how Bob came to be known as Bob, though at first that was true only among his family, for clarity’s sake.
George David Newhart and his wife, Pauline, had three other children as well, all girls, and sent Bob and his sisters, Virginia, Mary Joan and Pauline, to Roman Catholic schools in the Chicago area. “My family didn’t have much money so we didn’t go to Florida” to escape the Chicago winters, Mr. Newhart wrote in his autobiography. “If we went on vacation, it was to Wisconsin.”
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Mr. Newhart graduated from Loyola University, where he focused his studies on business management and accounting, and then tried law school but found it wasn’t a good fit for him. (“I hate the phrase ‘flunked out,’” he wrote. “I failed to complete the assigned courses.”) He served two years stateside in the Army during the Korean War.
Mr. Newhart was an accountant before he broke into comedy, but, as he explained to PBS in 2002: “I was never a certified public accountant. I just had a degree in accounting. The reason I was never a certified public accountant was because it would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.”
He did, however, hold several jobs in the Chicago area that required him to do accounting work, and he often told of his habit of balancing the petty cash drawer at the end of the day by making up shortfalls out of his own wallet or pocketing any overage. It was while working in one such job, at the Glidden Company, that he and a friend in another department, Ed Gallagher, began relieving the monotony by calling each other and improvising comic dialogues.
In 1956, they tried recording some of these routines and marketing them to radio stations, but their client base was never very large, and the unprofitable venture ended when Mr. Gallagher took a job in New York.
Mr. Newhart, though, kept writing solo routines, many of them using a telephone as a partner: The audience would imagine the half of the conversation it wasn’t hearing. One memorable bit depicted a press agent talking by phone to Abraham Lincoln about the Gettysburg Address: “You what? You typed it! Abe, how many times have we told you — on the backs of envelopes. I understand it’s harder to read that way, but it looks like you wrote it on the train coming down.”
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His material caught the ear of Dan Sorkin, a Chicago radio personality, who played some of Mr. Newhart’s routines on the air, which led to work on a local morning television show opposite “Today” and “Captain Kangaroo.”
“Given the competition and lack of viewer response, we weren’t sure the signal was even getting out of the building,” Mr. Newhart recalled.
But Mr. Sorkin had given some of the tapes that Mr. Newhart and Mr. Gallagher made to George Avakian, an executive at Warner Bros. Records, who liked them. In 1959, Mr. Avakian asked Mr. Newhart to let him know when his next nightclub appearance was so that the company could record the performance. Mr. Newhart, though, had never performed in front of an audience. A hastily recruited agent eventually booked him into the Tidelands Motor Inn in Houston, where, on Feb. 10, 1960, “The Button-Down Mind” was recorded.
“I came off and walked by the maître d’s table,” Mr. Newhart told The Houston Chronicle in an interview for the 50th anniversary of that recording. “He said: ‘Go back out. They’re still applauding.’ And I said, ‘But that’s all I have.’ He said, ‘Well, go back out.’ So I walked back out and said, ‘Which one would you like to hear again?’”
Sitcom Successes
The success of the “Button-Down Mind” albums brought all sorts of demands for Mr. Newhart’s dry humor. In April 1961, he made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall. Later that year, he filmed his first movie, the World War II drama “Hell Is for Heroes,” providing comic relief as part of a cast that also included Steve McQueen, Fess Parker, Bobby Darin and James Coburn. And in December 1961, the first “Bob Newhart Show” had its premiere on NBC.
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That show lasted only one season, but it won an Emmy and proved that Mr. Newhart’s brand of humor would work on television. He began turning up all over the dial on game shows, talk shows and variety shows, including “The Garry Moore Show,” “The Dean Martin Comedy Hour,” “The Andy Williams Show” and “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
By the time CBS gave him a sitcom in 1972, also called “The Bob Newhart Show,” he was a household name, but there was some concern about the premise. “In the pilot, we were both psychiatrists,” Peter Bonerz, another star of the show, told The New York Times in 2005. “He was the Freudian, and I was the New Age behaviorist.” That didn’t test well, so Mr. Newhart’s character, Dr. Bob Hartley, was turned into a psychologist, and Mr. Bonerz played a dentist on the same office floor.
The cast was perfectly chosen to contrast with Mr. Newhart’s well-established persona. Marcia Wallace was Dr. Hartley’s sassy receptionist, and Suzanne Pleshette was Emily, his blunt, sarcastic wife. In a great era for sitcoms — “All in the Family,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Happy Days” were among its contemporaries — the show performed well, especially in the first three of its six seasons. A statue of Mr. Newhart’s character, commissioned by the cable channel TV Land, is on display at the Navy Pier in Chicago, the city where the show was set.
Mr. Newhart returned to the sitcom format in 1982 with “Newhart,” this time playing Dick Loudon, who with his wife, Joanna (Mary Frann), abandons urban life to try innkeeping in Vermont. The show ran for eight seasons on CBS, ending on May 21, 1990, with a finale whose sly surprise became the stuff of television legend.
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As chaos envelops the inn, Dick is struck by a golf ball and knocked unconscious. To try to preserve secrecy, a fake ending was conceived in which Dick wakes up in heaven and meets God, who was to be played by either George Burns or George C. Scott. But the actual ending wasn’t set in heaven at all; it was set in the familiar bedroom of the Hartleys from Mr. Newhart’s earlier show. He wakes up next to not Ms. Frann but Ms. Pleshette. The entire second series had been a dream.
“That scene never appeared in a script, because we knew that the tabloids would get ahold of it,” Mr. Newhart recalled in an interview for the Archive of American Television. The secrecy continued right up till filming, which was in front of a live audience.
“We brought Suzie in from two sound stages over; snuck her in,” Mr. Newhart said. The crowd got the joke before a word was spoken. “The audience recognizes the bedroom set, and they start applauding,” he said. “They started applauding even before they saw Suzie or myself.”
The idea for that ending, Mr. Newhart often said, came from his real wife, Virginia (known as Ginnie), the daughter of Bill Quinn, a veteran character actor. Mr. Newhart’s fellow comedian Buddy Hackett introduced them, and they married in 1963. She died in 2023.
Mr. Newhart is survived by their four children, Robert Jr., Timothy, Courtney Albertini and Jennifer Bongiovi; a sister, Ginny Brittain; and 10 grandchildren.
Mr. Newhart returned to the sitcom format twice more, with “Bob” in 1992 and “George and Leo” in 1997, but neither show made much of an impression. Late in his career he had success as a guest star on other people’s series — “Desperate Housewives,” “ER,” “NCIS” — displaying an ability to play dramatic roles as well as comic ones.
Throughout his career, Mr. Newhart also found time for movies. Among his best-known film characters were Major Major in “Catch-22” in 1970, President Manfred Link in “First Family” in 1980 and the adoptive father of Will Ferrell’s oversize title character in the hit 2003 comedy “Elf.”
He was also in the 1971 film “Cold Turkey,” written and directed by Norman Lear, about a town that tries to quit smoking collectively. That plot had real-life resonance for him in 1985, when he sought treatment for a chronic nosebleed and his doctors diagnosed secondary polycythemia, an excess of red blood cells that can be caused by too much nicotine in the blood. He quit smoking.
Mr. Newhart never really retired, from either acting or stand-up. He explained why to an AARP convention in Boston in 2007, invoking a classic 1950 film: “I call the alternative ‘Sunset Boulevard’ — sitting in a darkened room and having Erich von Stroheim come in and ask me what episode of ‘Newhart’ I would like to see today. That isn’t the way I’d like to spend the rest of my time.”
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