Bob Newhart, the comedian and actor who headlined two beloved sitcoms, has died. He was 94 years old. Newhart died in his home in Los Angeles “after a series of short illnesses,” his publicist Jerry Digney told The Hollywood Reporter. In spite of being one of the most acclaimed comedic actors in TV history, Newhart actually waited until 2013 to win his first Emmy — which he earned for a guest starring role on The Big Bang Theory. At the time, he got a lengthy standing ovation from an Emmy audience thrilled to see him finally get his due.
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Newhart was born in 1929 in Oak Park, Illinois. He graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 1952, and didn’t become a celebrity until 1959, when he had one of the first hit comedy albums in the history of the newly-formed Warner Bros. Records. His persona, which was shy and awkward, often punctuating his sentences with stammering and questions, made him different from anybody in comedy at the time, and he was a sensation almost overnight. Newhart’s 1960 comedy album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was the first comedy album ever to take the #1 spot on the Billboard chart, and it earned him two Grammy Awards.
He released a second album six months later, and also won a Grammy for that. By 1962, he had already moved into TV and film, first hosting a 1961-’62 variety series called The Bob Newhart Show and then appearing in Hell is For Heroes and on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. His acting career didn’t take off at first, but his comedy remained popular, and he was able to stay in people’s minds by appearing regularly on talk shows. He also appeared in both theatrical and TV movies during the late 1960s and early 1970s, before scoring an appearance in the 1970 film adaptation of Catch-22.
The next year, he appeared alongside fellow sitcom icon Dick Van Dyke in Cold Turkey, the first film directed by All in the Family creator Norman Lear. A year later, he would star in a sitcom of his own — one that would shape the rest of his career.
The Bob Newhart Show (the sitcom, this time) aired from 1972 until 1978 and remains one of the most beloved sitcoms of the 1970s. In it, he played Bob Hartley, a psychiatrist with a litany of oddball patients. He was surrounded by some of the funniest comedians and character actors on TV at the time, and came home to a lovely wife played by Suzanne Pleshette.
After The Bob Newhart Show ended, Newhart played roles in two more theatrical releases and another TV movie before launching Newhart, another sitcom. This one ran from 1982 until 1990, and saw Newhart playing Dick Loudon, an author and innkeeper who ran the Stratford Inn in rural Vermont with his wife, played by Mary Frann. Again, Loudon found himself the only sane man in a world of wild and wacky characters, not dissimilar to his role on The Bob Newhart Show. Famously, the series ended with Loudon going to bed at the Stratford Inn…and then waking up next to Suzanne Pleshette on the set of The Bob Newhart Show, suggesting the whole show had just been a long dream on the part of Bob Hartley.
After Newhart, the star would never commit as much time to another single project. He tried a couple more sitcoms — Bob, which ran for 33 episodes, and the one-season George and Leo, which he headlined with Judd Hirsch — but would spend much of the rest of his career doing one-off appearances, talk shows, comedy shows, and movies. He even reprised his role as Dr. Bob Hartley a couple of times, including on an episode of Murphy Brown.
Newhart appeared in two TV movies and a handful of episodes of The Librarians, a series which is about to get a revival at CW Network. He also played Arthur Jeffries (alias the Bill Nye-like kids’ TV host Professor Proton) on six episodes of The Big Bang Theory and three of its spinoff, Young Sheldon.
On the feature film side, Newhart provided the voice for Bernard in both of Disney’s The Rescuers movies. He also showed up in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde, and played Papa Elf in Jon Favreau’s Elf. Newhart’s final screen role was reprising the Bernard part in last year’s short film Once Upon a Studio.
Our condolences go out to Mr. Newhart’s family, friends, collaborators, and fans.
