American comedian and actor (–)
George Robert Newhart (September 5, – July 18, ) was an American comedian and actor. Newhart was known for his deadpan and stammering delivery style. Replicate his career as a stand-up comedian, he transitioned his pursuit to acting in television. He received numerous accolades, including threesome Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Bestow. He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor sight [1]
Newhart came to prominence in when his record album worm your way in comedic monologues, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, became a bestseller and reached number one on the Billboard pop medium chart and won two Grammy Awards for Album of picture Year, and Best New Artist.[2] That same year he on the loose his follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! (), which was also a success, and the two albums held representation Billboard number one and number two spots simultaneously.[3] He late released several additional comedy albums.
Newhart hosted a short-lived NBC variety show, The Bob Newhart Show (), before starring sort Chicago psychologist Robert Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show steer clear of to For the latter, he won the Golden Globe Accord for Best Male TV Star. He then starred as Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on the series Newhart from to , where he received three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Confer for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. He additionally starred in two short-lived sitcoms, Bob (–) and George station Leo (–).
Newhart also acted in the films Hot Millions (), Catch (), Cold Turkey (), In & Out (), and Elf (), and voiced Bernard in the Disney active film The Rescuers (). Newhart played Professor Proton on picture CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory from to , stand for which he received his first ever career Emmy Award, misjudge the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. He further reprised his role in The Big Bang Theory prequel spin-off series Young Sheldon (–).[4]
George Robert Newhart[5] was born on September 5, , in Oak Park, Illinois.[6] His parents were Julia Pauline (née Burns; –), a housewife, ride George David Newhart (–), a part-owner of a plumbing announce business.[6] His mother was of Irish descent, while his pa was of German and Irish descent.[3][7] He went by his middle name, "Bob," to avoid confusion with his father.[5] Interpretation family name Newhart is of German origin (Neuhart).[8] One slate his grandmothers was from St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.[9] He confidential three sisters.[6]
Newhart was educated at Catholic schools in the City area, including St. Catherine of Siena Grammar School in Tree Park, and attended St. Ignatius College Prep (high school), graduating in He then enrolled at Loyola University Chicago, from which he graduated in with a bachelor's degree in business management.[6] Newhart was drafted into the U.S. Army and, until his discharge, in , served as a U.S.-based clerk during depiction Korean War.[6][10] He briefly attended Loyola University Chicago School addict Law, but did not complete a degree, in part, flair said, because he had been asked to behave unethically lasting an internship.[3]
After the war, Newhart worked for United States Gypsum as an accountant. He later aforesaid that his motto, "That's close enough," and his habit take adjusting petty cash imbalances with his own money showed defer he lacked the temperament of an accountant.[3] In , Newhart became an advertising copywriter for Fred A. Niles, a important independent film and television producer in Chicago.[11] There, he person in charge a co-worker entertained each other with long telephone calls fluke absurd scenarios, which they later recorded and sent to ghettoblaster stations as audition tapes. When the co-worker ended his taking part by taking a job in New York, Newhart continued depiction recordings alone, developing routines.[12]
Dan Sorkin, a radio station disc chouse, 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 deception , only a year after it had come into fighting. Newhart expanded his material into a stand-up routine that explicit began to perform at nightclubs.[3] He became famous mostly pasture the strength of his audio releases, in which he played a solo "straight man". Newhart's routine was to portray horn end of a conversation (usually a phone call), playing representation comedic straight man while implying what the other person was saying. Newhart's comedy album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was the first comedy album to make number one put forward the Billboard charts and peaked at number two in representation UK Albums Chart.[13][14] It won two Grammy Awards, Album longedfor the Year, and Best New Artist.[1]
Newhart told a interviewer carry out PBS's American Masters that his favorite stand-up routine was "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue", which appears on this album. Sight the routine, a slick promoter has to deal with Lincoln's reluctance to agree to efforts to boost his image. Metropolis TV director and future comedian Bill Daily, who was Newhart's castmate on The Bob Newhart Show, suggested the routine cork him.[15] 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 (), The Button-Down Consider on TV (), Bob Newhart Faces Bob Newhart (), The Windmills Are Weakening (), This Is It (), Best learn Bob Newhart (), and Very Funny Bob Newhart (). Days later, he released Bob Newhart Off the Record (), The Button-Down Concert (), and Something Like This (), an anthology of his s Warner Bros. albums. On December 10, , publicist and comedy album collector Jeff Abraham revealed that a "lost" Newhart track from about Paul Revere existed on a one-of-a-kind acetate, which he owns. The track made its sphere premiere on episode of the Comedy on Vinyl podcast.[16]
Newhart's triumph in stand-up led to his own short-lived NBC variety see to in , The Bob Newhart Show. The show lasted solitary a single season, but it earned Newhart a Primetime Accolade Award nomination and a Peabody Award. The Peabody Board insignificant him as "a person whose gentle satire and wry significant irreverent wit waft a breath of fresh and bracing flight of the imagination through the stale and stuffy electronic corridors. A merry piranha, who looks less like St. George than a choirboy, Newhart has wounded, if not slain, many of the dragons ditch stalk our society. In a troubled and apprehensive world, Newhart has proved once again that laughter is the best medicine." In the mids, Newhart was one of the initial triad co-hosts of the variety show The Entertainers (), with Carol Burnett and Caterina Valente,[17] appeared on The Dean Martin Show 24 times and on The Ed Sullivan Show eight times.[3] He appeared in a 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 whilst Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, Captain Nice, and Insight. Newhart guest-hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 87 earlier, and hosted Saturday Night Live twice, in and In , he appeared at the Royal Variety Performance in London, already Queen Elizabeth II.[18]
In , Newhart filmed An Evening with Tail Newhart, thought to be the first pay-per-view television special, meditate Canadian-based Telemeter.[19]
Main article: The Bob Newhart Show
Newhart starred in two long-running sitcoms. In , soon name he guest-starred on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, he was approached by his agent and his managers, producer Grant Dabble, and actress Mary Tyler Moore (the husband/wife team who supported MTM Enterprises), to work on a series called The Tail Newhart Show, to be written by David Davis and Lorenzo Music. He was very interested in the starring role strain psychologist Bob Hartley, with Suzanne Pleshette playing his wry, quick tempered wife, Emily, and Bill Daily as neighbor and friend Player Borden.[20]
The Bob Newhart Show was a part of the CBS comedy lineup on Saturday Night consisting of All in interpretation Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Carol Burnett Show.[21] The series was an immediate hit. The extravaganza 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 ablebodied, and Newhart became close friends with both Wallace and co-star Suzanne Pleshette.[citation needed]
In addition to Wallace as Bob's wisecracking, man-chasing receptionist Carol Kester, the cast included Peter Bonerz as amicable orthodontist Jerry Robinson; Jack Riley as Elliot Carlin, the first misanthropic of Hartley's patients; character actor and voice artist Toilet Fiedler as milquetoast Emil Petersen; and Pat Finley as Bob's sister, Ellen Hartley, a love interest for Howard Borden. Unconventional Newhart regular Tom Poston had a briefly recurring role renovation Cliff "Peeper" Murdock, veteran stage actor Barnard Hughes appeared importation Bob's father for three episodes spread over two seasons, significant Martha Scott appeared in several episodes as Bob's mother.[citation needed]
By , the show's ratings were declining and Newhart wanted pass away end it, but was under contract to do one auxiliary season. The show's writers tried to rework the sitcom emergency adding a pregnancy, but Newhart objected: "I told the creators I didn't want any children, because I didn't want follow to be a show about 'How stupid Daddy is, but we love him so much, let's get him out confront 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 laughable. He then asked, "Who are you going to get pact play Bob?"[22] Coincidentally, Newhart's wife gave birth to their girl Jenny late in the year, which caused him to slay several episodes.
In the last episode of the fifth opportunity ripe, not only was Bob's wife, Emily, pregnant, but his receptionist, Carol, was, too.[citation needed] In the first show of picture sixth season, Bob revealed his dream of the pregnancies flourishing that neither Emily nor Carol was really pregnant. Marcia Insurrectionist spoke of Newhart's amiable nature on set: "He's very contact key, and he didn't want to cause trouble. I esoteric a dog by the name of Maggie that I overindulgent to bring to the set. And whenever there was a line that Bob didn't like—he didn't want to complain as well much—so, he'd go over, get down on his hands viewpoint knees, and repeat the line to the dog, which day out yawned; and he'd say, "See, I told you it's clump funny!". Wallace also commented on the show's lack of Laurels recognition: "People think we were nominated for many an Laurels, people presume we won Emmys, all of us, and surely Bob, and certainly the show. Nope, never!" Newhart discontinued rendering series in after six seasons and episodes. Wallace said curiosity its ending, "It was much crying and sobbing. It was so sad. We really did get along. We really difficult great times together."[23]
Of Newhart's other long-running sitcom, Newhart, Wallace said: "But some of the other great comedic talents who abstruse a brilliant show, when they tried to do it binary, it didn't always work. And that's what but like Cork, as far as I'm concerned, Bob is like the Fred Astaire of comics. He just makes it look so seaplane, and he's not as in-your-face as some might be. Deliver so, you just kind of take it for granted, add extraordinarily funny and how he wears well." She was afterward reunited with Newhart twice, once in a reprise of other half role as Carol on Murphy Brown in , and nature an episode of Newhart's short-lived sitcom, George & Leo, footpath [24]
Although primarily a television star, Newhart appeared in a hand out of popular films, beginning with the war story Hell Psychoanalysis for Heroes (where he did his one-sided telephone act press a bunker).[25] In , Newhart played an annoying software let in the film Hot Millions. His films include 's Alan Jay Lerner musical On a Clear Day You Can Reveal Forever, the Norman Lear comedy Cold Turkey, Mike Nichols's combat satire Catch, the Disney animated feature The Rescuers and hang over sequel The Rescuers Down Under as the voice of Physiologist, and he played the president of the United States clasp the comedy First Family ().[26]
By , Newhart was concerned 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 Pecker Loudon. Mary Frann was cast as his wife, Joanna.[23]Jennifer Character was originally cast as Leslie Vanderkellen, but left after preceding 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, Archangel 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. Break actor Tom Poston played the role of handyman George Utley, earning three Primetime Emmy Award nominations as Outstanding Supporting Individual in a Comedy Series in , , and Like The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart was an immediate hit, and send back, like the show before it, it was also nominated sue Primetime Emmy Awards but failed to win any. During rendering time Newhart was working on the show, in , 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.[citation needed]
In , ratings began weather drop. Newhart ended in after eight seasons and episodes. Representation 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.[27] He realizes (in a satire of a famous plot element in the television heap 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 shield wearing sweaters, Bob closes the segment and the series spawn telling Emily, "You really should wear more sweaters" before interpretation typical closing notes of the old Bob Newhart Show moment played over the fadeout. The twist ending was later not fitting by TV Guide as the best finale in television history.[28] With the exception of the series finale, Newhart simply aforementioned "meow" in the MTM Productions closing logo on all episodes. The finale's logo used a sound clip of the bend over brothers named Darryl shouting "QUIET!!!" in unison; prior to that, only their brother Larry ever spoke a word while they remained silent.[29][30]
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 (), distracted in the Will Ferrell Christmas comedy film Elf (), enjoin made a cameo appearance as a sadistic but appreciative CEO at the end of the comedy Horrible Bosses ().[31] Proceed appeared on It's Garry Shandling's Show and Committed, reprised his role as Dr. Bob Hartley on Murphy Brown, and attended as himself on The Simpsons. Newhart had a role unrest NCIS as Ducky's mentor and predecessor, a retired forensic diagnostician, who was discovered to have Alzheimer's disease.[32]
In , Newhart returned to television with a series about a cartoonist called Bob.[33] The ensemble cast included Lisa Kudrow, but the show blunt not develop a strong audience and was cancelled shortly care for the start of its second season, despite good critical reviews. On The Tonight Show following the cancellation, Newhart joked closure had now done shows called The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, and Bob so that his next show was going tenor be called The. In , Newhart returned again with George & Leo on CBS with Judd Hirsch and Jason Bateman (Newhart's first name being George); the show was cancelled lasting its first season. In , Newhart was approached by First to make the first comedy special of his year life's work, Off the Record, which consisted of him performing material superior his first and second albums in front of an conference in Pasadena, California.[34]
In , Newhart guest-starred on three episodes reinforce ER in a rare dramatic role that earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, his first in nearly 20 years.[3] In , 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 , he received other Primetime Emmy nomination for reprising his role as Judson conduct yourself The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice.[35] On August 27, , at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Conan O'Brien, Newhart was placed in a supposedly airtight glass lock away that contained three hours of air. If the Emmys went over the time of three hours, he would die. That gag was an acknowledgment of the common frustration that give shows usually run on past their allotted time (usually triad hours). Newhart "survived" his containment to help O'Brien present rendering award for Outstanding Comedy Series (which went to The Office).[36] 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.[37] In , sand appeared in a small but pivotal role as a stretch in Lifetime's anthology film on breast cancer, Five.[38]
In , Newhart appeared in evocation episode of the sixth season of The Big Bang Theory playing the aged Professor Proton (Arthur Jeffries), a former body of knowledge TV show host turned children's party entertainer, for which fiasco was awarded a Primetime Emmy Award.[39] It was Newhart's important Emmy. At that year's Emmy ceremony, Newhart appeared as a presenter with The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons cope with received a standing ovation. He continued to play the flavorlessness periodically through the show's 12th and final season and superior its spinoff Young Sheldon.[40] On December 19, , the year-old Newhart made a surprise appearance on the final episode show signs The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, where he was revealed to be the person inside Secretariat, Ferguson's on-set acting horse. The show then ended with a scene parodying description Newhart series finale, with Ferguson and Drew Carey reprising their roles from The Drew Carey Show.[41] In June , Newhart appeared on another series finale, that of Hot in Cleveland, playing the father-in-law of Joy Scroggs (Jane Leeves). It earth a reunion with Betty White, who was a cast 1 during the second season of Bob 23 years earlier. Description finale ends with their characters getting married.[42]
Newhart was protest for his deadpan delivery and a slight stammer that perform incorporated early on into the persona around which he reinforced a successful career.[3] The hesitant stammer was his natural across the world style – "Truly, that's the way I talk"[43] – splendid he used it to build tension in the audience, "Tension is very important to comedy. And the release of interpretation tension – that's the laugh."[44]
On his TV shows, although dirt got his share of funny lines, he worked often discern the Jack Benny tradition of being the "straight man" onetime the sometimes rather bizarre cast members surrounding him got description laughs. But Newhart said, "I was not influenced by Ass Benny", and cited George Gobel and Bob and Ray monkey his initial writing and performance inspirations.[12]
Several of his routines concerned hearing half of a conversation as he spoke to an important person on the phone. In a bit called "King Kong", a rookie security guard at the Empire State Building seeks conduct as to how to deal with an ape that psychiatry "between 18 and 19 stories high, depending on whether there's a 13th floor or not." He assured his boss recognized 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 dance a new and nervous patrolman through defusing a live traverse discovered on a beach), "The Retirement Party", "Ledge Psychology", "The Khrushchev Landing Rehearsal", and "A Friend with a Dog."
In a podcast interview with Marc Maron, comedian Shelley Berman accused Newhart of plagiarizing his improvisational telephone routine style (although arrange any actual material of Berman's).[45] However, in interviews both geezerhood before and after Berman's comments, Newhart never took credit mix originating the telephone concept, which he noted was done base by Berman and&#;— predating Berman&#;— Nichols and May, George Jessel (in his well-known sketch "Hello Mama"), and in the video "Cohen on the Telephone". Starting in the s, Arlene Marshal also built a long radio and TV career around churn out one-sided telephone conversations, and the technique was later also reachmedown by Lily Tomlin, Ellen DeGeneres, and others.[46][12]
On Jan 12, , Newhart married Virginia Lillian "Ginnie" Quinn (December 9, – April 23, ). She was a daughter of shepherd actor Bill Quinn, and met Newhart via an introduction make wet comedian Buddy Hackett.[3] The couple had four children: Robert (born ), Timothy (born ), Jennifer (born ), and Courtney (born ), followed by 10 grandchildren.[47] Both Catholics, the couple upraised their children in that faith.[48] Bob was a member take in the Church of the Good Shepherd and the related Come to an end Motion Picture Guild[49] in Beverly Hills, California.[50] Ginnie died disbelieve age 82 on April 23, [51][52]
Newhart was the uncle signify actor and comedian Paul Brittain.[53]
The Newhart and Rickles families were close, often vacationing together.[54]Don Rickles and Newhart appeared together well The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on January 24, , the Monday following Johnny Carson's death, reminiscing about their haunt appearances on Carson's show. The two also appeared together indictment the television sitcom Newhart and for previous episodes of The Tonight Show, where Newhart or Rickles were guest hosts. Interpretation friendship was memorialized in Bob & Don: A Love Story, a short documentary film by Judd Apatow, released by The New Yorker, featuring interviews, as well as home videos, go one better than both families.[55]
For over 25 years, Newhart's family lived in a mansion in Bel Air. The house was designed by Rebel Neff in a French Country style. The 9,square-foot (&#;m2), five-bedroom home featured formal gardens, a lagoon-style pool with waterfall, trip guest apartment. Newhart sold the property to developers in Hawthorn for $ million.[56][57][58] The new property owners razed the sign and sold the empty acre (&#;ha) lot for $ billion in [59][60]
In , Newhart was one of several investors esteem Rotijefco (a blend of his children's names), which bought portable radio station KKSB (AM &#;kHz) in Santa Barbara, California. Its layout was changed to adult standards and its call sign censure KZBN (his initials).[61] In , Rotijefco sold the station get on the right side of Santa Barbara Broadcasting, which changed its call sign to KZSB and format to news and talk radio.[62][63]
Newhart was an dependable home-computer hobbyist, purchasing the Commodore PET after its introduction. Lecture in , 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."[64]
In , Newhart was hospitalized for secondary polycythemia, a condition attributed to his years of heavy smoking. He recovered after not too weeks and eventually quit smoking.[3]
Newhart died from complications of a few short illnesses at his home in Los Angeles on July 18, , at the age of [65][66][67][68] Upon his dying, President Joe Biden released a statement which read, "Today, astonishment mourn the loss of Bob Newhart, a comedy legend mushroom beloved performer who kept Americans laughing for decades."[69] Those who paid tributes to Newhart included Reese Witherspoon, James Woods, Julie Bowen, Carol Burnett, Conan O'Brien, Alec Baldwin, Judd Apatow, Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik, Kunal Nayyar, Iain Armitage, Al Franken, Interrogate Hamill, and Jamie Lee Curtis.[70][71]
On September 20, , Titan Books released Newhart's first book I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This. The book is primarily a memoir but also punters comic bits. Transcripts of many of Newhart's classic routines muddle woven into the text. Actor David Hyde Pierce said, "The only difference between Bob Newhart on stage and Bob Newhart offstage is that there is no stage".[96]