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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Bob Newhart, who gave up a tedious accounting job to become a stand-up comedian with a stutter and deadpan wit and later a star of U.S. television sitcoms, died on Thursday at the age of 94, his publicist said.
Newhart died at his home in Los Angeles after a series of brief illnesses, said his longtime publicist, Jerry Digne.
Newhart had two hit series — the first as a psychologist on “The Bob Newhart Show” from 1972 to 1978, and the second as a Vermont innkeeper on “Newhart” from 1982 to 1990. In both shows, he played the role of a bland, cardigan-wearing, everyman who was confused by the oddballs around him.
Newhart was nominated for an Emmy nine times, first in 1962 for writing a short-lived variety show, but he didn’t win the award until 2013 for his guest appearance on “The Big Bang Theory.”
Newhart’s career began in the late 1950s when he was performing a comedy in which he played a straight man speaking to an invisible voice on the other end of the phone. Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers called Newhart a “one-man comedy team” because of his dialogue with his invisible partner.
“When I first started doing stand-up comedy, all I remember was laughter,” Newhart once said. “It’s one of the most beautiful sounds in the world.”
His influential 1960 live album, The Serious Thoughts of Bob Newhart, became the first comedy album to top the charts and won him three Grammy Awards.
Newhart’s character has a signature stutter, which he says is not an act but the way he speaks. He said a TV producer once asked him to reduce the stutter because it made the show too long.
“‘No,’ I told him. ‘My stuttering is why I bought a house in Beverly Hills,’ ” Newhart wrote in his memoir. “I should never have done it!”
In 1990, he ended his show with an episode of Newhart that is considered one of the most unique in the history of American television. In the series finale, he “dreams” about his life in season two, then wakes up to find himself in his wife’s bed from season one.
Newhart came of age in an era filled with angry, shrill stand-up comedians like Lenny Bruce, Shelley Berman and Mort Sahl, but his performances were subtly subversive, without the vulgarity or shocking language used by his contemporaries.
He used his hesitant, shy, and ordinary character to satirize society in his own way – including a sketch depicting how propagandists “treated” Abraham Lincoln, or a sketch showing an incompetent official talking on the phone to a panicked man trying to defuse a bomb.
Newhart was born on September 5, 1929, in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park and graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 1952.
In the late 1950s, Newhart was working a dull accounting job and claimed that his motto was “That’s enough.” To entertain himself, he began writing comedy sketches with his co-workers. These sketches led to his radio performances and eventually a contract with Warner Bros. Records.
“Probably the best advice I ever got in my life was from Mr. Hutchinson, the head of the accounting department at Glidden & Co. in Chicago, who told me, ‘You’re really not cut out for accounting,’ ” Newhart said in an interview.
Prior to winning the Emmy in 2013, Newhart was nominated three times for his work on Newhart, once for his writing for the 1961 variety show, and twice for his performances on other shows. He also frequently guest-stars on variety shows and talk shows.
He has appeared in numerous films, including On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Catch-22, and Elf.
In 2002, he was awarded the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In 2019, when asked by The New York Times if he felt like he was 90, Newhart said, “My brain doesn’t think that way. I can’t stop thinking.”
Comedian Buddy Hackett introduced Newhart to his future wife, Virginia, and the two married in 1964. The Newharts had four children, and Virginia Newhart died in 2023.
Flowers will be laid in Newhart’s memory on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Thursday afternoon.
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