Bob Newhart, the deadpan accountant-turned-comedian who became one of the most popular TV stars of his time has died at 94.
FILE - Actor-comedian Bob Newhart sits with a bronze likeness of Dr. Bob Hartley, the character he played in the 1972-78 sitcom "The Bob Newhart Show," at the unveiling of the statue in Chicago on July 27, 2004.
While other comedians of the time, including Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Alan King, and Mike Nichols and Elaine May, frequently got laughs with their aggressive attacks on modern mores, Newhart was an anomaly. His outlook was modern, but he rarely raised his voice above a hesitant, almost stammering delivery. His only prop was a telephone, used to pretend to hold a conversation with someone on the other end of the line.
It bowed out in memorable style in 1990 with Newhart — in his old Chicago psychologist character — waking up in bed with Pleshette, cringing as he tells her about the strange dream he had: "I was an innkeeper in this crazy little town in Vermont. ... The handyman kept missing the point of things, and then there were these three woodsmen, but only one of them talked!"
Newhart married Virginia Quinn, known to friends as Ginny, in 1964, and remained with her until her death in 2023. They had four children: Robert, Timothy, Jennifer and Courtney. Newhart was a frequent guest of Johnny Carson’s and liked to tease the thrice-divorced “Tonight” host that at least some comedians enjoyed long-term marriages. He was especially close with fellow comedian and family man Don Rickles, whose raucous insult humor clashed memorably with Newhart’s droll understatement.
“A terrified 30-year-old man walked out on the stage and played his first nightclub,” he recalled in 2003. “Every time I have to step out of a scene and put one of those birds in his place, it kills the routine,” he said in 1960.
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