He shot to fame with his deadpan stand-up routines, then starred in TV’s “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart.” He also had legions of younger fans from his role in the…
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. Newhart, the deadpan master of sitcoms and telephone monologues, died in Los Angeles on Thursday, July 18, 2024. He was 94.
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. Newhart was booked for several appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and at nightclubs, concert halls and college campuses across the country. He hated the clubs, however, because of the heckling drunks they attracted.
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