Legend: Bob Newhart

“The only difference between Bob Newhart on stage and Bob Newhart offstage is that there is no stage.” – David Hyde Pierce

Grammy, Emmy, and Golden Globe-winning actor Bob Newhart has passed away at the age of 94. A master in the art of deadpan, Newhart was the ultimate everyman, known for his bone-dry wit and stammering delivery.

George Robert Newhart was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on September 5, 1929. He received a Catholic education and attended St. Ignatius College Prep. After graduating from Loyola University Chicago in 1952, Newhart served in the Korean War with the US Army (he was a clerk, so basically Radar from M*A*S*H).

After his 1954 release from the Army, he worked first as an accountant for United States Gypsum, then as a copywriter for a major independent producer. At the latter, Newhart and a co-worker began recording their absurd conversations and submitting them as audition tapes to radio stations. A deejay named Dan Sorkin passed one of the tapes along to Warner Bros. Records, then in its infancy; the label signed Newhart in 1959, and his debut album – 1960’s The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart – launched a sixty-year Hollywood career.

From his eponymous sitcoms to his variety show appearances, from Disney Animation to Elf, from SNL to The Big Bang Theory – generations of fans have their favorite Newhart role.

• The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart and The Ed Sullivan Show

Newhart isn’t the only comedian nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy (Dick Gregory received a nod the following year, and Robin Williams was nominated in 1980), but he’s the only one to actually receive the award. The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, which went to #1 on the album charts in the US and Canada, also won Album of the Year. Also in 1960, Newhart made his first of four appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

• The Bob Newhart Show (no, not that one)

On the strength of The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart and his Ed Sullivan appearances, Newhart was given his own NBC variety show, The Bob Newhart Show. The show only lasted a single season, but it got Newhart in front of a wide television audience and earned him his first Emmy Award nomination for Writing Achievement in Comedy (he lost to Carl Reiner for The Dick Van Dyke Show).

• Hell Is for Heroes

Newhart made his feature debut in 1962’s Hell Is for Heroes, a WWII flick starring Steve McQueen. Newhart provides the film’s comic relief as PFC Driscoll, a clerk who’s given the task of improvising misleading radio messages for the Nazis after the company locates a secret microphone in an abandoned bunker.

• On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and Catch-22

In 1970, two years before the premiere of his iconic eponymous sitcom, Newhart made a pair of film appearances: Dr. Mason Hume in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and Major Major Major Major in Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

• Cold Turkey

This pitch-black satire, written and produced by Norman Lear, stars Newhart as an ad exec for the Valiant Tobacco Company, which offers a $25 million prize to any town whose citizens can quit smoking cigarettes for thirty days.

• The Bob Newhart Show (yes, that one)

I can’t add anything about this legendary series that hasn’t been said before. Just absolutely genius.

FUN FACT: The typeface used for The Bob Newhart Show‘s credits, Cooper Black, was made famous in 1966 when it was used on the cover of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.

• The Rescuers

As a Gen-Xer, I grew up in the Disney Dark Ages, so the only full-length, first-run Disney Animation features I saw in the theater were 1977’s The Rescuers and 1981’s The Fox and the Hound, which traumatized me too much to ever revisit. But even though Madame Medusa TERRIFIED me then, I am still delighted by The Rescuers, primarily due to Newhart’s performance and his chemistry with Eva Gabor (the Bianca to his Bernard).

• Saturday Night Live

Newhart hosted Saturday Night Live twice, first in 1980 and then in 1995, bringing his trademark bone-dry, stammering delivery. The skits – as is often the case with SNL – were uneven, but given the chance to do what he did best, Newhart more than delivered.

• Newhart

At 184 episodes, Newhart was the actor’s longest-running series. Newhart played author turned Vermont inn owner Dick Loudon, the straight man to the inn’s wacky collection of employees and guests. In one of the greatest twist endings of all time, Newhart‘s finale reveals that the entire series was dreamt by Newhart’s The Bob Newhart Show alter ego, Dr. Robert Hartley – complete with a cameo by Suzanne Pleshette.

• Bob

Newhart’s third and final eponymous sitcom, Bob was about a comic book writer turned greeting card artist. Despite a strong supporting cast that included Betty White, Tom Poston, Lisa Kudrow, and Megan Cavanagh – and a complete season two retooling – Bob did poorly in the ratings and was canceled after just 33 episodes.

FUN FACT: Newhart once joked that since he’d had shows called The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, and Bob, his next show would simply be The. While The never came to fruition, Newhart did have one more regular series role, in 1997’s utterly forgettable George and Leo.

• The Simpsons

Newhart played himself in The Simpsons‘ season five episode “Bart the Fink”. Most of the show’s writers were huge fans, and the producers agreed to give them the day off to observe Newhart’s recording session, with the caveat that they had to remain quiet. According to David Coehn on the episode’s commentary track, after Newhart completed his first take, there was an “explosion” of laughter in the room.

• Elf and ER

In 2003 – at the age of 74! – Newhart showed no signs of slowing down. In addition to a small role in Legally Blonde: Red, White & Blonde, Newhart played Papa Elf in the beloved holiday classic Elf and made a rare dramatic turn in a three-episode arc on ER, for which he received his only Emmy nomination for a drama series.

• The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon

The role that finally earned Newhart an Emmy Award was Arthur Jeffries (AKA Professor Proton) on The Big Bang Theory and its prequel series. Newhart delighted not only the Big Bang cast but a new generation of television viewers with his trademark deadpan. Emmy voters agreed, bestowing Newhart his first Emmy victory (at the tender age of 83) and nominating him twice more for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance.

• Bob and Don: A Love Story

Directed by Judd Apatow, this New Yorker short documentary chronicles Newhart’s decades-long friendship with Don Rickles and includes home footage and interviews with both families.

Bob Newhart and his wife Ginnie were married for 60 years until her death last year. They had four children and ten grandchildren. For more than a quarter century, Newhart and his family lived in a Bel Air mansion designed by Wallace Neff (architect to the stars, whose most notable creation is Pickfair, the Tudor Revival home of silent film A-listers Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford). A lifelong Catholic, Newhart was a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.

After a series of short illnesses, Newhart passed away in his home on July 18. Tributes have poured in from celebs like Reese Witherspoon, Carol Burnett, Judd Apatow, Kaley Cuoco, Mark Hamill, and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as President Biden, who issued this statement: “Today, we mourn the loss of Bob Newhart, a comedy legend and beloved performer who kept Americans laughing for decades.”