Bob Newhart Beloved Comedy Legendary Comedy Icon and Emmy Winner Passes Away at 94

Bob Newhart Passes Away at 94

Bob Newhart, a benignly sardonic comedian whose TV shows “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart” were the most successful in the 1970s and 80s, died in Los Angeles on Thursday. He was 94 years old. Newhart’s publicist, Jerry Digney, said he died after a long illness. 

Iconic TV Appearances

Newhart was also recognized by later generations for his appearance as Buddy Elf in the 2003 Christmas hit “Elf,” and his appearance in several episodes of “The Big Bang Theory”, for which he received the only Emmy award in his career in the category `Guest role in a series` in 2013, and, most recently, an appearance in three episodes of the “Young Sheldon” sitcom.

Trailblazing Comedy Career

Before television fame, Newhart’s surreally presented albums of observational humor were recording hits. His series was the most popular on television for the better part of twenty years: first “The Bob Newhart Show,” in which the comedian starred as an unprepared for everything Chicago psychologist, and then “Newhart,” in which he returned as a high-living New England innkeeper just as furtive.

Award-Winning Achievements

He was nominated for an Emmy award for Best Actor in a Song and Dance three years in a row, from 1985 to 1987. Both series were enormously popular, and they were first and second in the ratings in the 1971-72 season. It aired from 1972-1978 and “Newhart” from 1982-90 on CBS, and produced a total of sixteen seasons.

His first Emmy victory came almost a decade after that in 2013, for his guest role on “The Big Bang Theory”. He starred in the sitcom for six episodes.

Revolutionizing Comedy

Beginning in 1960, when his comedy album of the monologue captured best-selling status Newhart would change the face of comedy forever by stepping away from Borscht Belt and vaudeville-rooted humor to embrace a style based on observation and psychology.

His work paved the way for wackier, later comics such as Steve Martin. Not only was Newhart deadpan and stammering, but he offered comedy that urban areas could understand (e.g., faking a phone conversation), dealing with mass hysteria by calm abortion; however somewhere in the rural world as well although this may not have been evident at first glance?

Historic Comedy Records

His debut album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, became the first comedy record to rise all the way to #1 on the Billboard chart — giving a shot in the arm that had been floundering Warner Bros. Let the silver records rain down; his first two albums were nos 1 and 2 on Billboard at the same time, a distinction not repeated until Guns N’ Roses doubled up in ’91.

Early Life and Career

Newhart was born George Robert Newhart in Oak Park, Ill., and reached show business the long way around. He graduated from Loyola U. in Chicago, where he majored in commerce and was commissioned a second lieutenant on graduation in 1952.

After completing his draftee training at Fort Leonard Wood (commonly known as “Lost-in-the-Woods”) George volunteered for the Enlisted Reserve Corps of USAR Officers with enlistment obligation to train those called-back National Guardsmen and Reservist personnel for two years is still being executed today). He left the Navy two years later but could not pass his first-year exams at Loyola’s law school in 1956. He later played in an Oak Park stock company while holding down various odd jobs.

Bob Newhart Wife

Bob Newhart and Virginia “Ginnie” Quinn The star of ’70s/’80s TV comedies “The Bob Newhart Show,” set in Chicago, and its Vermont-fakery follow-up “Newhart” married Ginnie on Jan. 12, 1963.

The pair shared four children — Robert, Timothy, Jennifer, and Courtney — as well as 10 grandchildren. They had just marked their 60th anniversary in a style fitting their shared passion. On Thursday – a few months after celebrating that milestone together, Ginnie Newhart passed in Los Angeles at the age of 82 on April 2023 per her family following an illness.

Ginnie Newhart was born into a Hollywood family; her father, Bill Quinn, was an in-demand character actor who worked steadily in television and film throughout his life. She helped to put Bob Newhart through college on top of which he began his comedy. He also released several live comedy albums before making it big.

Breakthrough and Stardom

Newhart and a friend, Ed Gallagher, taped some of their conversations and shopped them around to radio stations. The sheaves went nowhere, but some of Newhart’s spoken material was heard by Chicago disc jockey Dan Sorkin and led to his first radio job—a five-week stint.

He was introduced to the president of Warner Bros. by Sorkin, Legend has it that Conkling had soon run out of vacation funds and booster disc jockey jobs, so paid scheduling fees for some Houston nightclub gigs at the Tidelands to get recordings of Elliot. An instant best-seller in 1960, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” released a pair into the sequel — “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back,” and later, “Behind The Button-Down Mind.”

Grammys and Accolades

“Bob Newhart: The Button-Down Mind” sold boffo and in 1961 scored him three Grammys (Comedy Performance of the Year, New Artist of the Year; it was also Album of the Year) to boot.

Back in 2007, when NPR did a story on the success of Newhart’s debut album Conan O’Brien called what he does “premise” comedy — it isn’t funny if you just read one line or two lines by themselves; but all together another layer emerges. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld, take a similar tact.

“It was a changing of the guard, which I represented some,” Newhart told Guy MacPherson in 2006 for The Comedy Couch blog I mean, there was Mike and Elaine (Nichols & May), Shelley Berman…Mort Sahl…me but me—and Johnny Winters—Lenny Bruce. It was not ‘take my wife, please. It was like — we wrote sketches, we weren’t doing ‘jokes. Thus, a revolution in comedy. I mean, we did not all form a cabal where we were like change comedy; it just — that was how you lived in the world and what made things funny.

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Later Career and Legacy

And to Newhart’s popular recordings, he appeared as a guest on The Jack Paar Show and The Gary Moore Show. Meanwhile, Bob Newhart was traveling as a stand-up comedian and performing in one-night gigs across the country. In 1961 Newhart played to a sellout crowd at Carnegie Hall, who applauded him after every joke, An executive from Paramount was present at that sold-out engagement, and three weeks later, Newhart would make his big screen debut in their comedy Hell is For Heroes.

Following that success, Newhart went on to do another movie and star in television shows. He even appeared in Las Vegas and had one-night gigs in the coming years but would later star in sitcoms.

From 1992 to 1993 had a second series with CBS which was less successful with Bob. He also had another series with CBS from 1997 to 1998, with George and Leo. He reencountered two Emmy nominations as seated in a straight-back chair in 2003 while starring in ER. 

Final Appearances and Contributions

He also received with three actors, another fourth nomination for his key involvement in the TV movie, The Curse of the Judas Chalice from 2008. He hosted Saturday Night Live in 1980 and 1995; and guest-starred as himself on The Simpsons in 1996. He appeared six times on the 2-year-old Late Night in between 1982 and 1984; and guest-hosted 12 hours in the first three days of VH-1.

He had 17 appearances on The Tonight Show by Johnny Carson, was a guest host three times; appeared five times on the Leno version of The Tonight Show; starred as himself on Everybody Loves Raymond in 2002, and emceed the Emmys again in September 2006, in which he was involved in a payoff skit with the host Conan O’Brien before co-presenting the Emmy for best comedy series.

Newhart also performed occasional big screen work until his later years, acting in movies such as In & Out in 1997, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde in 2003, and Elf in 2003. The comic was still doing standup in his 70s, still about 30 nights a year as of 2006. To his delight the material from his Comedy albums made in the 1960s was tough. 

Newhart did his first comedy special for Showtime in 1995: Off the Record. “The audience was largely 35 to 40 years old,” Newhart told MacPherson. “I reprised some of the original first and second album material and it worked in the same way it worked the first time. I guess the material is as relevant today… The Abe Lincoln routine is probably more relevant today than it was 40-some years ago.” 

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Honors and Legacy

Newhart published his book “I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This” in 2006, containing reminiscences and comedy bits. Newhart was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1993. Newhart has won the second Mark Twain Prize for humor, presented by the Kennedy Center in 2002. In the year 2007, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” was chosen as one of 25 entries to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. His wife Ginny died a year ago. He has survived his children, Robert Jr., Timothy, Courtney, Jennifer, and ten grandchildren.