Bob Newhart Dead: Iconic Comedian Was 94

Bob Newhart, the genteel but sharply satirical comic whose TV series “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart” were huge hits throughout the 1970s and ’80s, died Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 94. 

Newhart’s publicist Jerry Digney said he died after a series of short illnesses. 

Newhart was also known to younger audiences as Papa Elf in the 2003 Christmas classic “Elf,” his guest spots on “The Big Bang Theory” (for which he won his only Emmy, as a guest star in 2013) and most recently appeared in three episodes of “Young Sheldon.”

Before his TV success, Newhart’s comedy albums were wildly popular for their at-the-time new approach of observational humor. He ruled TV for the better part of two decades, first with “The Bob Newhart Show” as a befuddled Chicago psychologist and then on “Newhart” as an equally at-a-loss New England innkeeper. He drew Emmy nominations for actor in a comedy three years running from 1985-87. Both shows were major successes for CBS, and they ran for a total of 16 years between 1972 and 1990.

Surprisingly, his first Emmy win didn’t come until 2013, when he won for a guest acting spot on “The Big Bang Theory.” He appeared in six episodes of the hit sitcom. 

Starting in 1960, when his comedy monologue recordings became bestsellers, Newhart ushered in a new style of comedy that did not have its roots in the Borscht Belt or vaudeville but was instead based on observation and psychology. His work opened the door for later, wackier comics like Steve Martin. In his deadpan, stammering delivery as well as in his subject matter, Newhart was quietly subversive, and he touched a nerve both in urban areas and elsewhere.

His debut album, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” was the first comedy album ever to hit the top of the Billboard charts, saving the then-struggling Warner Bros. Records in the process, and his first two albums held the Billboard Nos. 1 and 2 spots simultaneously, a feat unequaled until Guns N’ Roses did it with a pair of discs in 1991.

George Robert Newhart was born in Oak Park, Ill., and came to entertaining via a circuitous route. Studying at Loyola U. in Chicago, he majored in commerce and graduated in 1952, when he entered the U.S. Army. After ending his military service two years later, he entered Loyola’s law school but flunked out in 1956. He then worked a variety of odd jobs while performing in an Oak Park stock company.

Newhart and a friend, Ed Gallagher, recorded some of their conversations and tried to sell them to radio stations. The tapes did not sell, but Newhart’s monologues were noticed by Chicago DJ Dan Sorkin, who gave Newhart his first radio job, which lasted only five weeks.

But Sorkin introduced him to the president of Warner Bros. Records, James Conkling, who secured him bookings in Houston nightclub the Tidelands and recorded his performances. Live album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” was an immediate bestseller in 1960, followed by “The Button Down Mind Strikes Back” and “Behind the Button-Down Mind.”

In addition to boffo sales, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” earned Newhart three Grammys in 1961: He won the best new artist prize and the comedy performance (spoken word) nod, and the LP became the first comedy record to be honored as album of the year.

In a 2007 NPR story on the success of Newhart’s first album, Conan O’Brien described what Newhart did as “premise” comedy — laying out a scenario at length; no individual line is that funny, but the overall effect is. Jerry Seinfeld is among the comedians who use a similar approach.

“There was a change that was going on, of which I was part of,” Newhart told Guy MacPherson of the Comedy Couch blog in 2006. “There was Mike and Elaine (Nichols & May), Shelley Berman, Mort Sahl, myself, Johnny Winters and Lenny Bruce. We weren’t doing ‘take my wife, please’ jokes. We weren’t doing ‘jokes’; we were doing little vignettes. So there was a change in comedy. I mean, we didn’t all get together and have a cabal and say let’s change comedy; it was just our way of finding what was funny in the world.”

Newhart’s immensely popular recordings led to guest appearances on “The Jack Paar Show” and “The Gary Moore Show.” But for a time, Newhart traveled the country doing one-night gigs, culminating at Carnegie Hall in 1961. That sold-out engagement led to his movie debut in Paramount’s comedy “Hell Is for Heroes.”

Newhart worked in movies (“Hot Millions,”“On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” “Catch-22,” “Cold Turkey”), guested regularly on television and appeared in Las Vegas for the next several years before his hit sitcoms.

He tried series television again in 1992-93 with the less successful “Bob” on CBS, and again with CBS’ “George and Leo,” also starring Judd Hirsch, in 1997-98.

In later years, Newhart drew an Emmy nom for playing a librarian losing his eyesight on “ER” in 2003 and another nom for 2008 TV movie “The Curse of the Judas Chalice.”

Newhart hosted episodes of “Saturday Night Live” in 1980 and 1995; voiced himself on a 1996 episode of “The Simpsons”; appeared on 17 episodes of “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” between 1966 and 1992 (guest hosting three times) and five on the Leno version between 1998 and 2009; appeared as himself in a 2002 episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond”; and was part of an elaborate gag at the 2006 Emmy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, before co-presenting the award for comedy series.

Newhart also did occasional bigscreen work in his later years, appearing in “In & Out” (1997), “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde” (2003) and “Elf” (2003).

The comic was still doing standup in his 70s, performing about 30 nights a year as of 2006. He found to his delight that the material from his 1960s hadn’t aged. Newhart did his first comedy special, “Off the Record,” for Showtime in 1995.

“The audience was largely 35 to 40 years old,” Newhart told MacPherson of the Comedy Couch blog. “I reprised some of the original first and second album material and it worked in exactly 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.”

His book “I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This,” mixing reminiscences with bits of comedy, was published in 2006.

Newhart was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1993, and the comic won the second Mark Twain Prize for Humor, presented by the Kennedy Center, in 2002. In 2007 “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” was chosen as one of 25 entries into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress.

His wife Ginny died last year. He is survived by his children, Robert Jr., Timothy, Courtney and Jennifer, and 10 grandchildren.