Bob Newhart, comedy legend and sitcom star, dead at 94
After making fans laugh for generations, legendary comedy figure Bob Newhart has passed away aged 94.
News of the late comedian’s death was announced by his publicist, Jerry Digney. As of yet, no cause of death has been formally announced, but Digney said it came after “a series of short illnesses”.
Newhart got his big break with the CBS sitcom The Bob Newhart Show, which began in 1972 and ran for 142 episodes before wrapping up in 1978. While the comedian thought the series should end after exhausting all the ideas for the show, he would later return to the screen four years later to play a similar role in the show Newhart. This introduced homes around the country to his signature deadpan comedic style.
Both series were also capped off with a tie-in to each other as Newhart wrapped up. In the final scenes of the series finale, Newhart’s character wakes up from a dream only to find himself in bed with actor Suzanne Pleshette, who had played his wife in the previous series.
Despite being a beloved actor across both series, Newhart would not see any Emmy nominations in his prime. Thankfully, he would eventually get recognition at the awards show in 2013, winning a gong for his performance as guest star Professor Proton on the comedic series The Big Bang Theory. He would also reprise his role as the professor on the spin-off series Young Sheldon.
Notably, television wasn’t Newhart’s first brush with comedy. He had initially started his professional career as a stand-up comedian, making his first breakthrough comedy special in 1960 with The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. This would lead to him making his first television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and have his own variety show, The Bob Newhart Show, before the series of the same name started a decade later.
Newhart also lent his skills to the big screen on numerous occasions. While he had starred in various comedy films before his sitcom career, like Catch-22 and Cold Turkey, he was introduced to a new fanbase in the holiday favourite Elf, where he plays the adoptive elf father to Will Ferrell’s Buddy.
While Newhart never stopped working throughout his career, his last project was the Disney short Once Upon a Studio in 2023. As of yet, there has been no word of any posthumous releases he had been working on before his passing.
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