King of Deadpan Comedy Bob Newhart Dies at 94

The 1990 finale became one of the most memorable in television history: Newhart, back in his earlier role as psychologist Hartley, wakes up in bed next to Pleshette, his original TV wife, and realizes that his inn-keeping life had all been a crazy dream. Everybody loved the idea — Newhart recalled Pleshette telling him, “If I’m in Timbuktu, I’ll come back to do it” — but Newhart always gave credit where it was due: “It was my wife’s idea,” Newhart said of Ginnie Newhart, to whom he was married for 60 years before her 2023 death. “The audience went nuts.”

He finished out his network career with two short-lived series, Bob (1992-1993), in which he played a cartoonist, and George & Leo (1997-1998), with Newhart as the owner of a bookstore. Actor Tom Poston, a close friend, was on board in one fashion or another for all of the series, starting with The Bob Newhart Show in the 1970s.  

Born George Robert Newhart on Sept. 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Illinois, he was the second of four children and the only boy, yet he had no interest in following his father, George, into the plumbing and heating supply business.  A dreamy child (“I’d make up these worlds and inhabit them, and I was perfectly happy without anybody else,” he told Parade), he did impressions to amuse his schoolmates, using the tension of his natural stammer to comedic effect.  Newhart, who was educated by Jesuits,  told AARP The Magazine in 2007 that he was “indebted to them for the somewhat distorted way I look at life. They teach you to question.”

After earning a business degree in management at Loyola University in Chicago and serving stateside in the Korean War, he gave law school a quick whirl, and segued into accounting and copyrighting, all the while writing comedy on the side, studying the timing of Jack Benny, Laurel and Hardy, and comedians who appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

His big break came when a DJ friend, who had liked his radio tapes with Gallagher, mentioned his connection to Warner Bros. Records. With comedy albums from people like Mort Sahl starting to gain popularity, Newhart’s hilarious, one-sided conversations (in which he now played the comedic straight man) seemed perfect for a live album. Based on three routines, “Driving Instructor,” “Abe Lincoln” and “Sub Commander,” he won his contract.

Released in 1960, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart hugged the number 1 spot on the Billboard charts for 14 nonconsecutive weeks, becoming the first comedy album to crown the Billboard 200 chart. It also captured Grammys for album of the year and best new artist. His follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back, likewise raced to the top, and won him the Grammy for best comedy performance-spoken. The two LPs held the number 1 and number 2 positions for almost 30 weeks.

“It was like New Year’s every night,” Newhart told the Library of Congress in 2015. “I was totally unprepared for it.”

Suddenly, Newhart was a national comedy icon. “His run of ’60s albums set the stage for the booming business of stand-up comedy LPs from a generation of comedians inspired by his deadpan delivery and erudite material,” Joe Lynch wrote at Billboard.

Newhart ventured into television because living on the road for stand-up dates was hard on his marriage and his four children, sons Robert and Timothy, and daughters Jennifer and Courtney. But he also enjoyed an impressive film career, especially with Catch-22, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde and Elf. The latter brought him legions of new fans, as did his 2013 Emmy Award-winning appearances as Professor Proton on The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon.

(From left to right) "The Bob Newhart Show" cast: Marcia Wallace, Bob Newhart, Peter Bonerz, Suzanne Pleshette and Bill Daily.

CBS via Getty Images

He returned to stand-up when the last series ended, and continued to be active into his 90s, making the occasional appearance, writing new material and answering fan mail.

“I fell in love with the sound of laughter 61 years ago,” he told Forbes in 2021. “It’s one of the great sounds in the world. ... The mail I get, you become part of people’s lives. … It’s just great to make people laugh.”