The star of two long-running sitcoms bearing his name, he grew up in Austin, attended St. Ignatius College Prep and Loyola University Chicago and was an accountant before becoming an overnight comedy success.
Sitcom and stand-up legend Bob Newhart, who was a relatively unknown commodity living with his parents on the West Side when his first comedy album catapulted him to fame in 1960, has died at 94.
Jerry Digney, Newhart’s publicist, says the actor died Thursday in Los Angeles after a series of short illnesses.
“The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” was hailed as a precursor to the modern comedy special. It sold more than a million albums, hit No. 1 on the charts and landed him Grammy awards for best new artist and album of the year (beating out Frank Sinatra for the latter).
Its success launched Mr. Newhart into a decades-long career as a top draw on the stand-up comedy circuit and a TV star, playing a Chicago psychologist and then a Vermont innkeeper on two hit sitcoms.
It all started with “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” a collection of Mr. Newhart’s phone conversations with imaginary, unheard characters, like in his angst-filled portrayal of a driving instructor.
His signature stammer provided tension and timing.
In another bit he played a slick public-relations man on the phone with President Abraham Lincoln, trying to convince him to keep the beard and stovepipe hat and refrain from making changes to the Gettysburg Address.
Mr. Newhart was 29 when the album came out.
His follow-up album “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back” won a Grammy for best comedy performance of the year. For several weeks the two albums held the No. 1 and 2 spots on the charts.
In 1961 he moved out of his parent’s home and settled in California. He hosted two short-lived television variety shows, one of which won an Emmy in 1962.
But stand-up proved to be his true love and kept him on the road until he turned to television because it provided a regular schedule and a way to be home with his family every day after work after spending years on the road.
His life as a sitcom star began in 1972 with the debut of “The Bob Newhart Show” in which he played the perpetually put-upon Chicago psychologist Bob Hartley. The show was a smash hit for six seasons.
When producers asked him to take it easy on the stammering for the show’s pilot, he replied “That stammer bought me a house in Beverly Hills,” he wrote in his 2006 memoir “I Shouldn’t Even be Doing This.”
The show also spawned the “Hi, Bob” drinking game, which featured a tipple at every utterance of the phrase.
From 1982 to 1989 he starred in “Newhart,” a popular CBS sitcom about a Vermont innkeeper and the wacky townies who surrounded him.
The finale of “Newhart” became an instant classic when Mr. Newhart woke up to find himself in the bed from his previous show, next to his wife from his previous show, actress Suzanne Pleshette. The psychologist explained to her the horrible dream he’d just had in which he was running an inn in Vermont.
Mr. Newhart’s real-life wife, Ginnie Newhart, came up with the idea for the show’s ending.
The two met in 1962 when Mr. Newhart’s pal and fellow comedian, Buddy Hackett, set him up on a blind date with a red-headed actress named Virginia “Ginnie” Quinn, who babysat for the Hackett family.
