Bob Newhart — the American comedian who went on to become an acclaimed film and television actor — has died. Newhart's publicist confirmed to multiple outlets that the comic passed today in Los Angeles following a series of short illnesses. He was 94.
Newhart's accolades include three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award and a Golden Globes award. He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, presented by the Kennedy Center, in 2002.
Born September 5, 1929, in Oak Park, IL, Newhart graduated with a degree in business management from Loyola University of Chicago in 1952 before being drafted into the United States Army, serving as a personnel manager during the Korean War until his discharge in 1954.
Newhart would then briefly study law at Loyola before working as an accountant, and then an advertising copywriter for Chicago television and film producer Fred. A Niles. While at work here, Newhart and a colleague would have long, absurdist phone conversations they would record and send to radio stations as audition tapes. Newhart would continue the practice himself after his co-worker's departure, developing routines and his deadpan monologue style.
Radio disc jockey Dan Sorkin would introduce Newhart to the head of talent at Warner Bros. Records, and the label signed him in 1959. His 1960 comedy album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was the first comedy album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and won the comedian a pair of Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best New Artist — marking the first time a comedy release had won either.
Newhart's standup success would grow with the release of six more comedy albums that decade. In 1961, he would begin hosting NBC variety program The Bob Newhart Show, which earned an Emmy nomination and Peabody Award despite being on the air only one season. He would go on to co-host the variety show The Entertainers with Carol Burnett and Caterina Valente, and was a frequent guest of The Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He hosted Saturday Night Live twice, in 1980 and 1995.
Newhart moved to sitcoms in the 1970s, starring in The Bob Newhart Show as psychologist Bob Hartley from 1972 to 1978. In the early '80s, he played Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on Newhart from 1982 to 1990. In the '90s, he portrayed a cartoonist in two-season CBS sitcom Bob, and starred opposite Judd Hirsch in the network's George and Leo.
Newhart's film and television credits also include roles on ER, Desperate Housewives, NCIS, The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory and more. In 2003, he starred as Papa Elf in the Will Ferrell-led Christmas comedy Elf, telling CNN last November that the part "outranks, by far, any role I may have ever played."