Bob Newhart, Award-Winning Comedian, TV Legend and Army Veteran, Dies at 94

Few people shot to fame faster or remained famous longer than comedian Bob Newhart.

One day he was working a bookkeeping job in Chicago while making funny audiotapes with his friends; within a year, those funny tapes were part of his record "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart," which became the top-selling comedy album of 1960 and earned him the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It also led to film and television roles, and ultimately to a career in comedy and entertainment that lasted six decades.

Newhart died after a series of illnesses at his Los Angeles home on July 18, 2024. He was 94 years old.

The comedian was born George Robert Newhart in 1929 in Oak Park, Illinois. Since his father was also named George, the younger Newhart was known as Bob. He grew up watching the Chicago Cubs and working as a pin chaser at the local bowling alley. After graduating from a Catholic school, he studied business management and accounting at Loyola University, then tried his hand at law school. While his legal training didn't pan out, it provided some fodder for his future comedy career.

Newhart was drafted into the Army in 1952, while the United States was fighting in the Korean War. He was sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, where the admitting officer told him he would likely be sent to Korea as a field wireman.

"Now a field wireman is the worst job you could receive," he wrote in his 2006 autobiography, "I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This." "The field wireman is the guy who climbs the telephone poles on the battlefield and reconnects the power. The North Koreans sharpened their aim by taking out the field wiremen."

The officer then asked whether Newhart's management degree was in factory management or personnel management. He reasoned that the Army had little use for factory managers on the front lines, so he told the officer he managed factories. He was subsequently sent to basic training in California where he trained to be MOS 1290, a personnel management supervisor, learning Army regulations.

"I came across the actual text of the order that dictated a 1290 could only be sent overseas by direct order of the Secretary of the Army," he wrote. "Unfortunately, I found a small hitch. The regulation had been instated in 1946 because personnel managers were needed at home. ... the regulation was rescinded in 1948, four years before I was drafted. My admitting officer apparently didn't know this, and I sure wasn't going to say anything."

Newhart spent the rest of his two-year enlistment auditing personnel records along the U.S. West Coast, while "making the system work for our comfort and entertainment."

"In exciting places like Tacoma and Los Angeles, we always found trouble with the records," Newhart wrote. "We'd be scheduled for three days, but upon arrival, we'd send word to our warrant officer that things were a mess, and we'd need a week to straighten them out."

In his two years of service, he saw the inefficiencies and the waste of the U.S. military, while freely admitting his own contribution to that waste. It would form the foundation of one of his earliest comedic routines, "The Cruise of the USS Codfish," about how someone who is completely unqualified for leadership can rise above their competency in an organization as large as the U.S. military.

After leaving the military, Newhart worked a series of bookkeeping jobs in the Chicago area, including U.S. Gypsum and the Glidden Company. While working for Glidden, he began swapping "absurd stories over the telephone" with coworker Ed Gallagher. A third friend, Chris Petersen, heard about their jokes and offered to front the money to record them for radio stations. They made 100 demo tapes and mailed them out around the country. Only three stations wrote back.

Newhart and Gallagher's first paid comedy gigs were making $7.50 per week for five minutes of comedy, available in Jacksonville, Florida; Idaho Falls, Idaho; and Northampton, Massachusetts. All they had to pay for was the tapes. After their first 13 weeks of work, they realized they were spending $40 on tapes to earn $22.50. It's not great accounting, but it was a good investment of time.

The tapes caught the ear of "Voice of Chicago" Dan Sorkin, who put Newhart's tapes in the hands of an executive at Warner Bros. Records, George Avakian. Avakian wanted to record one of Newhart's standup comedy performances, something Newhart had never actually done. The comedian managed to get booked at the Tidelands Motor Inn in Houston, where he recorded the album that made him a household name.

Performing on stage would soon become second nature. Two years after taking a loss on his radio gigs, he took the stage at New York's Carnegie Hall. In 1962, he appeared opposite Steve McQueen in the World War II drama "Hell is for Heroes." Newhart also began a series of television appearances, including the first "The Bob Newhart Show," a variety series that lasted only one season but was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and won a Peabody Award.

It was the 1972 iteration of "The Bob Newhart Show" that would cement his place in the annals of television history. It was the first sitcom based on a comedian's onstage persona, a format that would later influence shows such as "Roseanne," "Seinfeld" and "Home Improvement." "The Bob Newhart Show" ran for six seasons on CBS. That persona would return to the small screen for another eight seasons on the 1982 CBS sitcom "Newhart."

Regular film and television roles followed for nearly 40 years after the end of "Newhart." He wouldn't actually win an Emmy Award until 2013, for a guest appearance on an episode of "The Big Bang Theory," but was nominated a total of nine times. Along with his 1961 Grammy, he also won a Golden Globe in 1962, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2002 and was elevated to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1993.

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