The Heart-Wrenching Death Of Bob Newhart

On July 18, the world said a heartbroken goodbye to renowned comedian and actor Bob Newhart, per The Hollywood Reporter. He was 94. According to the outlet, his longtime publicist, Jerry Digney, said he died at his Los Angeles home after a "series of short illnesses."

It's likely he kept his sense of humor with him through to the very end, as in 2019, he told The New York Times, "I think if you lived a good life, some people say it is rapture. You spend the rest of your life in a state of rapture. That'd be nice. What I'm actually hoping is there's the Pearly Gates and God's there and he says to me, 'What did you do in life?' And I say, 'I was a stand-up comedian.' And he says: 'Get in that real short line over there.'"

Bob's rise to comedic acclaim started in 1960 with the release of his spoken-word comedy album "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart: The Most Celebrated New Comedian Since Attila (the Hun)," which, as Today tells us sold over a million copies and shockingly won the Grammy for Best Album (via YouTube). It featured one of Bob's trademarks — telephone conversations with an unheard second speaker — a bit he started with a friend to relieve the tedium of his accounting job after graduating from Loyola University in 1952, per Britannica.

Bob's lowkey, quietly subversive, off-rhythm delivery carried him all the way from stand up on the "Tonight Show Starring Jack Parr" (1957-1962) to two sitcoms — "The Bob Newhart Show" (1972-1978) and "Newhart" (1982-1990) — all the way to starring aside Will Ferrell in 2003's "Elf" and playing the recurring character Professor Proton in "The Big Bang Theory" (2013-2018).

All in all, it's easy to see how Bob's influence carried on into later-day comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, even just through him replying to the question, "Do you know that you were profoundly influential?" by saying, "Not profoundly," as CBS News recounts.

Born George Robert Newhart in Oak Park, Illinois, 1929, Bob got his professional start in comedy following a two-year stint in the army as a clerk. He tried selling his comedic telephone bits to local radio stations, as Britannica says, which caught the attention of a DJ and led to a record deal with Warner Brothers. From that point on, Bob's unique humor tickled the funny bone of the American public.

Fans are well-acquainted with the quietly demented undercurrent flowing through Bob's work, and indeed, he was once known as a "sick comic," per a 2019 interview with The New York Times tells us. In fact, Bob said that his wife of nearly 60 years, Ginny, said: "If people ever found out what you find humorous, they'd stop showing up." That would have been a shame, because Bob kept doing standup into his 90s.

In the end, Bob was all about comedy and laughter, calling it a "narcotic" (per Today, on YouTube) and the key to a successful marriage. He also said, per Cinema Blend, that The Rock should play him in a biography (Bob was 5 foot, 8 inches tall), "I am always confused for him. Fans start talking wrestling and I have to say, 'No, I am not him.'"

When his hit '80s TV show, "Newhart," ended, it was one of the more memorable and controversial series finales in television — his character wakes up and reveals the entire show was a dream. When asked how he felt about fans who felt cheated that they'd devoted eight years to a simple dream, Bob simply told The New York Times, "Okay."

Bob's wife, Ginny, died in April 2023, not long after the couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary (via NBC News). Bob is survived by four children, Courtney, Jennifer, Robert, and Timothy.