Bob Newhart, Beloved Stand-Up and Sitcom Star, Dead at 94

A wildly successful 1960 comedy album paved the way for overnight stardom.

Bob Newhart, a desk worker turned sitcom legend known for a pair of hit CBS shows, died on Thursday, July 18. He was 94. The beloved comedian died at home in Los Angeles after a series of short illnesses, his publicist, Jerry Digney, said in statement. Born September 5, 1929, he ended up working as an accountant and then a copywriter for a paint company while he and a friend made prank calls and did five-minute comedy routines on the radio to kill time.

Newhart’s big break came in 1960 when his live comedy album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart recorded in Houston became one of the biggest selling “talk” albums at 1.5 million copies, reaching the top of the charts and becoming the first comedy album to win Album of the Year and Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards. The landmark record introduced audiences to classic bits like “Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue,” where Newhart played a Mad Men–esque PR person on a phone call to Lincoln giving the Civil War–era president notes for the Gettysburg Address. It landed him a short-lived variety series, The Bob Newhart Show, in 1961, which he abandoned a year later to continue touring his stand-up routines and guest star in onscreen roles.

Years later, the now-seasoned entertainer returned to TV with the revamped Bob Newhart Show in 1972, playing a droll clinical psychological. Despite critical acclaim for the series’ 142-episode run, Newhart ended the CBS show in 1978, earning no Emmy nominations for himself or wins for the show. Newhart, his next big sitcom, came in 1982 where he portrayed a New York author running a Vermont inn. Both shows are among the most popular sitcoms of all time. Younger audiences might know him as Papa Elf from Elf or Arthur Jeffries in The Big Bang Theory, the role that gave him his first Emmy in 2013.

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• An Appreciation of the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart