Bob Newhart, common man actor who saw drawbacks as positive

Bob Newhart, the celebrated television comedian who died July 18 at age 94, learned a lesson as a young man at Chicago’s Loyola University. And it wasn’t even something he heard in a classroom.

“When I perform standup and the audience either doesn’t laugh or heckles me, I think to myself, ‘I can get through this because at least nobody is hitting me in the face,’” Newhart wrote in his 2006 memoir I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This!

He was alluding to a side interest he developed while studying business management at Loyola: boxing. Back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, members of Loyola’s boxing club used a minimum of protective gear, and a punch in the nose left Newhart with a deviated septum.

Newhart might not have been cut out to be the next Joe Louis or even a great businessman. But he learned other lessons that would serve him well, especially how to turn to his advantage personal qualities that some might see as drawbacks. 

One was a halting manner of speech often referred to as a stammer. According to Parade magazine, Newhart found that the stammer built tension in his routines — “similar, he says, to vaudeville comedian Joe Frisco’s famous stutter. The pauses would keep audiences attentive about whatever would be coming next.”

“Tension is very important to comedy. And the release of the tension,” Newhart told the magazine, “that’s the laugh.”

According to NPR, Newhart once recalled a TV producer asking him to speak faster during a scene. Newhart told him: “This stammer has gotten me a home in Beverly Hills, and I’m not about to change it.” 

The other seeming disadvantage was the very background he brought to the entertainment world. As a not-very-successful accountant who had flunked out of Loyola University Law School and who lived with his parents until his late 20s in order to save money, he was able later to draw in audiences with his low-key style and “everyman” persona. 

That brought him many plaudits, including Emmys and Grammys, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, presented by the Kennedy Center, and induction into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame.

But perhaps what gratified him most was the effect his work had on everyday people, who appreciated a chance to leave some of their everyday problems behind for a while.

“Comedy is a way to bring logic to an illogical situation, of which there are many in everyday life,” he wrote in I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This!

“His deadpan, profanity-free ‘clean’ approach stood out from a growing trend of confrontational, political and overcaffeinated comedians of the time,” The Washington Post noted. 

George Robert Newhart was born September 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Illinois, to Catholic parents. His father, also named George Robert, had a plumbing and heating business. Bob, as he came to be called, to distinguish him from his father, was educated at Catholic schools in the Chicago area, including St. Catherine of Siena Grammar School in Oak Park, and St. Ignatius College Prep. 

One of his three sisters, Mary Joan, became a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and taught in the US and Colombia. She died in 2018. 

After graduation from Loyola, Newhart was drafted into the Army, serving state-side during the Korean conflict. He briefly attended Loyola University Chicago School of Law, but did not complete a degree. He tried to put his business major to use, but he found more satisfaction in the comic sense he had developed as an adolescent.

According to his official website, Newhart was a bored accountant who would call Ed Gallagher, a friend from a suburban Chicago Stock Company, and improvise comedy routines. It was suggested that they record and syndicate the routines. They did and were unsuccessful. Gallagher, an advertising executive, was offered a job in New York and accepted it, leaving Newhart to carry on by himself.

Newhart’s persistence paid off. Through a disc jockey friend, Newhart met with the head of the newly-launched Warner Brothers Records, who, upon hearing the material, offered him a contract.

The result was The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, recorded before a live audience — a first for Newhart. It became the first comedy album to go to #1 on the charts. Seven more albums followed.

Much of Newhart’s schtick consisted of imaginary telephone conversations, in which the audience heard only one speaker and had to imagine what the other might be saying. One memorable routine was a conversation between a PR man and Abraham Lincoln, arguing how the Gettysburg Address could be tweaked for greater effect.

In the meantime, Newhart met Virginia Lillian “Ginnie” Quinn, the daughter of character actor Bill Quinn. They were married on January 12, 1963, and had four children: Robert,  Timothy, Jennifer, and Courtney. Ginnie died at age 82 on April 23, 2023. [Photo above shows Ginnie and Bob Newhart arriving at the 2005 TV Land Awards.]

Newhart’s early TV effort, the Bob Newhart Variety Show, earned an Emmy and a Peabody Award and was quickly followed by the television success of The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978) and Newhart (1982-1990).

Newhart appeared in over 14 feature films, including Elf, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, Catch 22 and Legally Blonde 2, and starred with the likes of Steve McQueen, Bobby Darin, Barbara Streisand, Madeline Kahn, and Walter Matthau.

He also guest-hosted the Tonight Show 87 times and provided character voices for major animated films.

The Bob Newhart Show received TV Land’s Icon Award at a gala televised ceremony and dedicated a statue in his honor in Chicago.

His alma mater, Loyola, in 1975 bestowed on Newhart the Sword of Loyola, which symbolizes spiritual qualities associated with St. Ignatius of Loyola — courage, dedication, and service. In 2012, the university dedicated The Newhart Family Theatre. 

In 1979, Newhart starred in an episode of Insight, a religious-themed weekly series created by Fr. Ellwood E. “Bud” Kieser, the founder of Paulist Productions. The series presented half-hour dramas illuminating the contemporary search for meaning, freedom, and love. Jack Klugman of The Odd Couple fame also appeared in the episode, portraying a Hollywood agent meeting God (played by Newhart) after death.

Toward the end of his own life, Newhart recalled what kept him going – the reaction he got from audiences who were just seeking a little innocent escape. 

“When I first started out in stand-up, I just remember the sound of laughter,” he told Parade magazine. “It’s one of the great sounds of the world.”

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