Bob Newhart, 94

Comedian

Bob Newhart, who burst onto the comedy scene in 1960 working a stammering Everyman character not unlike himself, then rode essentially that same character through a long, busy career that included two of television’s most memorable sitcoms, died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94.

Newhart wasn’t merely unknown a few months before his emergence as a full-fledged star; he was barely in the business, though he had aspirations. In 1959, some comic tapes he had made to amuse himself while working as an accountant in Chicago caught the ear of an executive at Warner Bros. Records, which in 1960 released the comedy album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.”

The record shot to No. 1 on the charts, and at the 1961 Grammy Awards it improbably captured the top prize, album of the year.

He won two other Grammys that year as well, for best new artist and best spoken-word comedy performance, an honor that was given not to his first album but to his second, a hastily made follow-up titled “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!” For a while, his first two albums occupied the top two spots on the Billboard album chart.

Newhart transitioned quickly and easily into television, landing a short-lived variety show, numerous guest appearances on the shows of Dean Martin and Ed Sullivan, regular work guest-hosting for Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” and, ultimately, “The Bob Newhart Show,” a celebrated sitcom in which he played a somewhat befuddled psychologist.

That series ran from 1972 to 1978, and in 1982 he followed it up with “Newhart,” another successful sitcom, in which he played a Vermont innkeeper. “Newhart” ran for eight seasons and ended with what is still viewed as one of the greatest finales in television history.

Newhart remained busy in television and films into his 80s. He won an Emmy in 2013 for a guest appearance as the beloved former host of a TV science show on “The Big Bang Theory.”

That Emmy was, surprisingly, his first. He had been nominated but winless at the Emmys of 1962, for writing; 1985, 1986 and 1987, as lead actor in a comedy (“Newhart”); 2004, as guest actor in a drama series, for his role in three episodes of “ER” as an architect losing his sight; and 2009, for his supporting role in the TV movie “The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice.”

George Robert Newhart was born Sept. 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Illinois. His father, who worked for a plumbing and heating contractor, was also named George, which is how Bob came to be known as Bob. George David Newhart and his wife, Pauline, had three other children as well, all girls: Virginia, Mary Joan and Pauline.

The success of the “Button-Down Mind” albums brought all sorts of demands for Newhart’s dry humor. In December 1961, the first “Bob Newhart Show” had its premiere on NBC.

— The New York Times