Bob Newhart, an award-winning comedian and actor, has died. He was 94.
Jerry Digney, Newhart’s publicist, confirmed in a press release received by PEOPLE that the actor died in his Los Angeles home on Thursday, July 18, after a series of brief illnesses.
With almost six decades in show business, the renowned performer was best known for appearing in the CBS shows The Bob Newhart Show (1972–1978) and Newhart (1982–1990).
Born George Robert Newhart on September 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Illinois, the comedian attended Loyola University and served in the Army before becoming an accountant. However, Newhart became an instant sensation after choosing to try comedy in Chicago in the late 1950s.
Newhart made history in 1959 when he released The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. Newhart’s first comedy album reached number one on the Billboard album chart, earning him two Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best New Artist.
“In 1959, I gave myself a year to make it in comedy; if it didn’t work out, I went back to accounting,” he once quipped, according to his obituary, which Digney tweeted.
The popularity of his comedy record prompted him to pursue a 12-year stand-up career before securing six seasons on The Bob Newhart Show. The program later earned Newhart several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. In the years that followed, the actor starred in Newhart from 1982 to 1990 and George and Leo from 1997 to 1998, before stealing moments in films such as Legally Blonde 2 and Elf.
Newhart garnered seven Emmy nominations, the first in 1962 for writing The Bob Newhart Show during his early career, as well as acting nominations. He earned his first Emmy in 2013 for his recurring performance on The Big Bang Theory and two more nominations in 2014 and 2016. His cameo appearances on ER and the TNT film The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice also got him Emmy nominations.
In November 2020, the actor opened up about his stellar career and enduring effect, stating, “I have a thought that when it’s all over… and you go up—[if] I’ve been raised to go to heaven—and there’s a God, and he says, ‘What did you do?’ And when I say, ‘I made people laugh,’ he says, ‘Yeah, go in that very short line over there.'”
“Comedy has given me an amazing life.” When I first started in stand-up, I just remember the sound of laughter,” he once stated, according to his obituary. “It’s one of the great sounds of the world.”
His death follows the loss of his wife, Ginnie, whom he married in 1963, in April 2023. At the time, Newhart’s publicist told PEOPLE that she died “after a long illness.”
Four children survived Newhart: sons Robert and Timothy, daughters Jennifer and Courtney, and ten grandchildren.