A biography finds the method behind Bob Newhart’s quiet jokes

Bob Newhart died on July 18, 2024, at 94. Chicago Sun-Times Features reporter Stefano Esposito reports that Citadel’s Bob Newhart: The Life and Laughter of an American Treasure is due Oct. 23. The $28 volume chronicles more than six decades of the Oak Park-born, Cubs-loving comedian’s career.

Esposito presents Newhart as one of America’s most loved comedians after more than six decades. The book’s author, Michael Seth Starr, is a former New York Post reporter and columnist who has also written biographies of Ringo Starr, William Shatner and Rodney Dangerfield.

Starr’s central judgment is emphatic:

“That was the genius of Bob Newhart, who managed to stay ‘in vogue’ throughout his long career … because he appealed to so many different segments of society without ever altering the ingredients that were mixed into his recipe for success — that magical mélange of humility, gentle humor and grace that endeared him to his admirers”

The formula mattered because Newhart reached several segments of society without changing method. His comedy came through stories and exchanges, not the rapid-fire deliveries associated with Rodney Dangerfield and Don Rickles. Stand-up, the solo club format, was not his basic method. The former accountant had found unusually durable material in ordinary discomfort.

What made Newhart’s characters endure?

Esposito opens with a blunt visual verdict: Newhart’s “face did not age well.” The deepening lines, hollowing cheeks and weary eyes nevertheless recalled the expression that had made his screen presence irresistible: “I can’t believe I’m having to deal with this crap.” Much of the comedy was silent. For Starr, the appeal was universal because Newhart did not alter his basic ingredients.

His classic stage monologue (a comic routine performed alone) stages an imagined telephone call in which a public-relations man asks a president not to change the wording of a forthcoming Gettysburg Address. “You changed four score and seven to 87?” The routine remains available online and still works, according to Esposito.

The same method appears in Professor Proton on The Big Bang Theory and in Dr. Robert Hartley, the Chicago-based psychologist on The Bob Newhart Show. Esposito links the roles through Newhart’s stuttering, twitchy and often befuddled everyman (an ordinary person overwhelmed by confusion). The character moved from national politics to science without losing its basic nervous architecture.

How did Chicago make the material?

Starr records that Newhart’s life began in Oak Park. He grew up on the West Side and attended St. Ignatius High School, now College Prep. He earned a bachelor’s degree in management, with an emphasis in accounting, from Loyola University Chicago. There, he dabbled in theater and wrote humorous sketches.

Newhart then took dreary jobs in accounting and behind the counter at the Illinois State Compensation Board. Starr says this unglamorous work helped him connect with everyday people and feel their pain. It is a neat reversal: bureaucracy supplied the material, and the material became a six-decade career.

Chicago DJ Dan Sorkin noticed Newhart in the late 1950s and saw something fresh and funny in the young performer. Starr explained why the connection mattered:

“He came along at a time when he wasn’t telling the mother-in-law jokes. He wasn’t a stand-up comedian per se, like Rodney Dangerfield or Don Rickles, who could fire off [jokes] rat-a-tat-tat. He told stories or he told interactions, and these had never been heard before in the comedy world.”

Newhart’s friendship with Sorkin brought appearances on the DJ’s radio show and a chance to perform routines, including the Abe Lincoln routine, at the Chicago Emmy Awards. Esposito presents those early contacts as Newhart’s first real momentum.

What turned the method into a career?

Newhart then signed with Warner Bros., which Starr describes as desperate for new talent to keep its flailing recording division afloat. His first comedy album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, reached the top of the Billboard charts. His follow-up album did the same.

By the end of 1961, Newhart was in demand. He performed nightclub shows across the United States and appeared frequently on national television, including The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar. The acceleration was considerable.

He later starred in two top-rated sitcoms (scripted comedies built around recurring characters), The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart. Younger audiences may know Newhart from Elf, in which he played the adoptive father of Will Ferrell’s character.

Roger Ebert supplied the enduring endorsement: “one of those rare Christmas comedies that has a heart, a brain and a wicked sense of humor, and it charms the socks right off the mantelpiece.” The judgment fits Newhart’s method: generosity arrives through a deadpan setup rather than a grand announcement.

What did the biography add?

Starr notes an oddity in Newhart’s comedy: the material did not come from a tortured childhood. He married only once, to Ginnie Quinn, a Catholic whom comedian Buddy Hackett introduced to him. They were married for 60 years.

Starr, who interviewed Newhart several times over the years, found him generous with his time. “He really was like the person you saw up on the screen,” Starr said. “He was very accessible for a comedian of his stature.”

Ten years before Newhart’s death, an NPR interviewer asked whether he had any regrets about his career. He told NPR:

“No, I’ve lived in an incredible time,” he said. “I’ve lived in the days of Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin — incredibly rewarding times. … I could never look on my life as a failure. It’s far beyond anything I ever thought I would attain.”

His answer rejects the failed-accountant narrative without disguising it. Starr’s biography has the harder task of preserving that same apparent ordinariness. Its Oct. 23 publication will show whether the page can hold a quiet career without turning it into a celebrity monument.