Bob Newhart, American comics legend and unforgettable Professor Proton at 94, in The Big Bang Theory

Bob Newhart has died at the age of 94, his agent announced Deadline. A famous American comedian who won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest in a Comedy Series for The Big Bang Theory, Newhart embodied the deadpan tone that made him famous. It was hard to imagine him from Europe, but in the United States he was ridiculed as a legend.

• Like Bob Newhart or Shannen Doherty, these stars died in 2024

Star in the show!

Born to a plumber father and a stay-at-home mother, Bob Newhart studied business management and was drafted during the Korean War. Released, he worked as an accountant and publicist while developing a comedy routine that he recorded and sent to radio stations. His specialty: phone calls, which he only interprets from one point of view.

He starts making scenes and his tour album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (1960) became an instant huge success. He was promoted to executive producer of his own series, The Bob Newhart Show, which was canceled after one season but earned him an Emmy nomination. Satirical, irreverent, it was a hit on stage and got a new series in 1972, which this time was a hit.

First success on television

As if in the spirit of revenge, the sitcom is once again called The Bob Newhart Show. The comedian plays a psychologist who has many failures with his wife, friends, patients and colleagues. The show ran for six seasons and aired 142 episodes on Saturday nights on CBS, one of the largest national networks.

In 1977, and again in 1990, he was selected by Disney to voice the generous mouse Bernard in The Adventures of Bernard and Bianca and Bernard and Bianca in Kangaroo Country.

Newhart, his masterpiece?

Bob Newhart is also another sitcom hero that will outlive the previous one. Soberly titled Newhart, it features a New York author of travel guides and trivia fact sheets who moves with his wife to Vermont to open a coaching inn. And will see a parade of colorful characters…

The series, which began in 1982, ended in 1990 after 8 seasons, 184 episodes and three Emmy nominations for Newhart for Best Actor, losing to Robert Guillaume in 1985 for Benson and twice for Michael J in 1986 and 1987.

Harder 90s

We find him on the small screen in 1992 for Bob, a series in which he plays a superhero creator whose flagship character experiences a comeback, then George and Leo (1997), the story of a magician who steals money from a mafia discovery. A shelter with a little librarian with a well-ordered life.

After a notable appearance in season 10 of ER, which earned him another Emmy nomination, he appeared in three TV movies The Adventures of Flynn Carson, as well as the films Blonde Strikes Back and Elf.

It is crowned with spikes

The Big Bang Theory will offer him the golden role of Professor Proton, the origin of the calling of the children’s science show host social researcher Sheldon Cooper, played by Jim Parsons. He will also return for Young Sheldon, a spin-off about Cooper’s youth. His performance earned him an Emmy in 2013 for Outstanding Guest in a Comedy Series.

He died at the age of 94.