Bob Newhart dead at 94

Bob Newhart has died at age 94. The comic, whose TV series “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart” were hits in the 1970s and ’80s, died Thursday.

His longtime publicist Jerry Digney announced on Thursday that he died of “a series of short illnesses,” according to The Wrap.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Newhart began his career as a stand up comedian in the 1950s. 

When he was working in Chicago at an accounting job, he started making humorous phone calls to a friend to pass the time and sending the recordings to radio stations. This got Newhart noticed by James Conkling, the then- president of Warner Bros. Records. Colking booked him in the Houston nightclub, the Tidelands, and recorded his performances.

His career took off when his comedy routine “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” won a Grammy Award as album of the year at the 1961 Grammys – becoming the first comedy album to win that honor.

It sold 750,000 copies at the time. That year, The New York Times  called Newhart,  “the first comedian in history to come to prominence through a recording.”