Bob Newhart^†

The accountant bit wasn't a bit. He actually worked as an accountant at U.S. Gypsum, badly, before pivoting to comedy. His signature style, playing one half of a phone call while the audience imagines the other end, started as recordings he made with a coworker for radio station auditions. The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart in 1960 was the first comedy album to hit number one on the Billboard album chart. He recorded it at a nightclub during his first-ever public performances, and it won two Grammys. There's no pre-fame grinding story here. One album, and it was over.

The Newhart finale revealed that Dick Loudon's eight seasons in Vermont had been a dream Bob Hartley was having in his old Chicago apartment, linking two entirely separate sitcoms across a decade of television. TV Guide later ranked it among the best series finales ever made. At 84, he won his first career Emmy for guesting on The Big Bang Theory. He made it to 94 without a scandal, a grudge, or a career he needed to apologize for. That's not nothing in comedy.

He dropped out of Loyola law school after being directed to behave unethically during an internship. The accounting career that followed came with a personal philosophy: 'that's close enough.' He balanced petty cash discrepancies out of his own pocket rather than fix the books properly. The phone call routines that made him famous started as tapes he made with a coworker for radio auditions. Gallagher took a job in New York. Newhart kept going alone. His entire comedy persona, the mild-mannered everyman holding the world at a slight puzzled distance, was basically an accident that refused to stop working.

President Joe Biden issued a statement calling him 'a comedy legend who kept Americans laughing for decades.' Carol Burnett posted a tribute the day after his death. Judd Apatow, who directed a documentary about Newhart's friendship with Don Rickles, described him as 'the kindest most hilarious man.' He's interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.