AH, SUZANNE PLESHETTE. You could never know how glamorous you seemed to a boy growing up in the 70's. The voice of sense and reason in The Bob Newhart Show. Surprise guest for the greatest ending episode in TV history, the finale of Newhart.
"You should wear more sweaters," Bob said then. But to that suburban boy with the bowl cut, ho-chee-mama. There's nothing that you and Mary Tyler Moore had to do. You couldn't have been more winning.
From the AP:
Suzanne Pleshette, the husky-voiced star best known for her role as Bob Newhart's sardonic wife on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died at age 70.
Pleshette, whose career included roles in such films as Hitchcock's "The Birds" and in Broadway plays including "The Miracle Worker," died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home, said her attorney Robert Finkelstein, also a family friend.
Pleshette underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006.
"The Bob Newhart Show, a hit throughout its six-year run, starred comedian Newhart as a Chicago psychiatrist surrounded by eccentric patients. Pleshette provided the voice of reason.
Four years after the show ended in 1978, Newhart went on to the equally successful "Newhart" series in which he was the proprietor of a New England inn populated by more eccentrics. When that show ended in 1990, Pleshette reprised her role — from the first show — in one of the most clever final episodes in TV history.
It had Newhart waking up in the bedroom of his "The Bob Newhart Show" home with Pleshette at his side. He went on to tell her of the crazy dream he'd just had of running an inn filled with eccentrics.
"If I'm in Timbuktu, I'll fly home to do that," Pleshette said of her reaction when Newhart told her how he was thinking of ending the show.
I didn't know that Pleshette had married Tom Poston. Stories of people who find love late in life are so genuinely inspiring.
Ah, I'm sad. I don't even know what to say. A great performer who helped form lots of my favorite early TV memories, and probably a lot of my sense of humor. Emily was my intro to sarcasm, and a sardonic wit. And even as a kid figuring it out, I couldn't get enough.
Thanks, and Good night, Bob.
EDIT: Ken Levine has a wonderful (and more personal) remembrance here.
2 comments:
I am sad too. The first series I watched every episode of as an adult was the original Bob Newhart Show. I loved Emily. One day, my friend popped in the Birds - I didn't even know she was in it - and so I discovered her other work. I bet she was a fun person in real life.
god - she was my first...errrr...'crush', as it were. Smart, and funny, and sexy. Another 60s boy-reality check.
very sad.
d
Post a Comment