Ginnie Newhart, the famous comedian Bob Newhart’s wife who devised the brilliant plan to combine his Vermont-based sitcom with his prior Chicago-based program to end it, has passed away. She was 82 years old.
After a protracted illness, she passed away on Sunday at their Century City home, publicist Jerry Digney informed The Hollywood Reporter. Recently, she and Bob commemorated their 60th wedding anniversary.
The Bob Newhart Show on CBS featured Bob Newhart as a clinical psychologist for six seasons (1972–1978) alongside Suzanne Pleshette as his wife. For the following eight seasons (1982–1990), Newhart played Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon, with Mary Frann playing his wife.
Dick wakes up in the middle of the night as Bob Hartley while in bed with Pleshette in their Chicago apartment, hinting that his entire second series had been a dream, in one of the most celebrated series finales in television history for Newhart. Ginnie had the concept for the conclusion while Pleshette was present at a Christmas party.
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On Twitter, Newhart actress Julia Duffy wrote that Ginnie “gave me the best advice in everything from decorating to childbirth and children and yes, husbands. I loved her.”
Funny, candid, huge heart. Gave me the best advice in everything from decorating to childbirth and children and yes, husbands. I loved her. RIP Ginnie Newhart.💔 pic.twitter.com/Ao5snudd7D
— julia duffy (@mybadauditions) April 24, 2023
Virginia Lillian Quinn, one of three daughters, was born in New York on December 9, 1940. Bill Quinn, a well-known character actor who began his career in vaudeville, was her father. He later played the father of Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mr. Van Ranseleer, a blind bar customer on Archie Bunker’s Place, and Leonard “Bones” McCoy’s (DeForest Kelley) father in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989).
Prior to his passing in 1994, he was married to Mary Catherine Roden for 54 years. Buddy Hackett, a comedian, put up Ginnie and Bob on a blind date because Ginnie was watching Hackett’s children at the time. In a 2013 interview, she recounted that Buddy once remarked,
“I met this young guy and his name is Bobby Newhart, and he’s a comic and he’s Catholic and you’re Catholic, and I think maybe you should marry each other.”
The first time they met, they played pool at Buddy and his wife’s house. She remarked,
“It was just silly,” in 2005. “Bob was 32, I believe, and I was 20, 21, and 21. We would go around the table chanting “Bridge on the River Kwai” every time someone would sink a ball into the pocket or do whatever else is required.
“We went a while without seeing one other. I couldn’t tell you the name of the Jerry Lewis movie I was working on as an extra, but it was at Paramount. Additionally, Bob was working on Hell Is for Heroes (1962). He visited me on the set even though I wasn’t there. I then walked over to his stage. He was not present. And he traveled a lot, so we kind of lost touch.
After some time of dating, he proposed, asking, “Would you go to St. Louis in the winter if you had a ring on your finger? ” They eventually started dating. Will your parents allow you to leave? Jan. 12, 1963, saw their wedding. She frequently made appearances in the backdrop of his broadcasts and appeared alongside him on the game show Tattletales for Couples. She also participated in Super Password as a famous gamer.
Don Rickles and his wife Barbara were close friends of the Newharts, and the families frequently went on vacation together. Bob, 93, shared his marriage secret with Parade magazine last year. No matter how tumultuous, he remarked, “comedian marriages seem to last a long time, and I attribute it to laughter.”
“Regardless of how heated your fight is, you can always find a funny moment where you both glance at each other and start giggling. Do you realize it’s over now? Their four children, Robert Jr., Timothy, Courtney, and Jennifer, as well as their ten grandkids, survive her husband.
