Bob Newhart

More often than not, people live lives of quiet desperation in jobs they hate. But not Bob Newhart. No sooner had he become an accountant than he knew he had to get out. "I just made the decision that I was going to try comedy, and if didn't work, then I knew it didn't work," he says. "Then I would go back and do whatever. But at least I wouldn't torture myself the rest of my life, wondering whatever would have happened. . . ." He didn't make the transformation overnight.

Veteran comedian David Steinberg, who has directed such hit TV comedies as "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Mad About You" and "Seinfeld," returns to Showtime on Monday evening for the second season of his interview series, "Inside Comedy. " This season he turns his lens on Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Bob Newhart, Jim Carrey and more. Do you think comedy can be dissected? I don't really dissect comedy. Nothing kills off humor more than overanalyzing it. On our show, it's just a conversation that I don't prepare for at all. Usually I know everyone because I've been around a lot, but the idea is to get their feeling about what it is that they're doing, the start, the middle and where they are now. What you get is very, very funny people who aren't switched on as they usually are on a talk show in front of an audience, so you can see how naturally funny they are. PHOTOS: Celebrity portraits by The Times I thought it was interesting when Jim Carrey told you he thought that comics come from mothers with some form of mental illness.

"I heard that Clint Eastwood is channeling me at the RNC. My lawyers and I are drafting our lawsuit.” @bobnewhart During Thursday's telecast of the Republican National Convention, legendary comedian Bob Newhart, 82, got a call from his daughter Jennifer, who runs his Twitter account, @bobnewhart. His account was going through the roof during Eastwood's rambling “stand-up” routine, during in which he pretended to have a conversation with an imaginary President Obama sitting in a chair next to him. INTERACTIVE: Republican National Convention speeches The routine called to mind Newhart's classic comedy bits where he would pretend to be talking on the phone with someone who was often in a panic, like a young security guard seeking help from his boss when King Kong starts climbing the Empire State building.

The highlight of "The Dean Martin Christmas Show," which was just released on DVD, is a comedy bit with the host dressed in a tux playing an employee at a department store complaint department. He's visited by Bob Newhart, who wants to return a bad toupee. The two try to maintain their composure but can't stop laughing during the sketch. The swinging fun, which aired in 1968, also features Dom DeLuise, Dennis Weaver, a cameo by Bob Hope and plenty of holiday songs with Dino, the Golddiggers and his staff's offspring.

Bob Newhart, whose long-running "Newhart" series comes to an end this season, will star in his third TV series for CBS in the 1991-92 season, the network said Friday. "Newhart," which premiered in 1982 and starred Newhart as the owner of a New England inn, will air its last original episode May 21. Previously, Newhart starred in the 1972-78 series "The Bob Newhart Show" as a Chicago psychologist. No premise has been set for the new show, which will be produced by Arthur Price Productions.

The highlight of "The Dean Martin Christmas Show," which was just released on DVD, is a comedy bit with the host dressed in a tux playing an employee at a department store complaint department. He's visited by Bob Newhart, who wants to return a bad toupee. The two try to maintain their composure but can't stop laughing during the sketch. The swinging fun, which aired in 1968, also features Dom DeLuise, Dennis Weaver, a cameo by Bob Hope and plenty of holiday songs with Dino, the Golddiggers and his staff's offspring.

Flanked by clowns in whiteface, veteran stand-up comic and actor Bob Newhart took the stage again Tuesday, this time as grand marshal of the 102nd Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. Newhart, 61, will head the 5 1/2-mile New Year's Day parade, the theme of which will be "Fun 'n' Games." At his introduction at the Tournament House in Pasadena, Newhart said he was one of few comedians, "excluding politicians," to be so honored in the parade's history.

Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Who Never Won a Grammy: the Band, the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, the Byrds, Sam Cooke, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cream, the Doors, the Drifters, the Four Tops, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, the Jackson 5, the Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Little Richard, Bob Marley, Van Morrison, the Supremes, the Who, Hank Williams Sr., the Velvet Underground.

Bob Newhart may stammer, but he never misses a beat. As the story goes, Newhart feared turning into a sitcom cliche -- the dopey but lovable dad -- so he insisted his TV characters be childless. When the creators of his 1970s CBS classic, "The Bob Newhart Show," eventually presented him with a script in which his on-screen wife, Emily (Suzanne Pleshette), gets pregnant, he chuckled and asked, "Who are you going to get to play Bob?"

After a disappointing premiere season, "Bob," Bob Newhart's third series in 20 years, returns to CBS Friday at 9 p.m. with a new setting, new characters and a new Bob, who will be more like the familiar stammering, befuddled Newhart character that propelled his previous two TV hits, "The Bob Newhart Show" and "Newhart." Last season, Newhart played graphic artist Bob McKay , who gave up his job drawing greeting cards to revive his "Mad Dog" super-hero at a comic-book company.

Clint Eastwood's awkward argument with an invisible President Obama in an empty chair at Thursday's Republican National Convention isn't something that sprang out of the movie legend's imagination. As many people have already pointed out, Eastwood was channeling the 1960s era stand-up comedy of Morey Amsterdam and Bob Newhart. As Time magazine's Mark Halperin explained on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Friday, "I think everyone has missed that E astwood's performance is very closely based on a M orey Amsterdam performance from dinner theater in Bayonne.

"I heard that Clint Eastwood is channeling me at the RNC. My lawyers and I are drafting our lawsuit.” @bobnewhart During Thursday's telecast of the Republican National Convention, legendary comedian Bob Newhart, 82, got a call from his daughter Jennifer, who runs his Twitter account, @bobnewhart. His account was going through the roof during Eastwood's rambling “stand-up” routine, during in which he pretended to have a conversation with an imaginary President Obama sitting in a chair next to him. INTERACTIVE: Republican National Convention speeches The routine called to mind Newhart's classic comedy bits where he would pretend to be talking on the phone with someone who was often in a panic, like a young security guard seeking help from his boss when King Kong starts climbing the Empire State building.

Update: A gated Bel-Air estate built in 1932 and designed by architect Gerard Colcord has sold for $10.5 million, the Multiple Listing Service shows. The Horton House, named for its original owners, has been owned by entertainment industry personalities including former Univision Chairman and Chief Executive Jerry Perenchio, actor Bob Newhart and soap star Deidre Hall, according to "Colcord Home" by Bret Parsons. The restored French farmhouse-style home has eight bedrooms, 10 1/2 bathrooms and about 10,000 square feet of living space.

More often than not, people live lives of quiet desperation in jobs they hate. But not Bob Newhart. No sooner had he become an accountant than he knew he had to get out. "I just made the decision that I was going to try comedy, and if didn't work, then I knew it didn't work," he says. "Then I would go back and do whatever. But at least I wouldn't torture myself the rest of my life, wondering whatever would have happened. . . ." He didn't make the transformation overnight.

It was in the cafeteria of a Seattle Hilton that Bob Newhart got the inspiration for his second sitcom, the follow-up to "The Bob Newhart Show." Hotel guests, he observed, are much like the patients of psychologist Robert Hartley on that 1970s small-screen classic -- not to be argued with, no matter how nonsensical. As Newhart put it in a recent phone conversation, "I function well with a bunch of crazies around me that I can react to."

Suzanne Pleshette, the dark-haired, smoky-voiced actress who played Bob Newhart's confident and sexy wife, Emily Hartley, for six years on the popular 1970s sitcom "The Bob Newhart Show," has died. She was 70. The widow of comic actor Tom Poston, Pleshette died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home, Robert Finkelstein, an entertainment lawyer and family friend, told the Associated Press. Pleshette underwent chemotherapy in 2006 for lung cancer.

The doctor is now the patient. Comedian Bob Newhart, who in the '70s helped bring a broad legitimacy to the mental health profession as America's favorite psychologist, Bob Hartley, on the sitcom "The Bob Newhart Show," is returning to television Thursday -- but this time it's not for laughs. The 73-year-old master of the comedic pregnant pause is taking on his first wholly dramatic role, as a suicide-minded architect losing his sight due to macular degeneration, in a special multi-episode stint on "ER."

Bob Newhart is having a moment. His first book, "I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This," hits bookstores today, and it's gotten an enthusiastic early reception. There was an unlikely shout-out from the New York Post's Page 6, which quoted from it approvingly.

Bob Newhart is having a moment. His first book, "I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This," hits bookstores today, and it's gotten an enthusiastic early reception. There was an unlikely shout-out from the New York Post's Page 6, which quoted from it approvingly.