Our Favourite Accountants from TV and Movies – Bob Newhart
George Robert Newhart is an American stand-up comedian and actor, noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery. Newhart came to prominence in 1960 when his album of comedic monologues, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, became a worldwide bestseller and reached number one on the Billboard pop album chart — it remains the 20th-best selling comedy album in history. The follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!, was also a success, and the two albums held the Billboard number one and number two spots simultaneously.
Newhart later went into acting, starring as Chicago psychologist Dr. Robert Hartley in The Bob Newhart Show during the 1970s, and then as Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s series Newhart. He also had two short-lived sitcoms in the 1990s titled Bob and George and Leo. Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22, and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers, and The Rescuers Down Under. In 2004, he played the library head Judson in The Librarian, a character which continued in 2014 to the TV series The Librarians. In 2013, Newhart made his first of five guest appearances on The Big Bang Theory as Professor Proton, for which he received his first Primetime Emmy Award on September 15, 2013.
Newhart was drafted into the United States Army and served in the United States during the Korean War as a personnel manager until being discharged in 1954. Newhart briefly attended Loyola University Chicago School of Law, but did not complete a degree, in part, he says, because he was asked to behave unethically during an internship.
After the war, Newhart worked for United States Gypsum as an accountant. He later said that his motto, "That's close enough" and his habit of adjusting petty cash imbalances with his own money shows he did not have the temperament to be an accountant. He also said he was a clerk in the unemployment office who made $55 a week, but who quit upon learning unemployment benefits were $45 a week and he "only had to come in to the office one day a week to collect it."
