HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Actress Suzanne Pleshette, best known for her role as Bob Newhart’s wife on the long-running television series “The Bob Newhart Show,” has died at age 70.
Pleshette died of respiratory failure at her Los Angeles home on Saturday, friends and associates revealed. The actress underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006 and appeared in a wheelchair at a Bob Newhart reunion in September.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Actress Suzanne Pleshette, best known for her role as Bob Newhart’s wife on the long-running television series “The Bob Newhart Show,” has died at age 70.
Pleshette died of respiratory failure at her Los Angeles home on Saturday, friends and associates revealed. The actress underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006 and appeared in a wheelchair at a Bob Newhart reunion in September.
Newhart issued a statement calling his co-star “an indomitable spirit” and “one of those people you thought would go on forever.”
“She was a pro’s pro and I know she was looking forward to getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on her birthday, January 31,” Newhart told Reuters.
Many years after the end of “The Bob Newhart Show,” Pleshette reprised her role on Newhart’s follow-up series “Newhart, in what is considered one of the most clever TV episodes in history. In the “Newhart” series finale, Newhart wakes up in the bedroom of his “The Bob Newhart Show” home with Pleshette at his side. He goes on to tell her of the crazy dream he’d just had of running an inn filled with eccentrics, the premise of his “Newhart” series.
“If I’m in Timbuktu, I’ll fly home to do that,” Pleshette said of her reaction when Newhart revealed how he wanted to end the show.
Born in New York, Pleshette began her career as a stage actress after attending the city’s High School of the Performing Arts and studying at its Neighborhood Playhouse. She was often picked for roles because of her beauty and her throaty voice.
She was regular on television shows in the 1970s and 1980s, most recently appearing in a recurring role on NBC’s “Will and Grace.”
Pleshette received two Emmy Award nominations for her work on “The Bob Newhart Show,” as well as a nod for her leading performance in the 1991 television movie “Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean.”
Pleshette was married three times, most recently to comic actor Tom Poston, who died in April 2007.
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