George Wendt Dead: Cheers Actor Was 76

George Wendt, who bellied as much as the bar to painting the beer-quaffing everyman Norm Peterson for all 11 seasons of the fabled NBC sitcom Cheers, has died. He was 76.

Wendt died peacefully in his sleep at dwelling, his household confirmed early Tuesday morning.

“George was a doting family man, a well-loved friend and confidant to all of those lucky enough to have known him,” a rep for Wendt stated in an announcement. “He will be missed forever. The family has requested privacy during this time.”

Born in Chicago and raised on the South Aspect, Wendt bought his begin within the Seventies with Second Metropolis, the famed improvisational comedy troupe that was primarily based in his hometown.

Later, he popped up on Saturday Evening Reside as Bob Swerski, one of many “superfans” who gathered at Coach Mike Ditka’s restaurant within the Windy Metropolis to observe “Da Bears.”

Wendt appeared in motion pictures together with Dreamscape (1984), Home (1985), Fletch (1985), Gung Ho (1986), Plains Garments (1987), By no means Say Die (1988), Responsible by Suspicion (1991), Eternally Younger (1992) and Spice World (1997).

He additionally performed the grumpy father of a son (Macaulay Culkin) who likes his music loud in Michael Jackson’s 1991 “Black or White” music video, directed by Jon Landis.

Survivors embody his nephew Jason Sudeikis, the one son of one among his six sisters.

Wendt’s guy-next-door persona and straightforward supply gained him appreciation from followers and castmates as he performed the lovable lug Norm, an accountant by commerce, on each installment of Cheers throughout its 1982-93 run. (Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman had been the one different actors to not miss an episode.)

He acquired Emmy nominations for excellent supporting actor in a comedy collection for six consecutive years (1984-89, from the second season to the seventh, however misplaced out to Pat Harrington Jr. of One Day at a Time in 1984, to John Larroquette of Evening Court docket from 1985-88 and to castmate Woody Harrelson in 1989.

The portly, curly-haired Wendt was self-deprecating about his well-honed supply, contending that the hardest a part of his job was ingesting the “beer,” a heat, flat, non-alcoholic concoction that was layered with a pinch of salt in each mug to create a TV head.

“There I was slamming those down for a whole day. It not only tastes disgusting, I was afraid of keeling over from high blood pressure,” he instructed The Washington Post in 1985. “Then I got the knack. I didn’t have to put all those brews away. It only mattered when the camera was pointing my way. It took a couple of years, but now I watch the camera. That’s how I make my money. That’s acting.”

One in all 9 children, George Robert Wendt Jr. was born on Oct. 17, 1948. His father owned an actual property company that his dad had based, and his mom, Loretta, was a housewife and longtime volunteer and fund-raiser for Little Firm of Mary Hospital.

Wendt’s maternal grandfather was photographer Tom Howard, who disguised himself as a priest to clandestinely snap one of the vital notorious tabloid photographs of all time — an image of assassin Ruth Snyder within the electrical chair at Sing Sing Jail in 1928 simply because the swap was thrown. The picture appeared on the entrance web page of the New York Each day Information.

Wendt attended Campion Excessive College, a Jesuit boarding faculty for boys in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, after which Notre Dame — till he was expelled with a 0.0 GPA as a junior.

“I basically quit and didn’t inform the university,” he told The Kansas City Star in 2016. “I’d moved off campus my junior year, and I didn’t think it through. I didn’t have a car. It was cold. I never went to class.”

Wendt labored for his dad, excelling in “getting coffee for the secretaries,” earlier than incomes a B.A. in economics in 1971 from one other Jesuit faculty, Rockhurst School in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri. However then he frolicked in Europe for the higher a part of three years.

Again dwelling, Wendt thought he’d attempt to grow to be a comedic actor. He attended a number of workshops and made it to Second Metropolis’s touring firm after which, in 1975, the resident firm. He was demoted after a yr however ultimately was referred to as again up.

“I did mostly slice-of-life things,” he instructed the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1983. “You make it sound real. If people stop believing you, you’re just telling jokes. That’s the way I do Norm. I don’t try to punch it up or joke it up.”

After six years of Second Metropolis, Wendt labored within the 1980 movies My Bodyguard and Someplace in Time and performed an exterminator on a 1981 episode of Taxi that was written by Glen and Les Charles and directed by James Burrows — the three soon-to-be creators of Cheers.

At his Cheers audition, Wendt stated he “needed to look like a guy who wanted to have another beer,” he told Chicago magazine in 2021, then spoke only one phrase within the pilot — “beer,” in fact. (His character then was named George; John Ratzenberger, who would play fellow barfly Cliff Clavin on the sitcom, learn for the half earlier than Wendt bought it.)

In a while the present, Norm turned a home painter, an inside decorator and — goals do come true! — a beer taster at a brewery.

When Cheers ended its run, NBC thought of a by-product that includes Wendt and Ratzenberger as bar buddies, however the present by no means materialized. As an alternative, he starred for CBS in 1995 in The George Wendt Present, enjoying the co-owner of a Wisconsin storage and co-host of a call-in radio present about automobile restore, however the comedy lasted simply six episodes.

Wendt confirmed up as Norm through the years on St. Elsewhere, Wings, The Simpsons, Household Man, Frasier and The Tortellis and as himself on Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Present.

He additionally had recurring roles on The Bare Fact and Sabrina the Teenage Witch and guest-starred on different collection like Alice, Cleaning soap, Hart to Hart, Danson’s Becker, Sizzling in Cleveland, Columbo, Harry’s Regulation, Contemporary Off the Boat and The Goldbergs.

Wendt made his Broadway debut in Artwork in 1998, and in 2007-08, he sang and danced as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray within the function originated by Harvey Fierstein.

Survivors embody his spouse, actress Bernadette Birkett, whom he married in July 1978 — they met at Second Metropolis, and he or she was the unseen, offscreen voice of Norm’s spouse, Vera, on Cheers — his youngsters, Hilary, Joe and Daniel; and his stepchildren, Joshua and Andrew.

In what’s hardly a shock, Wendt starred in beer commercials for Miller Lite and Meister Brau — he stated followers of Cheers yelled “Norm!” at him, similar to on the present, and continuously purchased him a spherical — and co-wrote a 2009 ebook, Consuming With George: A Barstool Skilled’s Information to Beer.

“I’m a simple man, I don’t ask for much. Give me a nice comfortable chair, a cool breeze, a ballgame on the radio and an ice-cold beer, and I couldn’t be happier,” he wrote to open the ebook.

“Fact be instructed, if it got here right down to it, I may stay with out the chair. A cool breeze is sweet, but it surely isn’t precisely necessary for an excellent time. And there are many occasions after I don’t have entry to a ballgame.

“But a world without beer? I don’t know if that’s the kind of world I want to live in.”