NEW YORK George Wendt,an actor with an Everyman charm who played the affable, beer-loving barfly Norm on the hit 1980s TV comedyCheersand later crafted a stage career that took him to Broadway in Art, Hairspray and Elf, has died. He was 76.
Wendt’s family said he died early Tuesday morning, peacefully in his sleep while at home, according to the publicity firm The Agency Group.
George was a doting family man, a well-loved friend and confidant to all of those lucky enough to have known him, the family said in a statement. He will be missed forever. The family has requested privacy during this time.
Despite a long career of roles onstage and on TV, it was as gentle and henpecked Norm Peterson on Cheers that he was most associated, earning six straight Emmy Award nominations for best supporting actor in a comedy series from 1984-89.
The series was centered on lovable losers in a Boston bar and starredTed Danson,Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman,Kelsey Grammer,John Ratzenberger, Kirstie Alley and Woody Harrelson. It would spin off another megahit in Frasier and was nominated for an astounding 117 Emmy Awards, winning 28 of them.
Wendt, who spent six years in Chicagos renowned Second City improv troupe before sitting on a barstool at the place where everybody knows your name, didn’t have high hopes when he auditioned for Cheers.
My agent said, Its a small role, honey. Its one line. Actually, its one word. The word was beer. I was having a hard time believing I was right for the role of the guy who looked like he wanted a beer. So I went in, and they said, Its too small a role. Why dont you read this other one? And it was a guy who never left the bar, Wendt told GQ in an oral history of Cheers.
Where everyone knows your name
Cheers premiered on Sept. 30, 1982, and spent the first season with low ratings. NBC president Brandon Tartikoff championed the show, and it was nominated for an Emmy for best comedy series in its first season. Some 80 million people would tune in to watch its series finale 11 years later.
Wendt became a fan favorite in and outside the bar his entrances were cheered with a warm Norm! and his wisecracks always landed. Hows a beer sound, Norm? he would be asked by the bartender. I dunno. I usually finish them before they get a word in, hed respond.
While the beer the cast drank on set was nonalcoholic, Wendt and other Cheers cast members have admitted they were tipsy on May 20, 1993, when they watched the shows final episode then appeared together on The Tonight Show in a live broadcast from the Bull and Finch Pub in Boston, the bar that inspired the series.
We had been drinking heavily for two hours but nobody thought to feed us, Wendt told the Beaver County Times of Pennsylvania in 2009. We were nowhere near as cute as we thought we were.
After Cheers, Wendt starred in his own short-lived sitcom The George Wendt Show too bad he had to step out of Norm and down so far from that corner stool for his debut stanza, sniffed Variety and had guest spots on TV shows like The Ghost Whisperer, Harrys Law and Portlandia. He was part of a brotherhood of Chicago Everymen who gathered over sausage and beers andadored Da Bears on Saturday Night Live.In 2023, he competed on The Masked Singer.
Second career on stage
But he found steady work onstage: Wendt slipped on Edna Turnblads housecoat in Broadways Hairspray beginning in 2007, and was in the Tony Award-winning play Art in New York and London.
He starred in the national tour of 12 Angry Men and appeared in a production of David Mamets Lakeboat. He also starred in regional productions of Death of a Salesman, The Odd Couple, Never Too Late and Funnyman.
A, its by far the most fun, but B, I seem to have been kicked out of television, Wendt told the Kansas City Star in 2011. I overstayed my welcome. But theater suits me.
Wendt had an affinity for playing Santa Claus, donning the famous red outfit in the stage musical Elf on Broadway in 2017, the TV movie Santa Baby with Jenny McCarthy in 2006 and in the doggie Disney video Santa Buddies in 2009. He also played Father Christmas for TV specials by Larry the Cable Guy and Stephen Colbert.
I think it just proves that if you stay fat enough and get old enough, the offers start rolling in, the actor joked to the AP in his Broadway dressing room.
Born in Chicago, Wendt attended Campion High School, a Catholic boarding school in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and then Notre Dame, where he rarely went to class and was kicked out. He transferred to Rockhurst University in Kansas City and graduated, after majoring in economics.
He found a home at Second City in both the touring company and the mainstage.
I think comedy is my long suit, for sure. My approach to comedy is usually not full-bore clownish, he told the AP. If youre trying to showboat or step outside, it doesnt always work. There are certain performers who almost specialize in doing that, and they do it really well. But thats not my approach.
Cheers for beer
He had a lifelong association with beer. He had his first taste as an 8-year-old and got drunk at 16, at the Worlds Fair in New York.
His beer knowledge was poured into the book Drinking With George: A Barstool Professionals Guide to Beer, co-written with Jonathan Grotenstein. One line: Will Rogers once said he never met a man he didnt like. I feel the same about beer.
Part autobiography, part beer drinkers guide, the book had Wendts conversational tone and lists, such as Five Good Bar Bets, 77 Toasts from Around the World and (More Than) 100 Ways to Say That Youre Drunk, which alphabetically lists 126 synonyms from annihilated through zozzled.
He is survived by his wife, Second City alum Bernadette Birkett, who voiced Norms never-seen not-so better half, Vera, on Cheers; his children, Hilary, Joe and Daniel; and his stepchildren, Joshua and Andrew.
From his early days with The Second City to his iconic role as Norm on Cheers, George Wendts work showcased how comedy can create indelible characters that feel like family. Over the course of 11 seasons, he brought warmth and humor to one of televisions most beloved roles, National Comedy Center Executive Director Journey Gunderson said in a statement.
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