Norm! Cheers star George Wendt dead at 76
George Wendt, the actor known for his portrayal of beer-loving Norm Peterson on the hit NBC sitcom Cheers, has died at the age of 76.
Wendt's family confirmed the news of his death, saying he died peacefully in his sleep at home 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.
He will be missed forever," read a statement to CBC News from a family representative, which noted that his loved ones have requested privacy.
The statement did not provide a cause of death.
Wendt was nominated for six consecutive supporting actor Emmys for his performance as Norm Peterson — who famously elicited a cry of "Norm!" every time the character walked into the fictitious Boston pub.
Cheers was one of NBC's most popular shows during its run between 1982 to 1993.
Where everybody knew his name
The series, centred on lovable losers who work and patronize a Boston bar, starred Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman, Kelsey Grammer, John Ratzenberger, Kirstie Alley and Woody Harrelson.
Wendt, who spent six years in Chicago's renowned Second City improv troupe before sitting on a barstool at the place where everybody knew his name, didn't have high hopes when he auditioned for Cheers.
"My agent said, 'It's a small role, honey. It's one line. Actually, it's 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, 'It's too small a role. Why don't you read this other one?' And it was a guy who never left the bar," Wendt told GQ in an oral history of Cheers published in 2012.
Cheers premiered on Sept. 30, 1982. Though its first season garnered low ratings, NBC president Brandon Tartikoff championed the show, and it was then nominated for an Emmy for best comedy series.
Some 80 million people would tune in to watch the show's series finale 11 years later.
Wendt became a fan favourite in and outside the bar and his wisecracks always landed. When bartender Coach asked, "How's a beer sound, Norm?" he would respond "I dunno. I usually finish them before they get a word in."
While the beer the cast drank on set was nonalcoholic, Wendt and other Cheers actors admitted they were tipsy on May 20, 1993, when they watched the show's 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 and had guest spots on TV shows like Ghost Whisperer, Harry's Law and Portlandia. He was also part of a brotherhood of Chicago everymen who gathered over sausage and beers and adored "Da Bears" on Saturday Night Live.
From barstool to stage
Wendt also found steady work on stage, slipping on Edna Turnblad's housecoat in Broadway's Hairspray, based on the 1988 John Waters movie of the same name, beginning in 2007.
He reprised the role in a production of Hairspray at the Charlottetown Festival in Prince Edward Island in 2010.
"If I'm told to sing. I will do so. And if I'm told to move in a way that somewhat resembles dancing, I will also do so," CBC News reported him saying at a news conference in Charlottetown at the time.
"I'm really, really thrilled to be a part of this wonderful piece again and get back in the dress and high heels," he said. "I really look forward to coming here and feeling like an islander rather than just a tourist coming in for a couple of days. I get to live here and be here for a couple of months. I sort of sense the anxiety in the local shellfish population."
WATCH | George Wendt brings his Hairspray performance to P.E.I.:
Wendt on Charlottetown stage
15 years ago
Duration 4:42
He was in the Tony Award-winning play Art in New York and London, starred in the national tour of 12 Angry Men and appeared in a production of David Mamet's Lakeboat.
He also starred in regional productions of The Odd Couple, Never Too Late, Funnyman and played Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
He would reprise that role at St. Jacobs Country Playhouse, in Waterloo, Ont., in 2017.
"I can relate to so many of Willy's problems, and everyone can. That's why these plays — the really great plays — endure, because they're so relatable," he told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's Morning Edition that year.
Wendt once said working in theatre was a better fit for him than television.
"A, it's by far the most fun, but B, I seem to have been kicked out of television," Wendt said describing his move into theatre to the Kansas City Star of 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 version of 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 the role 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 Associated Press in his Broadway dressing room.
Born in Chicago, Wendt attended Campion High School, a Catholic boarding school in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, then Notre Dame, where he rarely went to class and was eventually kicked out.
He transferred to Rockhurst University in Kansas City and graduated, majoring in economics. He found a home at Second City in both the improv troupe's touring company and the main stage.
"I think comedy is my long suit, for sure. My approach to comedy is usually not full-bore clownish," he told The Associated Press.
"If you're trying to showboat or step outside, it doesn't always work. There are certain performers who almost specialize in doing that, and they do it really well. But that's not my approach."
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