'Cheers' star George Wendt dead at 76: 'He will be missed forever'
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George Wendt, who was best known for playing Norm Peterson on NBC's long-running sitcom Cheers, died Tuesday at the age of 76.
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Wendt's publicist Melissa Nathan and family confirmed his death in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, telling the outlets he died early Tuesday morning, peacefully in his sleep while at home.
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'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.'
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After getting his start with Chicago's Second City troupe in the 1970s, the father of three caught his big break as Norm on Cheers in 1982.
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The role earned him six Emmy nominations, from 1984-89, and ran for 11 seasons, from 1982 to 1993. It was a character he played in other NBC shows during its run, including Wings and St. Elsewhere. He later reprised the role opposite Kelsey Grammer in his Frasier spinoff.
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Wendt, who was uncle to Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis, also had a recurring part on Saturday Night Live as Bob Swerski, a Chicago Bears superfan.
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Following Cheers' end, Wendt landed his own short-lived sitcom, The George Wendt Show, which cast him as a co-owner of a garage shop in Wisconsin. But despite his much-ballyhooed return to TV, the show was a flop, lasting only six episodes.
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He later found a renewed career onstage, appearing in Broadway productions of Art, Hairspray and Elf.
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In 2017, he checked off a bucket-list part when he took on the tragic Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse in Waterloo, Ont.
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'If I can manage to pull this off it should be quite a capper in a career in the theatre,' Wendt told Postmedia in an interview. 'It's considered one of the classics and I'd say that's spot-on. It's got classic themes — fathers and sons, big picture operatic themes.'
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Initially when he auditioned for Cheers, Wendt said Norm only had one line — 'Beer.'
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'The casting director, the late Stephen Kolzak, I was in his office and he said, 'There's this role, but it's too small. You can't just say beer.' So he handed me the part of Norm,' Wendt recalled in a 2017 interview. 'It wasn't that big, but it was the guy who always wanted another beer and didn't want to leave. So I read for that and they were interested but I wasn't available, oddly. I was doing a different show. So they had me on the pilot as a guest star and then my other show got cancelled, so then they made Norm a regular role.'
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Toronto Sun
6 hours ago
- Toronto Sun
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Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Rather than recast the part, e xecutive producer Ken Corday went to Hogestyn's family and got permission to conclude his nearly 40-year arc by killing off Black. His funeral scenes were shot while Hogestyn was still alive last fall, but they offered closure to his co-stars. 'Drake, as the consummate storyteller that he is, said, 'Absolutely. You gotta tell the story,'' Eric Martsolf, who played his son Brady, told Variety this week. 'Drake knew what he was facing. He understood that this is a story fans would want to be told. So Drake graciously said, 'Yes, let's do it.' 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Montreal Gazette
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Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
US Open '25: DeChambeau's sand save an all-time memory at golf's most punishing major
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More than 10,000 players signed up to qualify for the U.S. Open which is, officially, open to any professional, or amateur with a handicap of 0.4 or lower. There will be good stories to tell among those who went through qualifying to make the 156-man field: a 17-year-old high schooler from Georgia, a dentist in Indiana who used to caddie at Oakmont. The cold facts: The last man to run the gauntlet of local and sectional qualifying to win the title was Orville Moody in 1969. (Lucas Glover went through sectional qualifying only when he won in 2009.) By the time the sun starts going down on Sunday, the tournament almost certainly will come down to a handful of players who virtually all golf fans have heard of. Though Scottie Scheffler is playing the best right now and Rory McIlroy recently won the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam, it's plausible to think that DeChambeau captures the attention of more of those fans than anyone. He recently surpassed 2 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He is making golf feel like everyman's sport, posting videos in which he makes a hole-in-one with a wedge shot over his house, plays with off-the-rack clubs to see how they stack up and tries to beat a scratch golfer while playing left-handed. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. All of it sounds nutty, but it all goes back to that piece of advice he offered when asked how to replicate the improbable under impossible circumstances — i.e., a 50-yard bunker shot with the U.S. Open on the line. 'Once you get a stock shot down and you're comfortable with it, go have some fun,' DeChambeau said. 'Do a chipping contest with your amateur friends and throw it in the bunker from 50 yards, or throw it in a bush and see if you can get out. Stuff to that extent has suited my game very well.' ___ AP Sports Writer Ben Nuckols contributed to this report. ___ AP golf:
