Cheers star George Wendt dies aged 76
Wendt’s family said he died early on Tuesday morning, peacefully in his sleep while at home, publicity firm The Agency Group said.
George Wendt, who played the affable, beer-loving barfly Norm on the hit 1980s TV comedy Cheers and 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 on 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 requested privacy.
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 centred on lovable losers in a Boston bar and starred Ted 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 Chicago’s renowned Second City improv troupe before sitting on a barstool at the place where everybody knows your name, did not 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.
After Cheers, Wendt starred in his own short-lived sitcom, The George Wendt Show, and had guest spots on TV shows including The Ghost Whisperer, Harry’s Law and Portlandia.
In 2023, he competed on The Masked Singer.
He was part of a brotherhood of Chicago Everymen who gathered over sausage and beers and adored “Da Bears” on Saturday Night Live.
He found steady work onstage: Wendt slipped on Edna Turnblad’s housecoat in Broadway’s 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 Mamet’s Lakeboat. He also starred in regional productions of Death of a Salesman, The Odd Couple, Never Too Late and Funnyman.
“A, it’s 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 theatre 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 Associated Press 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 asked to leave.
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 you’re trying to showboat or step outside, it doesn’t always work. There are certain performers who almost specialise in doing that, and they do it really well. But that’s not my approach.”
He is survived by his wife, Bernadette Birkett, who voiced Norm’s 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 Wendt’s work showcased how comedy can create indelible characters that feel like family. Over the course of 11 seasons, he brought warmth and humour to one of television’s most beloved roles,” National Comedy Centre executive director Journey Gunderson said in a statement.
