George Wendt, aka Norm from ‘Cheers,’ is dead at 76
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
By Alex Williams
George Wendt, who earned six consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his role as the bearish, beer-quaffing Everyman Norm Peterson on the enduring sitcom “Cheers,” died on Tuesday at his home in Studio City, California. He was 76.
His death was confirmed by his manager, Geoff Cheddy, who did not specify a cause.
Over more than four decades, Wendt racked up about 170 film and television credits. But he was best known for “Cheers.” He appeared on every episode of the sitcom during its 11-year run on NBC, beginning in 1982. His streak of Emmy nominations for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series began in 1984.
Wendt, a native of the South Side of Chicago, started his entertainment career in inglorious fashion, sweeping the floors at the Second City, the famed improvisational comedy club in his hometown that helped launch the careers of generations of stars, including John Belushi, Mike Myers, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
He was soon attending workshops with the troupe and, from the mid-1970s to 1980, was a part of the Second City’s resident and touring and companies. “I had no acting experience in my background,” he said in a 2013 interview with the newspaper The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, New York, “but something just clicked.”
With his easy charm and lunch-pail demeanor, Wendt headed for Hollywood to appear in the pilot for an NBC comedy featuring other Second City colleagues. He showed up on popular television shows like “Taxi,” “Alice” and “Hart to Hart” before becoming one of America’s favorite barflies on “Cheers.”
On the surface, there was nothing remarkable about the Norm character, except perhaps for his general indolence and taste for suds. But as a regular guy among regular guys, he was highly relatable to countless fans of the show.
“Norm was the least offensive character — except to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers,” Wendt said in a 1991 interview with The Evening Sun of Baltimore. “The thing was, Norm never really got drunk,” he said, adding that “he was the prototypical slacker — that’s why he was so popular.”
“But look at the reality,” he said. Norm “was terribly overweight, he couldn’t hold down a job, and his marriage was a mess. Still, if more barflies had award-winning Hollywood writers at their beck and call, they’d be popular, too.”
George Robert Wendt Jr. was born on Oct. 17, 1948 in Chicago, one of nine children of George Sr., a real estate agent and Navy officer, and Loretta (Howard) Wendt, whose grandfather was Tom Howard, a celebrated photojournalist who had taken one of the most famous tabloid cover shots of his era, sneaking a miniature camera into the death chamber at Sing Sing prison in 1928 to capture a photo of a convicted murderer, Ruth Snyder, in the electric chair.
At Second City, Wendt met his future wife, Bernadette Birkett, who later provided the voice of Norm’s unseen wife, Vera, on “Cheers.” His run with the troupe lasted until 1980.
Once in Hollywood, he won a regular role as a gym teacher on the short-lived CBS comedy “Making the Grade.” Later that year, he secured the role that would launch him to stardom.
Norm was soon a regular presence in living rooms around the nation, bellying up to the bar in the fictional Boston tavern Cheers and trading quips with the likes of Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), Sam Malone (Ted Danson), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson) and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long).
He was known for his entrances, always punctuated with a zinger:
Sam: “Hey, what’s going on, Normie?”
Norm: “It’s my birthday, Sammy. Give me a beer, stick a candle in it and I’ll blow out my liver.”
His considerable girth became a source of jokes on the show, but it also helped make Norm a relatable guy that viewers would feel like sidling up to at their neighborhood bar.
“One nice thing about being fat for a living is that you don’t worry about losing weight or dieting,” Wendt once said. “I don’t know how much I’d have to lose before it was noticeable. Anyhow, if I lost 100 pounds, people would say, ‘Oh, no, not another fat comedian wanting to be a leading man!’”
The wildly popular series finally came to a close in 1993. “It was a hard call,” Wendt told the British newspaper The Independent in 1998. “It seemed initially to defy logic because of the job security, the quality of the work and the fantastic salaries, but it was absolutely the correct decision.”
“You always want to leave them begging for more,” he added.
He is survived by his wife, Birkett; his siblings, Kathy Sudeikis, Nancy Healy, Loretta Jolivette, Marti Doherty and Paul Wendt; his children, Hilary, Joe and Danny Wendt; his stepchildren, Josh and Andrew Trossman; and one grandchild.