'Cold Turkey' actor Newhart, 94, dies

A Greenfield man had a connection with comedian and actor Bob Newhart who passed July 18. Newhart had a role in the 1971 comedy “Cold Turkey” filmed in Greenfield two years prior.

But Gary Porter didn’t meet Newhart during filming of the movie. Porter had another moment years after with Newhart who passed at the age of 94.

Newhart earned a degree in commerce and served two years in the Army. Returning to home in Chicago after his service, he entered law school at Loyola, but flunked out. He found a job as an accountant for the state unemployment department.

Porter was the chair of the accounting department at Loyola long after Newhart attended. Porter was at Loyola for 16 years.

“We had a benefit in 1995 and it was held in Chicago. Newhart was the guest of honor and I had a chance to meet him,” Porter said about the formal, black-tie event.

“I told him about ‘Cold Turkey’ and my hometown. It was fun. He spoke fondly of his time in Greenfield,” Porter said.

Filmed in 1969, Newhart played Merwin Wren, a spokesperson for a tobacco company that offered any town $25 million if its residents would stop smoking for a month. Filmed in 1969, the comedy starred Dick Van Dyke, Jean Stapleton, Tom Poston, Pippa Scott, Graham Jarvis and others. The film was the idea of Norman Lear, who passed in December 2023.

“I wasn’t there for much of the filming,” Porter said, remembering how August and September were busy for the Adair County town and Hollywood’s visit. Porter was a student at Drake University in Des Moines. Porter, 73, is a 1968 Greenfield High graduate.

Porter, who lives near the Twin Cities in Minnesota, would have sequel meetings with Newhart.

Porter said Newhart was in shows in the theater district of Minneapolis, one in 2014 and 2019.

“For both, we were able to get a chance to meet him afterward,” Porter said. “He was friendly and very much a Midwesterner.”

The 2019 meeting was after Porter released his book “Town Kid.” The book is about Porter’s time growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in Greenfield.

Newhart did not attend the 30th anniversary celebration of the filming of “Cold Turkey” in September 1999 in Greenfield. Van Dyke, Lear, Stapleton, Poston, Jarvis, Barnard Hughes and Peggy Rea were seen among the estimated 4,000 fans at the celebration.

Porter said Newhart’s time in accounting should have been the motivation for his comedy work.

Newhart got into comedy after he became bored with the $5-an-hour accounting job in Chicago. To pass the time, he and a friend, Ed Gallagher, began making funny phone calls to each other. Eventually, they decided to record them as comedy routines and sell them to radio stations.

Their efforts failed, but the records came to the attention of Warner Bros., which signed Newhart to a record contract and booked him into a Houston club in February 1960.

“A terrified 30-year-old man walked out on the stage and played his first nightclub,” Newhart recalled in 2003.

Six of his routines were recorded during his two-week date, and the album, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” was released on April Fools’ Day 1960. It sold 750,000 copies and was followed by “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!” At one point the albums ranked No. 1 and 2 on the sales charts. The New York Times in 1960 said he was “the first comedian in history to come to prominence through a recording.”

In addition to winning Grammy’s album of the year for his debut, Newhart won as best new artist of 1960, and the sequel “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!” won as best comedy spoken word album.

Newhart also starred in two television shows. “The Bob Newhart Show” from 1972 to 1978 had him playing a psychologist. Creston native Marcia Wallace played Carol Kester as a receptionist in the comedy. From 1982 to 1990 Newhart starred in the comedy “Newhart” where he was an author and he and his wife, played by Mary Frann, owned an inn in Vermont. Poston also played in both shows.

Associated Press contributed to this story.