Suzanne Pleshette

Suzanne Pleshette (January 31, 1937 – January 19, 2008) was an American actress and voice actress. After beginning her career in the theatre, she began appearing in films in the early 1960s, such as Rome Adventure (1962) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). She later appeared in various television productions, often in guest roles, and played Emily Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show from 1972 until 1978, receiving several Emmy Award nominations for her work. She continued acting until 2004, four years before her death.

Early life

Pleshette was born in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York City. Her parents were Jewish and the children of immigrants from Russia and Austria-Hungary. Her mother, Geraldine (née Kaplan), was a dancer and artist who performed under the stage name Geraldine Rivers. Her father, Eugene Pleshette, was a stage manager, network executive and manager of the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn. She graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts and then attended Syracuse University for one semester before transferring to Finch College. She later graduated from Manhattan's prestigious acting school, The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, and was under the tutelage of renowned acting teacher Sanford Meisner.

Bob Newhart

George Robert "Bob" Newhart (born on September 5, 1929) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide bestseller and reached number one on the Billboard pop album chart—it remains the 20th best-selling comedy album in history. The follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! was also a massive success, and the two albums held the Billboard number one and number two spots simultaneously.

Newhart later went into acting, starring in two long-running and award-winning situation comedies, first as psychologist Dr. Robert "Bob" Hartley on the 1970s sitcom The Bob Newhart Show and then as innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s sitcom Newhart. He also had two short-lived sitcoms in the nineties titled Bob and George and Leo. Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22 and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. In 2004 he played the library head Judson in The Librarian, a character which continued in 2014 to the TV series The Librarians. In 2013, Newhart made his first of four guest appearances on The Big Bang Theory, for which he received his first Primetime Emmy Award on September 15, 2013.