Bob Newhart, the button-down undergraduate, leaves a legacy at Loyola

Picture this: It’s the late 1940s, and Bob Newhart is a freshman at Loyola University Chicago studying something decidedly un-funny: accounting. It would be hard to imagine that this young man from Oak Park, Illinois, had any idea of the future in comedy that lay ahead of him.

After quickly realizing accounting wasn’t for him (his motto as an accountant was “That’s close enough”), Newhart found his home in comedy. His first album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was released in 1960, and it was the first comedy LP to reach number one on the Billboard charts. It won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, and Newhart was named Best New Artist. This was the first comedy album to win that award and remains the only time a comedian has won Best New Artist.

But even as his star rose, he never forgot his alma mater, and Loyola never forgot about Bob. 

“He was one of the greats, and he had a unique and simple style,” says J. P. Van Beest (BA ’27), a current Loyola student studying comedy. “I try to emanate that kind of dry style.” Newhart’s legacy as a comic
also inspires Van Beest. “I want to be an entertainer of some kind. I want to leave an impact on people,” says Van Beest. 

For now, Van Beest is honing their craft in the Newhart Family Theater on the Loyola campus. The space, dedicated in 2012, honors not just Bob but the entire Newhart family, says April Browning, managing director of the Department of Fine and Performing Arts. Three of Newhart’s sisters attended Mundelein College, and one taught there as well. 

Browning says family was important to Newhart both on screen and in life. “He always considered Loyola and his Jesuit roots as part of the family man he became,” she says. She hopes more students continue to discover who Newhart was. “He lived a life according to his values in a public way, and that’s a great thing to emulate,” she says.