George Wendt, who has died at the age of 76, made his name on the American sitcom Cheers as Norm Peterson, a beer-loving lover. He appeared in 275 episodes of the series, which ran from 1982 to 1993. He starred alongside Ted Danson as Sam Malone, owner of the Cheers bar, and had a worldwide following.
His character’s arrival was a recurring joke: he would walk in the door and greet regular customers in the evening (or afternoon) to be shouted back in unison, “Norm!”, which echoed the show’s lyrics: “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.”
Wendt played a key role in developing the character, who was never intended to be a regular and began with a different name. As George in the original opening episode, he was the first customer at a Boston bar, uttering only one line: “Beer!”
“My agent said, ‘It’s a small part, honey. It’s just one line. It’s really just one word. ‘” But the producers saw potential in the actor and expanded the role to include an unemployed accountant, later changing his name to Norm in the series. He became a painter and decorator.
Les Charles, who created Cheers with his brother Glen and show director James Burrows, said he based Cheers on someone he met while working behind the bar as a student. Norm had a loyal drinking buddy named Cliff Calvin (John Ratzenberger), a mailman who knew it all.
Shelley Long also played Diane Chambers, a college graduate with an “Uptown-Downtown” connection to Sam, who greeted Wendt’s character with the more polite “Norman.” Rhea Perlman played Carla Tortelli, a waitress.
Woody Harrelson later took over as bartender Woody Boyd, followed by Nicholas Colasanto (who played Coach), Kelsey Grammer as psychiatrist Dr. Frazier Crane, and Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe, who replaced Long in 1987.
The sitcom initially had a slow start, with low ratings. But critical acclaim and five Primetime Emmy Awards in 1983 helped keep the sitcom afloat. “The turning point was the start of season three,” Wendt says, adding with a sneer. “We were way behind The Cosby Show in the schedule, and I guess people were too lazy to change the channel.”
Overall, Cheers won 28 Emmys over 11 seasons and drew an audience of 93 million in the United States, or 40 percent of the TV audience. By its final episode in 1993, Wendt had earned six Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
Wendt reprised the role in episodes of St Elsewhere (1985) and The Tortellis (1987) and the Cheers spinoff Frasier (2002), as well as providing voice work on The Simpsons (1994) and Family Guy (2007 and 2009).
He was born in Chicago. One of nine children, Wendt was born to Loretta (nee Howard), a hospital volunteer with ancestors from County Mayo, Ireland, and George Wendt Sr., a real estate owner.
His grandfather, Tom Howard, was a photographer who took a photo of convicted murderer Ruth Snyder in the electric chair as the switch was flipped in 1928, which appeared on the front page of the New York Daily News.
Wendt attended Campion High, a Jesuit boarding school in Wisconsin, but was expelled from the University of Notre Dame. He said he dropped out without a car and skipped classes, before graduating with a degree in economics from Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1971.
He wanted to act, so he returned to Chicago, studied acting, and joined the improv comedy troupe Second City (1974-80).
He then appeared in Hart to Hart, Taxi, and the spoofs Soap (all in 1981), M*A*S*H (1982), and Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), playing a ticket agent.
Fame in the film Cheers led to Wendt playing Macaulay Culkin’s nagging father in the opening scene of Michael Jackson’s pop music video Black Or White (1991).
His own sitcom, The George Wendt Show (1995), played the co-owner of a Wisconsin auto repair shop whose phone-in talk show is a failure. More impressively, he appeared in The Naked Truth (1997) as Les Polanski, a meatball mogul who buys a tabloid newspaper with the aim of making it “respectable,” and in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (2001-02) as Mike Shelby, the cynical editor-in-chief of the Boston Citizen.
Wendt played a film producer in the Spice Girls’ film Spice World (1997) and made guest appearances on television shows such as Saturday Night Live (from 1991 to 2003).
His acting career after Cheers also saw success on Broadway. He played Yvan, caught up in a conflict between three friends, in Yasmina Reza’s comedy Art (Royal Theatre, 1998-99). Edna Turnblad, a large-size laundrywoman, is played by a man who dresses as a woman. in the musical Hairspray (Neil Simon Theatre, 2007-08), Santa in the musical Elf (Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 2010-11), and Joe Bell, the bar owner, in the musical Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Cort Theatre, 2013).
He co-wrote the book Drinking With George: A Barstool Professional’s Guide to Beer (2009) with Jonathan Grotenstein.
In 1978, Wendt married actress Bernadette Burkett, whom he met at Second City and occasionally heard playing Norm’s wife Vera in the musical Cheers but never met.
She is survived by their children, Hilary, Joe, and Daniel, step-sons Joshua and Andrew, one grandchild, and his siblings Kathy, Nancy, Loretta, Marty, and Paul.