Whether from Austin or Oak Park, the Greater West Side is happy to claim celebrated comedian Bob Newhart as their own. Newhart died in August just shy of his 95th birthday.
Famous for his one-sided phone call bit, Newhart received numerous awards over his 60-year career, including three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
When asked by Wednesday Journal to research Newhart’s experience growing up on the West Side, Frank Lipo, executive director of the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest, knew he would have the resources.
“The historical society has been around for 50 plus years as an organization. So, before I even started working here 30 years ago, we had a file on Bob Newhart,” said Lipo.
Lipo said Newhart was born on Sept. 5, 1929 at West Suburban Hospital, then as now on the Austin Boulevard border between Austin and Oak Park. According to the census the following year, Newhart and his family lived at 59 N. Menard Ave., in Austin. By the 1940 census, the family had moved two blocks west to 26 N. Mason Ave.
Growing up Newhart spent time in both Austin and Oak Park.
In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Newhart said, “We used to say we lived in Oak Park because it sounded more posh and Hemingway lived there. But actually we lived in Austin.”
He also had family spread across the West Side, with his grandparents, aunt and many others living close by.
“His story is about this extended family and how he was really an Austinite, a Chicagoan, and had some Oak Park connections,” said Lipo.
Growing up, Newhart was surrounded by an Irish Catholic community.
“His family was very Catholic,” said Lipo. “One of his sisters became a nun.”
For high school, Newhart attended Saint Ignatius College Prep, a Jesuit school on the city’s near west side. His dad also attended Ignatius.
Through his research, Lipo found that Newhart’s father was very active in St. Lucy Parish on Lake Street in Austin. St. Lucy later merged with St. Catherine of Siena parish at Austin and Washington in Oak Park.
Newhart’s experience with theater began in the church, with him attending St Edmund Catholic Parish’s youth theater program called Edmund Players. Newhart also acted with the Oak Park Playhouse, a community theater that performed in the Lowell School, an Oak Park public school at the corner of Lake and Forest. That site later became one of Oak Park’s first high rise apartment buildings. There, he performed in plays including “Pygmalion,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and “First Lady.”
While he studied business and accounting at Loyola University, Newhart wanted to be a comedian. His breakout performance was at Mister Kelly’s, a landmark Chicago nightclub. Mister Kelly’s attracted all the big names of an era that spanned Ella Fitgerald to Steve Martin. A Newberry Library report quoted Newhart saying that being on the stage at Mister Kelly’s, “Newhart felt he had finally ‘made it in show business.”
“His mother and father couldn’t get into the show because it was such a sell out,” said Lipo.
When performing at the Chicago Theatre, Newhart told the Chicago Tribune “I used to take the streetcar down to the Chicago Theatre to see great bands. For me, to walk out on those boards is like something I never thought would happen.”