Love That Bob

7 BOB NEVER GAVE A DARN ABOUT MOVIE STARDOM. "I've certainly had an undistinguished movie career," concedes Newhart, whose spotty big-screen resume includes such blips as 1962's Hell Is for Heroes and 1980's First Family. "I never had the patience for it. I need the immediacy of a live audience." Newhart recently came close to dropping out of his first feature-film role in years, as a high school principal in the current Kevin Kline comedy In & Out, when the production was delayed and nearly overlapped with a long-planned family visit. "I talked to [director] Frank Oz and said, 'Look, I like you very much, but if I have a choice between staring at you or at my granddaughter, frankly I'd rather stare at her.' And he said, 'I promise I'll have you out in time,'" recalls Newhart, who, in addition to his one grandchild, has four kids with Ginnie, his wife of 34 years. "I have different priorities."

8 BOB IS ADMIRED BY ELLEN DEGENERES AND LISA KUDROW. In 1986, DeGeneres won over Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show with her "phone call to God" routine. That breakthrough monologue was influenced by Newhart's legendary phone bits, in which he would react to an unheard caller. (Ellen once approached him to play a therapist on the show, but Newhart — who almost never does guest shots — declined.) And Kudrow made a guest appearance in the last episode of Newhart (as one of Larry, Darryl, and Darryl's chatty fiancees) long before she became a Friend. "It's not based on shtick or one-liners," says Kudrow of Newhart's appeal. "It's just funny to watch a human being try to make everything okay."

9 BOB NEVER OVERSTAYS HIS WELCOME. Newhart voluntarily pulled the plug on The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart when he felt the shows had run their course. "I've always wanted to go off the air a year early rather than a year late," he says. So when does Newhart envision George & Leo ending its run? "Whenever that little man who's been on my shoulder says, 'Well, okay, close it down.'" In life, as in comedy, timing is everything.

(Additional reporting by Dan Snierson)