George Wendt, Who Played Norm on 'Cheers,' Dies

 While the beer the cast drank on set was nonalcoholic, Wendt and other Cheers cast members have admitted they were tipsy on May 20, 1993, when they watched the show’s final episode then appeared together on The Tonight Show in a live broadcast from the Bull and Finch Pub in Boston, the bar that inspired the series.

“We had been drinking heavily for two hours but nobody thought to feed us,” Wendt told the Beaver County Times of Pennsylvania in 2009. “We were nowhere near as cute as we thought we were.”

After Cheers, Wendt starred in his own short-lived sitcom The George Wendt Show — “too bad he had to step out of Norm and down so far from that corner stool for his debut stanza,” sniffed Variety — and had guest spots on TV shows like The Ghost Whisperer, Harry’s Law and Portlandia. He was part of a brotherhood of Chicago Everymen who gathered over sausage and beers and adored “Da Bears” on Saturday Night Live.

Wendt also apppeared in more than 60 movies, including Airplane II: The Sequel, Fletch, Gung Ho and Spice World.

A second career on stage

But he found steady work onstage: Wendt slipped on Edna Turnblad’s housecoat in Broadway’s Hairspray beginning in 2007, and was in the Tony Award-winning play Art in New York and London.

 He starred in the national tour of 12 Angry Men and appeared in a production of David Mamet’s Lakeboat. He also starred in regional productions of Death of a Salesman, The Odd Couple, Never Too Late and Funnyman. 

“A, it’s by far the most fun, but B, I seem to have been kicked out of television,” Wendt told the Kansas City Star in 2011. “I overstayed my welcome. But theater suits me.”

 Wendt had an affinity for playing Santa Claus, donning the famous red outfit in the stage musical Elf on Broadway in 2017, the TV movie Santa Baby with Jenny McCarthy in 2006 and in the doggie Disney video Santa Buddies in 2009. He also played Father Christmas for TV specials by Larry the Cable Guy and Stephen Colbert.

“I think it just proves that if you stay fat enough and get old enough, the offers start rolling in,” the actor joked to the AP in his Broadway dressing room.

Born in Chicago, Wendt attended Campion High School, a Catholic boarding school in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and then Notre Dame, where he rarely went to class and was kicked out. He transferred to Rockhurst University in Kansas City and graduated, after majoring in economics.

He found a home at Second City in both the touring company and the mainstage.

“I think comedy is my long suit, for sure. My approach to comedy is usually not full-bore clownish,” he told the AP. “If you’re trying to showboat or step outside, it doesn’t always work. There are certain performers who almost specialize in doing that, and they do it really well. But that’s not my approach.”

Cheers for beer

He had a lifelong association with beer. He had his first taste as an 8-year-old and got drunk at 16, at the World’s Fair in New York.

His beer knowledge was poured into the book Drinking With George: A Barstool Professional’s Guide to Beer, co-written with Jonathan Grotenstein. One line: “Will Rogers once said he never met a man he didn’t like. I feel the same about beer.”

Part autobiography, part beer drinker’s guide, the book had Wendt’s conversational tone and lists, such as “Five Good Bar Bets,” “77 Toasts from Around the World” and ”(More Than) 100 Ways to Say That You’re Drunk,” which alphabetically lists 126 synonyms from “annihilated” through “zozzled.”

He is survived by his wife, Second City alum Bernadette Birkett, who voiced Norm’s never-seen not-so better half, Vera, on Cheers.

“From his early days with The Second City to his iconic role as Norm on Cheers, George Wendt’s work showcased how comedy can create indelible characters that feel like family. Over the course of 11 seasons, he brought warmth and humor to one of television’s most beloved roles,” National Comedy Center Executive Director Journey Gunderson said in a statement.