Actress Pleshette dies, will receive star on Walk

Pleshette’s husband, actor Tom Poston, died last year.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Suzanne Pleshette, best known for her role as Bob Newhart’s wife on television’s long-running “The Bob Newhart Show,” has died, just days before a ceremony honoring her with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Pleshette, who underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006, died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home, said attorney and family friend Robert Finkelstein.

The beautiful, husky-voiced TV, film and theater star was set to attend the Jan. 31 ceremony, her 71st birthday.

“She was a pro’s pro,” Bob Newhart said. “Although we knew she was quite sick, she was one of those people that you thought would go on forever.”

“The Bob Newhart Show, a hit throughout its six-year run, starred comedian Newhart as a Chicago psychiatrist surrounded by eccentric patients. Pleshette — as his sardonic wife — provided the voice of reason.

Four years after the show ended in 1978, Newhart went on to the equally successful “Newhart” series in which he was the proprietor of a New England inn populated by more eccentrics. When that show ended in 1990, Pleshette reprised her role — from the first show — in one of the most clever final episodes in TV history.

It had Newhart waking up in the bedroom of his “The Bob Newhart Show” home with Pleshette at his side. He went on to tell her of the crazy dream he’d just had of running an inn filled with a cast of odd characters.

Born Jan. 31, 1937, in New York City, Pleshette began her career as a stage actress after attending the city’s High School of the Performing Arts and studying at its Neighborhood Playhouse. She was often picked for roles because of her beauty and her throaty voice.

She met her future husband, Tom Poston, when they appeared together in the 1959 Broadway comedy “The Golden Fleecing,” but didn’t marry him until more than 40 years later in 2000. Poston died in April 2007.