R.I.P. Suzanne Pleshette

Suzanne Pleshette died at home in Los Angeles on Saturday at the age of 70 from respiratory failure. Preparing to write this article this morning I realized she was somewhat of a trendsetter in the 70s in her most well-known role on The Bob Newhart Show.

I wanted to refer to Pleshette’s role as Emily Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show as “the mother of … ,” and I realized she wasn’t a mother at all on the show. She was quite the trendsetter for the time. To my memory, every other nuclear family on the air at the time was more “nuclear” with at least two children, but it was just Bob and Emily, their neighbor, and his coworkers and patients on the show. The psychiatrist and teacher never had children. When Newhart created yet another sitcom in the 80s, named appropriately “Newhart,” Pleshette made a guest appearance on this show’s finale, in a very clever scene at the end, with Bob waking up from a dream, laying next to Emily, telling her of a dream he had where he owned an inn.

While mostly known for the role as Newhart’s wife, Pleshette began her career as a stage actress, eventually replacing Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker. She also appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock classic The Birds. Her most noteworthy part after The Bob Newhart Show was starring in the title role of Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean.

In her private life, Pleshette first met fellow actor Tom Poston while they were both appearing on Broadway, yet both went on to marry other people, Pleshette first marrying Troy Donahue, and later Tim Gallagher, an oilman from Texas. Later, she and Poston appeared together in the finale of Newhart, and after both had been widowed, they married each other, rekindling their romance from forty years previous. Poston died less than a year ago last April.

Well-known for her deep voice, Pleshette wad diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006 and underwent chemotherapy. She had said, though, that she always had that deep voice, even being confused for her father over the phone when she was just 4. The disease finally caught up with her this weekend as she died from respiratory failure in her home. Her birthday was coming up on January 31, where she was due to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her most famous costar, Newhart, called her an indomitable spirit, and said, “If anyone could beat cancer, it was Suzy.”

Photo courtesy of answer.com

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