Cheers to a life effectively lived : NPR

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WALLY FONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS/AP George Wendt died this week on the age of 76. I first met him at The Second Metropolis in Chicago, the place he was already being typecast in bits as paunchy cops and roly-poly metropolis council members.

However he was greatest identified from the TV present Cheers, a few bar the place all people knew his character's identify: "Norm!"

"What would you say to a beer, Normie?" asks Sam the bartender.

"Daddy wuvs you," Norm replies.

George Wendt appeared on each episode of Cheers, over eleven seasons, and was nominated for six consecutive Emmys for his work on the present. He had dozens of visitor roles over his profession — together with on Saturday Night time Stay, as a beer-chugging superfan of "Da Bears." And he briefly starred in a sit-com the place he performed one among a pair of brothers who owns a storage and hosts a wisecracking radio present about automobiles. The place did Hollywood ever get an thought like that?

A lot of years in the past, George and I did a mission collectively in New York, and a gaggle of us had dinner. Among the faces on the desk have been well-known. But it surely was George Wendt folks picked out once they handed by.

"Norm!" they'd name out. George known as again, "How ya' doin', pal?" and tipped a beer of their route. Sure, he actually did like beer.

"They need me to be Norm," he instructed us. "Glad to do it."

Someplace towards dessert I obtained the nerve to ask George if he ever bored with being typecast, and he grinned.

"It is a good life," he instructed us. "Individuals do not know me, however they like me." Then added, with masterful timing, "However I'm a bit upset that when folks ask, 'Who's the subsequent James Bond?' my identify by no means comes up."

Kelly Leonard, an government at The Second Metropolis, instructed us this week, "The characters he performed shared a lot with the actor who portrayed him: humorous, charming, and a sly wit that was by no means imply, however laden with fact. He handled you a similar whether or not you have been the dishwasher or the producer — I do know, as a result of I used to be each — and George Wendt did not discriminate by title."

It's a good life for an actor when all people is aware of the identify of the character he made his personal. Cheers, Norm. And this is to you, George.