The running joke in Cheers was simple: every time Norm Peterson walked into the bar, everyone shouted “Norm!”, and he answered with a one-liner about his job, his wife or his thirst. George Wendt played Norm in all 275 episodes between 1982 and 1993, making the barfly one of the best-loved characters in American television. Wendt died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Studio City, California, on May 20, 2025. He was 76.
Wendt was born in Chicago on October 17, 1948, and was famously asked to leave the University of Notre Dame after one semester with a poor grade average. He joined Chicago’s Second City improv troupe in the 1970s, where he met his wife, the actress Bernadette Birkett. Their nephew, through Birkett’s family, is the actor Jason Sudeikis.
Norm
Cheers began slowly in the ratings but became one of the most successful sitcoms ever made. Wendt’s Norm, an accountant who never seemed to work and whose wife, Vera, was never seen, sat on the same stool for eleven seasons. He was nominated for six consecutive Emmy Awards for the role. The show’s success brought him film roles in Fletch, Gung Ho and House, and in 1991 he played Bob Swerski, one of the beer-drinking Chicago sports superfans, in the “Da Bears” sketches on Saturday Night Live. After Cheers ended, Wendt starred in his own short-lived sitcom and returned to the stage, appearing in plays and musicals including Hairspray on Broadway, where he played Edna Turnblad. He also reprised Norm in episodes of Frasier. His family said he had been a devoted husband and father.
Norm Peterson barely moved from his bar stool in eleven years, and the shout that greeted him became one of the best-known catchphrases in television history.