• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, December 26, 2024

Bob Newhart, a multigenerational comedy star whose fame spanned 60 years, tops our annual salute to the TV Legends We Lost in the past year. 

Newhart burst onto the comedy scene in 1960 at age 30 and went on to star in two of the best-remembered sitcoms in television history -- “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart.”

And he lived long enough to star in a recurring role on “Young Sheldon” up until 2020. Bob Newhart passed away this year at age 94.

As 2024 comes to a close, the TV Blog remembers Joyce Randolph, the last surviving link to one of the foundational shows of television history, “The Honeymooners.”

The show aired for just one season -- 1955-56 -- but its 39 episodes are perhaps the finest single collection of episodes of any show ever produced. Randolph was 99 when she died last January. 

What can one say about the incomparable Phil Donahue? He was the one-time undisputed champion of afternoon talk shows. 

At the height of his career, he was a household name and widely admired for the quality and high standards he maintained on his eponymous talk show. He died in August at age 88. 

Shannen Doherty’s death last July at age 53 was sad news, particularly for the generation that came of age in the 1990s.

She was one of the stars of one of the most important shows of many of their lives, “Beverly Hills 90210,” and -- after Luke Perry, who died in 2019 at age 52 -- the second of the show’s well-remembered cast to pass away too young.

From the world of TV drama, Dame Maggie Smith’s career in television stretched from 1955 to 2016. 

That year marked the end of “Downton Abbey,” the legendary series in which she stole every scene she was in as the Dowager Countess of Grantham. 

Some might say she attained a new level of worldwide fame from the show, but Maggie Smith was already a star and award winner in every sphere of the acting profession.

Elsewhere from the long history of TV drama shows, the TV Blog salutes action figures David Soul (“Starsky & Hutch”), Michael Cole (“The Mod Squad”) and two from “Police Woman,” Earl Holliman and Charles Dierkop.

In this year-end holiday season, we say good-bye to Don Murray (“Knots Landing”), Carl Weathers (“Tour of Duty,” “Street Justice,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “The Mandalorian”), Taylor Wily (“Magnum P.I.,” “Hawaii Five-O”), James B. Sikking (“Hill Street Blues”), James Darren (“The Time Tunnel”), Ron Ely (“Tarzan”), Alan Rachins (“L.A. Law”) and Gary Graham (“Alien Nation,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”).

From the world of TV comedy, we lost John Amos (“Good Times”), Teri Garr (“The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour”), Richard Lewis (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Joe Flaherty (“SCTV”) and Martin Mull (“Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” “The Ellen Show” and “Sabrina, The Teenage Witch”).

From the “Seinfeld” universe, we say good-bye to Peter Crombie, who played the volatile Joe Davola, and Mitzi McCall, who is well-remembered for playing a dry cleaner’s wife who “borrowed” the fur coat owned by Jerry’s mother.

McCall -- along with her husband, funnyman Charlie Brill -- were featured performers on the same “Ed Sullivan Show” that introduced the Beatles to America in 1964.

This year, we lost three TV personalities who were ubiquitous for their many appearances on TV’s entertainment talk shows, from “Larry King Live” to “The Tonight Show” -- Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Richard Simmons and The Amazing Kreskin.

From the world of TV game shows, we lost the great Peter Marshall (“Hollywood Squares”) and Chuck Woolery, host of “Love Connection” and the original host of “Wheel of Fortune.”

This year, the fans of TV soaps mourned the passing of Alec Musser (“All My Children”), David Gail (“Port Charles”), Marla Adams (“The Young and the Restless”), Drake Hogestyn (“Days of Our Lives”), Thom Christopher (“One Life to Live”), Barbara Rush (“Peyton Place”) and Bridget Dobson, writer and producer on “General Hospital,” “Guiding Light” and “Santa Barbara.”

The great Charles Osgood tops the list of the Legends We Lost from the world of TV news. The long-time host of “CBS Sunday Morning” was a TV and radio star for CBS for 47 years.

We also say good-bye to Robert MacNeil, NPR’s Bob Edwards, long-time New York City TV newsman Bill Jorgensen, Tom Fenton (CBS News) and Tom Jarriel (ABC News).

TV would not be a functioning enterprise if not for the executives and producers behind the shows.

This year, we said farewell to Gerald “Jerry” Levin, one-time CEO of Time Warner who engineered the company’s unsuccessful merger with AOL in 2000; and Jamie Kellner, founding president of both Fox Broadcasting and The WB, and one-time CEO of Turner Broadcasting System.

Russell Morash was credited as the creator of “This Old House.” Alan Sacks co-created “Welcome Back, Kotter” with Gabe Kaplan. Dan Wilcox was one of the writers of the series finale of “M*A*S*H,” which drew an estimated audience of 106 million.

Who else? Here’s one: Frank Fritz, who rode America’s blue highways for 11 years to look for America on History Channel’s “American Pickers.” Fritz died in September at age 60.

As this year’s Legends We Lost salute comes to a close, the TV Blog wishes to acknowledge Tom Shales, a TV critic like no other (not even me) whose columns for The Washington Post won him a rare honor for a TV critic -- the Pulitzer Prize.

Photos: Top row (l-r) Bob Newhart, Phil Donahue, Joyce Randolph, John Amos. Bottom row (l-r) Maggie Smith, Shannen Doherty, Charles Osgood, Richard Simmons