George Wendt, ‘Cheers’ Star Who Played Norm Peterson, Dead at 76

George Wendt, the actor and comedian best known for playing Norm Peterson on the classic sitcom Cheers, died Tuesday, May 20. He was 76.

A rep for Wendt confirmed his death to Rolling Stone. An exact cause of death was not given, though the rep said Wendt “died peacefully in his sleep while at home.”

The rep’s statement continued: “George was a doting family man, a well-loved friend and confidant to all of those lucky enough to have known him. He will be missed forever. The family has requested privacy during this time.”

Emerging from the Second City comedy scene in his hometown of Chicago, Wendt was a prolific comic actor who racked up hundreds of credits in films, TV shows, and even a few music videos. But his most memorable performance was as Norm Peterson — real full name Hilary Norm Peterson — on Cheers, a role for which he earned six straight Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series between 1984 and 1989. 

Wendt played Norm as the ultimate regular, always worthy of the enthusiastic greeting — “Norm!” — he garnered upon entering the titular bar (despite never fully settling his bar tab). Wendt would often get to punctuate these arrivals with a one-liner about Norm’s day, or his desire for a beer, always delivered with dry, weary perfection: “It’s a dog eat dog world and I’m wearing milkbone underpants,” for example, or: “What’s the story, Norm?” “Boy meets beer. Boy drinks beer. Boy meets another beer.”

Wendt also made a string of memorable cameos on Saturday Night Live during the Nineties, playing Bob Swerski, a member of the group of Chicago sports superfans that also included Chris Farley, Mike Myers, and Robert Smigel.

Wendt was born and raised in Chicago, and went on to attend a Jesuit boarding high school in Wisconsin before enrolling at Notre Dame University. He never graduated, dropping out after his junior year with a 0.0 GPA he chalked up to difficulties stemming from his decision to live off-campus, and with no car to get him to class during winter. 

He eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at Rockhurst College in Kansas City, then spent a few years traveling the world and soul-searching. As Wendt told The Kansas City Star in 2016, “One thing I did learn at Rockhurst was Karl Marx’s theory of alienation, and I didn’t want to be alienated from myself and I was determined to do something with my life that I enjoyed and felt right to me. I remember going to see Second City [in Chicago] when I was in college. It looked for all the world like a bunch of young men and women goofing off onstage, and I was pretty sure they got paid. So I thought, wow, if I could do that.”

Wendt joined Second City in the mid-Seventies, and spent the rest of the decade there honing his chops, often performing as many as eight shows a week — even though he was never a huge fan of improv comedy. “I liken it to jumping out of an airplane,” he told the Chicago Tribune, in 1988. “The apprehension is pure dread. I mean, once you’re actually doing it you’re going, ‘Wow, this is great!’ But naw, I don’t miss improvising that much.”

It was also at Second City that Wendt met his future wife, Bernadette Birkett, with the couple marrying in 1978. They would go on to have three children together. Birkett would also later provide the voice of Norm’s omnipresent, but never seen wife Vera, on Cheers.

In the early Eighties, Wendt began to earn his first film and TV roles, including credits on hit sitcoms like Taxi and M*A*S*H. He didn’t have to wait long for his breakthrough: He was cast as Norm on Cheers in 1982 and would go on to appear in all 275 episodes of the series, which aired until 1993. (The only other cast members with perfect attendance on the series were Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman.)

In a 1985 Washington Post story, Cheers co-creator Les Charles praised Wendt’s uniquely, and hilariously, blasé style of comedy: “Some guys throw away lines, he throws away his whole performance,” Charles said. Wendt’s co-star John Ratzenberger, who played mailman Cliff Clavin, added that Wendt makes “good comedy look so effortless. He just knows what’s right.” 

While Cheers took up the bulk of his time, Wendt continued to act in other projects throughout the show’s run, including movies like Fletch, House, and Never Say Die. He hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time in 1986, then returned to host the Season 16 finale in 1991. On that episode, the SNL writers revived a hit sketch that had debuted earlier that year with host Joe Mantegna: “Bill Swerski’s Superfans.” While Mantegna had played the titular Bill Swerski — leader of a group of Chicago sports obsessives — Wendt slotted in as Bob Swerski and joked early in the sketch that he was “sitting in for my brudder Bill, who is still recovering from that dreadful heart attack.”

Wendt became indispensable for the sketch after that, making many more appearances alongside Farley, Myers, and Smigel throughout the Nineties. Even after Farley’s death, Wendt and the others continued to revive their superfan characters for a variety of comedy sketches, commercials, and NFL promos. Most recently, Wendt and Smigel reprised their characters at a charity event in Kansas City in 2024, which also featured Wendt’s nephew, Jason Sudeikis. 

Following the end of Cheers, Wendt briefly starred in his own sitcom, The George Wendt Show, though it was canceled after just six episodes. Over the next few decades, he would accumulate myriad credits on an array of different TV shows and films. He popped up in Columbo, Portlandia, George Lopez, Hot in Cleveland, Fresh Off the Boat, and Bill Nye Saves the World. His film credits included Spice World, Sandy Wexler, and The Climb. 

For all his screen work though, Wendt retained a deep fondness for the stage. He appeared in several Broadway shows, including Hairspray and Elf the Musical, and starred in regional productions of classics like 12 Angry Men, Death of a Salesman, and The Odd Couple. In 2013, he and Birkett performed alongside each other in a revival of Arthur Sumner Long’s comedy, Never Too Late.