Norm Peterson was “just supposed to be an extra.” That is how Marti Wendt Doherty remembered her brother’s start on Cheers, speaking to NBC Chicago last fall. The bit part grew into the bar regular greeted with a shout of “Nooorm!” every time he walked through the door.
George Wendt was born in Chicago on October 17, 1948, and he would have turned 78 today. He died at his Los Angeles home on May 20, 2025, at 76. DYR shared the farewells from his Cheers family that week.
Norm Peterson spent 11 seasons on a barstool with a mug in front of him. Wendt spent years describing what was actually in that mug, and it was a long way from the real thing. The one night the cast did drink for real, millions of people were watching.
How Did A One-Word Part Become Norm?
Wendt told the story himself. According to The Hollywood Reporter, his first audition for the pilot was for a part with a single word of dialogue. His agent put it bluntly, as Boston.com recalled: “It’s a small role, honey. It’s one line. Actually, it’s one word.” Wendt added, “The word was ‘beer.'” The casting team decided one word wasn’t enough for him, and he read for another role. That role was Norm.
He appeared in all 275 episodes over 11 seasons. The part earned him six Emmy nominations in a row, from 1984 to 1989.
His wife, Bernadette Birkett, had a hand in it too. She voiced Vera, Norm’s never-seen wife. The couple met at Chicago’s Second City, where Wendt got his start in 1975. They had three children, Hilary, Joe and Daniel, CNN reported.
Chicago shaped the comedy long before Boston’s most famous bar did.
Why Does A Chicago Street Bear His Name?
Chicago football was never far from his heart. Before Norm became a cultural fixture, Wendt played Bears superfan Bob Swerski on Saturday Night Live.
On October 19, 2025, the city designated a stretch of South Bell Avenue in the Beverly neighborhood as Honorary George Wendt Way. The block sits in front of the home where he grew up, according to CBS Chicago. NBC Chicago noted that the street dedication fell on the same Sunday the Bears played at Soldier Field.
“He had great humility, but he deserved to be loved because he was a wonderful person,” Birkett told NBC Chicago. His brother Paul remembered that corner as the place they played baseball and football. “It’s just another touchdown,” he said of the honor.
The Second City held its own memorial for Wendt the following day, back where his comedy career began. The tributes leaned on Norm’s favorite drink, and Wendt never minded.
Did George Wendt Love Beer As Much As Norm?
Wendt leaned into the reputation. He even wrote a book about it, Drinking With George: A Barstool Professional’s Guide to Beer, a 2009 memoir that Publishers Weekly said shared plenty of common ground with Norm, starting with his love of beer.
He joked about the job for decades. “It was a great job,” he said at Motor City Comic Con in 2024, according to CNN. “I had to look like a guy who wanted another beer. That I can do!”
Looking like he wanted another one was the easy part. Drinking what the prop department poured was harder.
What Was Really In Norm’s Mug?
It was not the real thing. The cast drank non-alcoholic near beer through 11 seasons of tapings, according to Boston.com. Wendt described it in detail on writer Ken Levine’s podcast in 2021, as Showbiz Cheat Sheet reported. The only option back then was a near beer sold in cans. Producers wanted it on draft, and nobody made it on tap. “So they had to use soda pop dispensers,” he said.
The crew filled those dispensers well before shooting, so by the time cameras rolled the beer was “completely warm and flat.” To fake a foamy head, “the prop man had to put a pinch of salt in every beer mug that was on the set.” Wendt told the same story at a cast reunion panel at the ATX TV Festival, as People reported and VinePair recapped. “So it was warm, flat, salty, non-alcoholic beer,” he said. CNN reported that the cast would occasionally drink the real stuff after the audience left.
The finale was another story. On May 20, 1993, the night the last episode aired, the cast gathered at the Bull & Finch Pub in Boston, the bar that inspired the show. They went on live television with Jay Leno afterward. “We had been drinking heavily for two hours but nobody thought to feed us,” Wendt told the Beaver County Times in 2009, as Boston.com noted. “We were nowhere near as cute as we thought we were.”
Ted Danson later said they had been brought into the bar for interviews around two in the afternoon. “What do you do in a bar? You start drinking,” he said on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, according to Newsweek. Woody Harrelson admitted, “We were so drunk by the time that came around.” Wendt felt for the host. “Not only was he green, I think it was his first live episode,” he said.
Wendt died 32 years to the day after that finale aired.
