He 'Never Took the Lazy Way Out' (Exclusive): Jay Leno Praises Late Bob Newhart's 'Clever,' 'No Gimmick' Approach to Comedy

Jay Leno has fond memories of the late Bob Newhart.

While speaking exclusively to PEOPLE, Leno, 74, paid tribute to the award-winning comedian and actor, who died at age 94 on Thursday, July 18, at his home in Los Angeles following a series of short illnesses.

Remembering how Newhart was always "very kind" to young comics on the scene like him back in the day, Leno said, "Never a mean-spirited bone in his body, never had jokes that were based on anything unkind. You know what I mean? And there was no gimmicks." 

"A lot of comics, they have an ethnic hook or they have a catchphrase, or they have something they do when the jokes aren't going that well that they go to when it always works," Leno continued. 

"It is just the tool of the trade. But he always relied on just clever jokes," the former Tonight Show host shared.

"I mean, his whole gimmick, he was just an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances, which is my favorite thing," Leno told PEOPLE, insisting that Newhart "never took the lazy way out" in terms of his work.

Leno continued, "He always had those kind of really clever jokes, you had to listen to. You had to pay attention. It was intellectual enough for intellectuals and easy enough to understand for just regular people. He never talked over anybody's head and he never used particularly big words or anything like that. It was just a very clever way of doing things."

"He never had a shock joke. He always had a good solid joke. Sometimes it slipped in over the audien -

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ce's head, but most of the times it scored pretty good," he added of Newhart, who would regularly fill in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

After Carson stepped down as the host of the NBC talk show in 1992, Leno filled the coveted post, having Newhart on the show multiple times, until he left in 2014.

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Newhart will be most remembered for his roles in the CBS series The Bob Newhart Show, which ran from 1972 to 1978, and Newhart, which ran from 1982 to 1990. The success of his 1959 comedy album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart led him to begin a 12-year career in stand up before he landed six seasons of his beloved sitcom in the early '70s.

"In 1959, I gave myself a year to make it in comedy; it was back to accounting if comedy didn’t work out," Newhart once said, per his obituary shared by his publicist Jerry Digney.

Through the years, the comedy legend also had roles in hit movies such as Legally Blonde 2 and Elf.

Newhart's death comes after his wifeGinnie, whom he married in 1963,diedin April 2023. The late comedian's publicist previously confirmed to PEOPLE that she died "after a long illness."

Newhart is survived by their four children, sons Robert and Timothy, and daughters Jennifer and Courtney, as well as 10 grandchildren.

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