GEORGE WENDT, WHO who played the affable, beer-loving barfly Norm on the hit 1980s TV comedy Cheers and later crafted a stage career that took him to Broadway in Art, Hairspray and Elf, has died. He was 76.

Wendt’s family said he died early on Tuesday morning, peacefully in his sleep while at home, according to the publicity firm The Agency Group.

“George was a doting family man, a well-loved friend and confidant to all of those lucky enough to have known him,” the family said in a statement. “He will be missed forever.” The family requested privacy.

Despite a long career of roles onstage and on TV, it was as gentle and henpecked Norm Peterson on Cheers that he was most associated, earning six straight Emmy Award nominations for best supporting actor in a comedy series from 1984-89.

The cast of Cheers John Ratzenberger, Rhea Perlman, George Wendt, Woody Harrelson, Kirstie Alley and Ted Danson with Boston Red Sox player Wade Boggs, centre, who appeared in an episode. AP AP

The series was centred on lovable losers in a Boston bar and starred Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman, Kelsey Grammer, John Ratzenberger, Kirstie Alley and Woody Harrelson. It would spin off another megahit in Frasier and was nominated for an astounding 117 Emmy Awards, winning 28 of them.

Wendt, who spent six years in Chicago’s renowned Second City improv troupe before sitting on a barstool at the place where everybody knows your name, did not have high hopes when he auditioned for Cheers.

“My agent said, ‘It’s a small role, honey. It’s one line. Actually, it’s one word’. The word was ‘beer’. I was having a hard time believing I was right for the role of ‘the guy who looked like he wanted a beer’.

“So I went in, and they said, ‘it’s too small a role. Why don’t you read this other one?’ And it was a guy who never left the bar,” Wendt told GQ.