Bob Newhart, star of Elf and The Big Bang Theory, has died at the age of 94 as tributes begin to pour in. The American comedian passed away following a short illness, his publicist Jerry Digney said in a statement. Newhart launched his career as a stand-up comic in the late 1950s, following his career as an accountant in Chicago. “In 1959, I gave myself a year to make it in comedy; it was back to accounting if comedy didn’t work out,” he once said, according to Digney. The comic gained nationwide fame in the US when his stand-up routine was captured on vinyl in 1960 as The Button-Down Mind of …