Norman Lear, producer of All in the Family, dead at 101
Lear died at his L.A. home of natural causes, his publicist said
Norman Lear, the writer, director and producer who revolutionized prime-time television with such topical hits as All in the Family and Maude and propelled political and social turmoil into the once-insulated world of sitcoms, has died.
He was 101.
Lear died Tuesday night in his sleep, surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said Lara Bergthold, a spokesperson for his family.
A liberal activist with an eye for mainstream entertainment, Lear fashioned bold and controversial comedies that were embraced by TV sitcom viewers who long had to watch the evening news to find out what was going on in the world.
His shows helped define prime-time comedy in the 1970s and after, launched the careers of such young performers as Rob Reiner and Valerie Bertinelli, and made Carroll O'Connor, Bea Arthur and Redd Foxx, among others, into middle-aged superstars.
His signature production was All in the Family, which was immersed in the headlines of the day, while also drawing upon Lear's childhood memories of his tempestuous father.
Racism, feminism and the Vietnam War were flashpoints in the sitcom featuring blue-collar conservative Archie Bunker, played by O'Connor, and liberal son-in-law Mike Stivic (Reiner). Jean Stapleton co-starred as Archie's befuddled but good-hearted wife, Edith, and Sally Struthers played the Bunkers's daughter, Gloria, who often clashed with Archie on behalf of her husband.
No. 1 in the ratings
At the start of the 1970s, top-rated shows still included such old-fashioned programs as Here's Lucy, Ironside and Gunsmoke, although the industry was beginning to change. CBS, Lear's primary network, would soon enact its "rural purge" and cancel such standbys as The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres. The groundbreaking sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show, about a single career woman in Minneapolis, debuted on CBS in Sept. 1970, just months before All in the Family started.
ABC passed on All in the Family twice, and CBS was initially reluctant to take on the daring series, Lear would say.
When the network finally aired All in the Family, it began with a disclaimer: "The program you are about to see is 'All in the Family.' It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show, in a mature fashion, just how absurd they are."
By the end of 1971, All in the Family was No. 1 in the ratings and Archie Bunker was a pop culture fixture, with President Richard Nixon among his fans.
Some of his putdowns became catchphrases, whether calling his son-in-law "Meathead" or his wife "Dingbat." He would also snap at anyone who dared occupy his faded orange-yellow wing chair, the centrepiece of the Bunker home in the New York City borough of Queens and eventually an artifact in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Even the show's opening segment was innovative. Instead of an off-screen theme song, Archie and Edith are seated at the piano in their living room, belting out a nostalgic number, Those Were the Days, with Edith screeching off-key and Archie crooning such lines as "Didn't need no welfare state" and "Girls were girls and men were men."
All in the Family, based on the British sitcom Til Death Us Do Part, was the No. 1-rated series for an unprecedented five years in a row and earned four Emmy Awards as best comedy series, finally eclipsed by five-time winner Frasier in 1998.
Hits continued for Lear and then-partner Bud Yorkin, including Maude and The Jeffersons, both spinoffs from All in the Family and both the same winning combination of one-liners and social conflict.
In a 1972 two-part episode of Maude, the title character (played by Bea Arthur) became the first on television to have an abortion, drawing a surge of protests along with the show's high ratings.
Nixon himself objected to an All in the Family episode about a close friend of Archie's who turns out to be gay, privately fuming to White House aides that the show "glorified" same-sex relationships.
"Controversy suggests people are thinking about something. But there'd better be laughing first and foremost, or it's a dog," Lear said in a 1994 interview with The Associated Press.
Produced 5 of top 10 shows of 1974-75
Lear and Yorkin also created Good Times, about a working-class Black family in Chicago; Sanford & Son, a showcase for Foxx as junkyard dealer Fred Sanford; and One Day at a Time, starring Bonnie Franklin as a single mother and Bertinelli and Mackenzie Phillips as her daughters.
In the 1974-75 season, Lear and Yorkin produced five of the top 10 shows. Around the same time, All in the Family led off one of TV's greatest evening lineups, a Saturday slate from CBS that also featured the non-Lear hits M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show.
The late Paddy Chayefsky, a leading writer of television's early "golden age," once said that Lear "took television away from dopey wives and dumb fathers, from the pimps, hookers, hustlers, private eyes, junkies, cowboys and rustlers that constituted television chaos, and in their place he put the American people."
Lear's series reflected his ardent political beliefs, which his business success allowed him to express in grand fashion. In 2000, he and a partner bought a copy of the Declaration of Independence for $8.14 million and sent it on a cross-country tour.
LISTEN | Lear spoke to CBC Radio in 2016:
He founded the nonprofit, liberal advocacy group People for the American Way in 1980 in response to the growing strength of conservative religious groups. In a 1992 interview with Commonweal magazine, Lear said he acted because he felt people such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were "abusing religion."
"And I started to say, 'This is not my America. You don't mix politics and religion this way,'" Lear said. He was also an active donor to Democratic candidates.
With this wry smile and impish boat hat, Lear remained a youthful presence for much of life and continued creating television well into his 90s, rebooting One Day at a Time for Netflix in 2017 and exploring income inequality for the documentary series America Divided in 2016.
He was also featured in two documentaries: 2016's Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You and If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, HBO's 2017 look at active nonagenarians such as Lear and Rob Reiner's father, Carl.
In 1984, he was lauded as the "innovative writer who brought realism to television" when he became one of the first seven people inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame.
He later received a National Medal of Arts and was honoured at the Kennedy Center. In 2020, he won an Emmy as executive producer of Live In Front of a Studio Audience: All In the Family and Good Times.
With files from Reuters