The funny sitcom creator Norman Lear died at the age of 101
The Times ‘All in the Family’: A tribute to the Broadway genius, Bud Yorkin, and Archie and the Bunker family
Television producers tried to compete with the movies by making their shows more visually dynamic in the 1960s. But with “All in the Family,” Lear and his frequent writing-producing partner Bud Yorkin took TV back to its roots in live theater, staging what were essentially weekly one-act plays about the Queens-based Bunker family: the grouchy bigot Archie (Carroll O’Connor), his doting but dim wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), his feminist daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers) and his feisty liberal son-in-law Mike (Rob Reiner).
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Norman Lear, Who Made Funny Sitcoms About Severe Topics, Dies at 101: Just Another Version of You?
His passion and activism became something of a lightning rod. He told NPR that he had received a lot of death threats. I didn’t intend to be a lightning rod. Somebody asked me in an interview, if I had a bumper sticker, what would my bumper sticker be? And I said, ‘Just another version of you.’ And that’s what I think we all are — versions of each other.”
He toured the country after purchasing an original copy of the Declaration of Independence. The campaign grew out of that tour and had more than four million young voters cast their votes before the election.
In that spot, aimed at the religious right, Lear says: “There’s something wrong when people — even preachers — suggest that other people are good Christians or bad Christians, depending on their political views. That is not the American way.
In the past few years, Lear had something of a comeback in Hollywood. For example, he helped reboot his series One Day At A Time. He was recording videos on his front porch and holding political fundraisers even after turning 100 years old.
Lear took that reach seriously. He routinely fought with executives to get on storylines that reflected the social upheaval of the ’70s, with the black power movement and women’s liberation.
“He had at one point, three out of the five top shows on television, and this was a time when there were only three networks,” says Kaplan. A show can get between 50 and 60 million viewers. He was in direct contact with the living rooms and families of the country.”
Source: Norman Lear, who made funny sitcoms about serious topics, dies at 101
All in the Family: A Network of People who Made Funny SITCOMs About Serious Topics Dies at 101 During the 1970s
“The Jeffersons were completely black,” says Hunt. It wanted to engage race and class while also having gender dynamics. I remember The Jeffersons growing up, I remember feeling like, there really isn’t anything else like this on TV I need to watch this.
If you watched All in the Family, you probably already have a sense of Lear’s own family. America knew that Edith’s mother was Jeanette, and also that her ex-wife had the character of Maude.
“I wanted to make people laugh and so I set out to make people laugh,” she said. We took it very seriously. Our writers read three newspapers a day, paid attention to their family and came in to talk about everything that was bothering them in our daily lives. We got our material there.
The network was prepped for lots of complaints about the family patriarch, Archie Bunker’s, unbridled racism. All in the Family made it to the top 10 in eight out of nine seasons.
Before viewing All in the Family, viewers received a warning: “The program you are about to see is All in the Family.” It wants to highlight our frailties, prejudices and concerns. We hope by making them a source of laughter, we will show just how absurd they are.
The real things that were happening in the 1970s were discussed by the families in the shows. Before these shows, television worlds were simpler, nicer places, says Darnell Hunt, a leading scholar of racial representation on TV. They had plot lines like: “I burnt the pot roast. We don’t have anything for dinner, what are we going to do? Or I have a talent show at school and I don’t know how to dance.”
“Those shows took on issues that couldn’t be resolved,” Hunt says. There were issues that were the center of inequality and struggle in American society. He tackled everything from anti-semitism to racism.
Source: Norman Lear, who made funny sitcoms about serious topics, dies at 101
What he did in his teenage years, and how he managed to raise a Jewish boy, Mark Lear, at the Los Angeles Zoo
A family in Connecticut has a Jewish name for him. “I was a kid during the Depression, and I’ve been there ever since,” he told NPR. I watched my father’s brothers go to sleep. My father was always belly up. It’s very difficult for me to call my father what he was, so I use ‘rascal.’ He was given time. He was in a lot of trouble. I can’t say how much I loved him. I don’t want to make him a bad person, so I talk about him lightly. I loved him.”
Lear dropped out of college and enlisted in the Air Force to fight in World War II. In his late 20s, he moved to Los Angeles. He struggled for several years, selling furniture door to door, taking baby pictures. Eventually, he talked his way into writing for a nightclub comedy act, which led to variety show gigs.
“He worked for Martha Raye, Dean Martin, and Jerry Lewis, and that is a good example of who the television world was in that era,” said Marty Kaplan, the founding director of the Norman Lear Center.
Kaplan says that Norman divided people into dry and wet. Dry people were cool and calm. There were people who were emotional and impulsive.
