Norman Lear, the legendary television producer and philanthropist who revolutionized the situation comedy in the 1970s with All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and other landmark series, died of natural causes Tuesday at his Los Angeles home at age 101, a representative confirmed to EW.
The Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated pop culture icon’s family announced the news in a lengthy statement on Lear’s website, in which they reflected on his “life of curiosity, tenacity, and empathy” as he sought to reflect “justice and equality for all” through his robust contributions to the entertainment industry.
“Norman lived a life in awe of the world around him. He marveled at his cup of coffee every morning, the shape of the tree outside his window, and the sounds of beautiful music. But it was people — those he just met and those he knew for years — who kept his mind and heart forever young,” the family’s message read. “He adored his creative collaborators, revered the actors with whom he worked, and deeply admired the thoughts of the great philosophers and thinkers of his time. In a storage room in Los Angeles, there are hundreds of boxes of his correspondence with people whose plays he saw, articles he read, and movies he watched; he wrote to everyone, and they wrote back. In that way, Norman’s life expanded in concentric circles to include thousands upon thousands of friends. His ‘Over, Next’ philosophy shaped his life and kept him moving forward, ever open to new ideas, experiences, and connections.”
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Lear’s family also highlighted his military service (he flew 52 missions in World War II, the family noted) as well as how his fear of antisemitic rhetoric as a child led to him carving out a sect of his career devoted to activism and philanthropy, including the founding of his People for the American Way organization in 1981, which works to protect constitutional rights.
“Norman lived a life of gratitude. ‘Am I not the luckiest dude?’ he often said. He was grateful for everything that brought him to the moment he was in. As a husband, father, and grandfather, he was unwaveringly devoted. He was always transparent and vocal about his love and admiration for each of us,” the statement concluded. “We were adored by him, and we adored him right back. Knowing and loving him has been the greatest of gifts.”
Few people have had as much influence on television, and therefore on American culture, as did Lear. Shows like NYPD Blue, Will & Grace, and Sex and the City owe something of their existence to Lear’s groundbreaking efforts to liberalize ideas of what is fit content for a television program. Born in New Haven, Conn., in 1922, Lear fought in World War II and returned home to work as a press agent. He soon joined his cousin Ed Simmons to write comedy material for Danny Thomas, Martin & Lewis, Martha Raye, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and others to perform in nightclubs and eventually on TV, but it was in his partnership with director Bud Yorkin that Lear started to hit his stride. They moved back and forth between television and movies, working on programs like The Andy Williams Show and features including Divorce: American Style (Lear earned an Oscar nomination for his screenplay in 1968), The Night They Raided Minsky’s, and Cold Turkey (his directorial debut).
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But his life took a turn when he read an item in TV Guide about a British series called Till Death Do Us Part, about a middle-aged man and his son-in-law who fought about all the social and political issues of the day. Lear and Yorkin bought the rights and developed All in the Family. In the process, they created one of the most vivid characters ever seen on the screen. Archie Bunker was loud, unschooled, guiltlessly bigoted, and totally new. Not since The Honeymooners had television had a blue collar hero, never had the prime character in a program been so unpalatable, and never had so many controversial issues been tossed into the maw of a sitcom. Subjects that were tackled included abortion, birth control, mate-swapping, homosexuality, religion, menopause, and most relentlessly, racial and ethnic stereotypes, with words like spic, heeb, and spade appearing with great frequency. When the show hit the airwaves in 1971, CBS took the precaution of hiring extra phone operators to staff switchboards around the country in anticipation of a deluge of complaint. As it turned out, there were a lot of calls, but many were positive. All in the Family would spend the next five years as the top-rated show in the country, win three Emmys for Best Comedy Series, and run in various incarnations for 12 years.
In short order, Lear began to capitalize on his success. He soon brought out Maude, starring the imperious Bea Arthur playing a character that had been introduced as Edith Bunker’s feminist cousin (and who was based in no small measure on Lear’s wife Frances), and Sanford and Son, starring the great Redd Foxx. The Jeffersons, a comedy about middle-class blacks that dared to show that bigotry wasn’t exclusively a white phenomenon, and One Day at a Time, about a single mother, followed. Lear’s final success was Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, a parody soap opera that went further over the top than any of its stable mates. (Informed that a madman had just murdered her neighbors as well as their three children, two goats and eight chickens, Mary exclaims “What kind of madman would kill two goats and eight chickens?”) The show was rejected by all three networks, but became a hit in syndication.
Although the signature of a Lear show was its willingness to tackle hot button issues, he dismissed the idea that this endowed him with any special influence. “Are people less bigoted than they were before All in the Family or Sanford and Son?” he said in an interview with Playboy.”And even if they are, am I responsible for it? Bulls—.” Even so,when Lear withdrew from daily involvement in his programs in 1978, they seemed to lose their creative spark, and what Rob Reiner — All in the Family‘s Meathead — called “the Norman Lear oasis in his the history of television” drew to a close.
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Lear sporadically involved himself in show business projects in the years since, but he was most active in philanthropy. In 1981 he founded People for the American Way, a politically liberal foundation that supports Constitutional freedoms and Bill of Rights guarantees. In 2001 he bought an original copy of the Declaration of Independence for $8.2million and took it on tour around the United States. “I like living in a country where I can speak out,” he told Bill Moyers. “I like the First Amendment. I like pluralism. I like diversity. And I like the flag; it is not the exclusive property of the far right. Call me a liberal, or a moderate, or a progressive – I think I’m a bleeding-heart conservative – but it’s my flag, too. It is more than a symbol of America’s might. It is a symbol of America’s people.”
Lear continued working through his later years, including on the One Day at a Time reboot starring Justina Machado, as well as producing the documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It.
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