(CNN) — Famed television producer Norman Lear, whose wildly successful TV sitcoms including “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons” fused comedy with trenchant social commentary and dominated network ratings in the 1970s, died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles, his family announced on his website. He was 101.
“Norman lived a life of curiosity, tenacity, and empathy. He deeply loved our country and spent a lifetime helping to preserve its founding ideals of justice and equality for all,” his family said. “He began his career in the earliest days of live television and discovered a passion for writing about the real lives of Americans, not a glossy ideal. At first, his ideas were met with closed doors and misunderstanding. However, he stuck to his conviction that the ‘foolishness of the human condition’ made great television, and eventually he was heard.”
Beginning with “All in the Family” in 1971, Lear’s shows tackled fraught topics of racism, feminism and social inequalities that no one had yet dared touch. The show – which won the Emmy for Outstanding New Series – focused on the white working class Bunker family and its small-minded, irascible, prejudiced and oddly likable patriarch Archie Bunker.
Director Rob Reiner, who played Bunker’s politically polar opposite son-in-law Michael “Meathead” Stivic on the sitcom, paid tribute to Lear on social media on Wednesday.
“I loved Norman Lear with all my heart. He was my second father. Sending my love to Lyn and the whole Lear family,” Reiner shared in a statement.
“All in the Family” spurred a series of similarly popular and political spinoffs, including “Sanford and Son,” “Maude,” and “Good Times.”
In his 2014 memoir, “Even This I Get to Experience,” Lear attributed the success of his series to stories drawn from the real experiences of his writers that lent to the authenticity of the characters they developed.
“The audiences themselves taught me that you can get some wonderful laughs on the surface with funny performers and good jokes,” he wrote, “But if you want them laughing from the belly, you stand a better chance if you can get them caring first.”
He was executive producer of the cult movie classics “The Princess Bride” and “Fried Green Tomatoes” and was nominated for an Academy Award for best screenplay for “Divorce American Style.” His political advocacy led to the establishment of the liberal political organization People for the American Way.
Even in his 90s, Lear kept working. Along with Jimmy Kimmel, a 95-year-old Lear produced and hosted three episodes of “Live in Front of a Studio Audience,” which won Primetime Emmy Awards in 2019 and 2020. The series used current stars like Jamie Fox, Woody Harrelson and Viola Davis to re-create original episodes of “The Jeffersons,” “All in the Family” and “Good Times.”
Prior to his 100th birthday in 2022, Lear credited work along with Lox and bagels, the love of his family and laughter for his longevity.
“I like getting up in the morning with something on my mind, something I can work on … to some conclusion,” Lear said.
In recent years, Lear and his business partner Brent Miller rebooted some of his ’70s sitcom successes, including “One Day at a Time.”
In a 2020 interview with CNN, Lear reflected on the renewed interest in his decades-old sitcoms and the continuing relevance of the politically conscious comedy he pioneered. He also joked about the continuing reluctance of networks to deal with hot-button issues.
“It’s a new set of executives, [but] the same old buildings,” he quipped. “They are reincarnated.”
But Lear did take issue with the description of his shows as “edgy,” either then or now.
“Edgy is what others wrote about it, but I never thought it was edgy,” he said. “We were simply dealing with the problems that existed in our culture.”
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CNN’s Brian Lowry and Sandee LaMotte contributed to this report.
