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Norman Lear, legendary TV producer, dies at age 101
Norman Lear, the legendary television producer who created groundbreaking series such as “All in the Family,” “Maude,” “The Jeffersons” and “One Day at a Time,” has died, CBS News has confirmed. He was 101.
Lear, who got his start as a writer for radio and TV in the post-war years, was responsible for a string of hit series in the 1970s that broke taboos on broadcast entertainment and helped define a generation. His shows routinely tackled serious social issues, some rarely seen on TV before, from racism, rape and abortion to menopause, homosexuality and religion.
The show that put Lear on the map was “All in the Family,” which premiered on CBS in 1971. It starred Carroll O’Connor as the working-class loudmouth Archie Bunker, who spouted narrow-minded opinions and raged against social change. He often butted heads against his liberal son-in-law, Michael (played by Rob Reiner), while Archie’s kind-hearted wife, Edith (Jean Stapleton), tried to keep the peace.
In a 2021 interview on “CBS Sunday Morning,” Lear said people on both ends of the political spectrum found something to connect with in the show.
“I like to think what they saw was the foolishness of the human condition,” he told CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook, who is married to Lear’s daughter, Kate.
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And even if the subject matter was divisive, the audience would be bonded by humor. “To be able to laugh in a rehearsal at something you hadn’t expected, and then to stand to the side or behind an audience laughing, and watch them, their bodies – a couple of hundred people as one – when something makes them laugh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more spiritual moment than an audience in a belly laugh!” Lear said.
“The soundtrack of my life has been laughter.”
The show ran for nine seasons, won 22 Emmy Awards, and was No. 1 in the ratings for five consecutive years. Beginning in 1979, a sequel series, “Archie Bunker’s Place,” ran for four more seasons.
“All in the Family” was followed by the popular and provocative spin-offs “Maude” (starring Bea Arthur), and “The Jeffersons” (starring Isabel Sanford and Sherman Hemsley). Along with laughter, both shows brought storylines about women’s liberation and race into millions of living rooms across the country. Another sitcom, “One Day at a Time,” starred Bonnie Franklin as a divorced woman struggling against sexism, chauvinistic bosses and cheating boyfriends, while raising two teenage daughters.
Lear’s string of hit TV series also included “Sanford and Son” (with comedian Redd Foxx), and “Good Times,” which broke ground with mostly Black casts but also faced accusations of promoting racial stereotypes.
He was also creator of the syndicated “Mary Hartman, Marty Hartman,” a parody of soap operas that starred Louise Lasser; and executive producer of “Hot l Baltimore,” based on the Lanford Wilson stage comedy set in a run-down hotel. Its characters included prostitutes, undocumented immigrants, and a gay couple.
Norman Lear was born on July 27, 1922, in Hartford, Connecticut, and his childhood wasn’t all laughs. When he was 9 years old, his father went to prison for fraud for selling fake bonds, and his mother sent him to live with his grandparents.
He later said his father served as an inspiration for Archie Bunker.
“The intention was to show there’s humor in everything. And I never thought of him as a hater so much as a fearful man of progress,” Lear told “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King in 2017.
As a young man, he attended Emerson College in Boston on a scholarship before leaving school to serve in World War II. He joined the U.S. Army Air Forces and flew on 52 combat missions over Germany and Italy.
After the war, he moved to Hollywood, and his career in the entertainment industry grew. By the early 1970s, he’d reached a level of success and widespread influence few others could equal.
On the big screen, Lear’s production company was behind popular movies like “Stand By Me,” “The Princess Bride” and “Fried Green Tomatoes.” He shared an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay of the 1968 comedy “Divorce American Style.”
The political and social issues he explored on screen also inspired his own activism in liberal circles. In 1981, he co-founded the nonprofit group People For the American Way to advocate for progressive causes and counter the divisiveness and discord straining the nation.
In 2022, Lear wrote in a New York Times op-ed of his optimism in America: “I often feel disheartened by the direction that our politics, courts and culture are taking. But I do not lose faith in our country or its future. I remind myself how far we have come.”
Over his long career, Lear racked up a multitude of awards, including six Emmys, a Golden Globe and the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1984.
His website vowed, “Norman Lear has no plans to retire,” and he kept that promise, working on new projects well into his 90s. In 2017 he launched a “One Day at a Time” reboot on Netflix, starring Rita Moreno, and in 2019 and 2020 he teamed up with Jimmy Kimmel to broadcast star-studded live reenactments of classic episodes of “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times.” Both won Emmys for Outstanding Variety Special.
But as he shone a light on discrimination, he often butted up against discrimination himself. In 2016 he talked with “Sunday Morning” about how older characters (like himself) had been relegated to marginal roles on TV, playing eccentric neighbors or wise-cracking grandparents. “Where are people my age?” he said. “There were no shows about us, about our lives, about our attitudes, about our problems.”
He developed a series, “Guess Who Died?,” set in a senior living community. But after filming a pilot, zero network executives expressed interest.
As he explained In a 2019 interview for the “CBS This Morning” podcast, wisdom and inspiration can be found in every walk of life: “Somebody doesn’t have to be a professor. Somebody can be just knocking on your door, or somebody can be selling you something on the street … and you have a reasonable conversation, and suddenly you heard something you hadn’t heard before or something the person you feel is about suggests just something you haven’t thought before.”
He often said he was guided throughout his life by the saying, “Each man is my superior in that I may learn from him.”
On the occasion of his 100th birthday in July 2022, Lear said “love and laughter” were the secret to his longevity. He also spoke of the impact of love: “The people I’ve loved, and loved me in return. I couldn’t emphasize that more. I have been cared for, and I have cared, and I think it’s mattered a lot.”
The following is a transcript of an interview with Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 6, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Joining us now is Arizona’s Democratic Senator, Mark Kelly. He’s in Detroit this morning on the campaign trail for the Harris campaign. Good morning to you, Senator.
SEN. MARK KELLY: Good morning, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to talk to you about Arizona, but let’s start in Michigan, which is where you are right now. And it is going to be such a key state to a potential Harris or Trump victory. Vice President Harris is facing challenges among black men, working class people, as well as the Muslim and Arab populations skeptical of the White House support for Israel’s wars. What are you hearing on the ground there from voters?
SEN. KELLY: Well, my wife, Gabby Giffords, and I have been out here for a couple days. We’ve been campaigning across the country, Michigan, I’ve been in North Carolina, Georgia as well. I’ll be back to Arizona here soon. The vice president was out here speaking to Muslim organizations and the Arab community about what is at stake in this election and addressing the concerns that they have. What we’re hearing, issues about the economy, about gun violence, about, you know, supporting American families and the difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. You know, Kamala Harris, who has a vision for the future of this country, Donald Trump, who just wants to drag us backwards.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Today in Dearborn, Michigan, there’s a funeral service for an American man who was killed in Lebanon by an Israeli airstrike. It just underscores how that community you’re talking about out in Michigan feel some of what’s happening in a personal way to their community. Given how close this race is, do you think this war and the expectation it could escalate could cost Democrats both a seat in the Senate and potentially the presidency?
SEN. KELLY: Margaret, nobody wants to see escalation and it’s tragic when any innocent person, whether it’s an American or Palestinian, lose their life in a conflict. Tomorrow’s one year since October 7th, when Israel was violently attacked. Israel has a right to defend itself, not only from Hamas, but from Hezbollah and from the Iranians. But, you know, I and my wife, you know, we feel for the community here who’s been affected by this. And that’s why the vice president was out here earlier, a few days ago, meeting with that community.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But it’s a live issue.
SEN. KELLY: Yeah, sure. I mean, there is an ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Israel is, you know, fighting a war now on, I think it’s fair to say, two fronts and then being attacked by the Iranians as well. And, they- they need to defend themselves, and we need to support our Israeli ally. At the same time, when women and children lose their life, innocent people in a conflict, it is- it is tragic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You do sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee and so I know you know how intense the efforts are by foreign actors to try to manipulate voters going into November. Just this Friday, Matthew Olsen, the lead on election threats at the Department of Justice, told CBS the Russians are, quote, highlighting immigration as a wedge issue. That is such a key issue in Arizona. Are you seeing targeted information operations really focusing in on Arizonans right now?
SEN. KELLY: Not only in Arizona, in other battleground states. It’s the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and it’s significant. And we need to do a better job getting the message out to the American people that there is a huge amount of misinformation. If you’re looking at stuff on Twitter, on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram, and it’s political in nature, and you may- might think that that person responding to that political article or who made that meme up is an American. It could be- it could look like a U.S. service member. There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China. We had a hearing recently, with the FBI director, the DNI, and the head of the National Security Agency. And we talked about this. And we talked about getting the word out. And it’s up to us, so thank you for asking me the question, because it’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on November 5th.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood. And we will do our best to help parse that for viewers. But on the topic of the border, President Biden did announce just this past week new regulations to keep in place that partial asylum ban that he rolled out back in June. That’s what’s credited with helping to bring down some of the border crossing numbers in recent weeks. It was supposed to be a temporary policy, dependent on how many people were crossing at a time. Do you think this is the right long term policy, or is this just a gimmick to bring down numbers ahead of the election?
SEN. KELLY: Well, the right long term policy is to do this through legislation. And we were a day or two away from doing that, passing strong border security legislation supported by the vice president, negotiated by the vice president, and the president and his Department of Homeland Security, with Democrats and Republicans–
MARGARET BRENNAN: But this is not legislation.
SEN. KELLY: –This is bipartisan. This isn’t. But the legislation was killed by Donald Trump. We were really close to getting it passed. That’s the correct way to do this. When you can’t do that, Margaret, when a former president interrupts the legislative process the way he did, which is the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever seen in my three and a half years in the Senate. After that happened, the only other option is executive actions. And this has gone from what was chaos and a crisis at our southern border to somewhat manageable. And if you’re the border- Border Patrol, you know, this is this- you need this. I mean, otherwise it is unsafe for Border Patrol agents, for CBP officers, for migrants, for communities in southern Arizona. So it’s unfortunate that this was the- these were the steps that had to be taken.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.
SEN. KELLY: But that’s because the former president didn’t allow us to do this through legislation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, we have to leave it right there. Face the Nation will be right back.
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