Norman Lear, the writer and producer whose TV comedies reshaped the American pop culture landscape, has died. He was 101 years old. Lear, who became a household name after his All in the Family became one of the most acclaimed shows ever made, would generate another hit just as big, and just as groundbreaking, with the All in the Family spinoff The Jeffersons. Lear also created, developed, or produced shows like Good Times, One Day at a Time, Sanford and Son, and many more. He also helped launch the careers of a number of the actors he worked with, including Rob Reiner. Reiner went to Lear when he was having trouble finding financing for his films This is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride.
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Lear was one of the most prolific producers of the 1970s and 1980s, and helped prove that shows with a social conscience could get traction on American TV. To this day, All in the Family remains one of the funniest and most trenchant satires ever released on network TV, and is constantly the subject of “you couldn’t do it now” conversations.
“You looked around television in those years, and the biggest problem any family faced was ‘Mother dented the car, and how do you keep Dad from finding out’; ‘the boss is coming to dinner, and the roast’s ruined,’” Lear recalled in a 2012 New York Times interview. “The message that was sending out was that we didn’t have any problems.”
According to the Times, Lear’s passing was confirmed by a representative for his family.
In addition to his TV work, Lear spent decades as a philanthropist. He founded the People for the American Way in 1981, and has served as a board member on the charity since.
Two of Lear’s biggest shows — All in the Family and Sanford and Son — were based on British shows, both of which were eclipsed by their American counterparts in terms of impact. A number of his other shows were also set in the Archie Bunker Universe, so to speak. Maude, The Jeffersons, Archie Bunker’s Place, Gloria, and 704 Hauser all spun out of All in the Family, with Good Times being considered a spinoff of Maude, and Checking In centering on characters from The Jeffersons.
Lear was born in New Haven Connecticut in 1922. He attended Emerson College in Boston, but dropped out in 1942 to fight in World War II. After returning from the war, lear began a career in public relations and, not long after, began writing comedy for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis’s Colgate Comedy Hour and The Martin and Lewis Show.
He would later write the movie Divorce American Style and wrote and directed Cold Turkey — both starring TV legend Dick Van Dyke. It took three tries to produce an All in the Family pilot that actually sold to a network…and even then, it still might not have made it past the first season if not for the critics. The series was a middling ratings performer, but earned numerous Emmy Awards including Outstanding Comedy Series, leading CBS to put it in reruns over the summer, where it performed well. Like Cheers would do years later, those awards and summer reruns would lead to a big audience bump in future season, and All in the Family became a genuine hit.
Lear’s long career led to dozens of awards including six Primetime Emmys, two Peabody Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 1999, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017, and the Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award in 2021. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1984.
