‘All in the Family’ Creator & Television Legend Norman Lear Dead at 101
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Television pioneer Norman Lear died Tuesday at the age of 101. The TV creator was associated with a bevy of family comedies throughout the 1970s, namely “All in the Family,” “Sanford and Son,” and “The Jeffersons.”
Lear died of “natural causes,” his reps said in a media release shared with IndieWire. A private service for immediate family will be held.
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“It is with profound sadness and love that we announce the passing of Norman Lear, our beloved husband, father, and grandfather,” a family statement, posted to Lear’s official social-media accounts, reads. “Norman passed away peacefully on December 5, 2023, surrounded by his family as we told stories and sang songs until the very end.”
“Norman lived a life in awe of the world around him,” the statement continued. “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 decades—who kept his mind and heart forever young. As we celebrate his legacy and reflect on the next chapter of life without him, we would like to thank everyone for all the love and support.”
Lear’s television output was different than what was commonly shown at the time. He cast an eye on regular people and their issues, from Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker to the financially successful Jeffersons moving to Manhattan. He pioneered series that focused on people of color and single women raising children, an anomaly on TV at the time they premiered. His series “One Day at a Time” would be rebooted by Netflix in 2017 with a Latina family at the center; live versions of the shows with updated casts and the original scripts have become awards season staples. Jimmy Kimmel partnered with Lear on those event-TV broadcasts.
In a separate statement sent to press on Wednesday, Lear’s family emphasized his social impact and patriotism beyond the small screen: “He deeply loved our country and spent a lifetime helping to preserve its founding ideals of justice and equality for all.”
Lear was born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 27, 1922. His father would spend time in prison for financial fraud and Lear would utilize his parents as inspiration for the squabbling Archie and Edith Bunker in “All in the Family.” After dropping out of Emerson College in 1942, he served in the Army Air Forces, flying 52 combat missions before being honorably discharged in 1945.
He traveled to Los Angeles to pursue a career in public relations and would become a door-to-door salesman for a time. In his free time, he and his cousin’s husband Ed Simmons would write comedy sketches that were performed by comedy duos like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis on the Colgate Comedy Hour. He also dabbled in short-term series like “The Martha Raye Show” and “The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.”
Through the 1960s and early-’70s Lear dabbled with film scripts, turning out 1967’s “Divorce, American Style” and 1971’s “Cold Turkey” but neither were successes (despite the former garnering Lear’s only Oscar nomination, for Best Screenplay). He also had an idea for a show about a blue-collar family pitched as “Justice for All” and “Those Were the Days.” The third pilot was the charm, picked up by CBS and dubbed “All in the Family.” Premiering in 1971, “All in the Family” became a success thanks to summer reruns and was the top-rated show on television for the next five years. It also garnered him three Emmy Awards.
The success of “All in the Family” saw a number of spin-offs, all equally well-received. “Sanford and Son” would debut on NBC in 1972, followed by “Maude,” “The Jeffersons,” “One Day at a Time” and “Good Times” in rapid succession.
Lear, never one to hide his political views, became committed to Democratic causes. In 1980 he founded the organization People for the American Way and created the 1982 ABC special “I Love Liberty.” Though his television series didn’t yield many successes after the 1980s, Lear diversified. He started a fruitful collaboration with director Rob Reiner through his company, Act III Communications, that would result in the feature films “The Sure Thing,” “Stand By Me,” and “The Princess Bride,” as well as “Fried Green Tomatoes.” He also was a voice actor for an episode of “South Park,” and participated in the animated comedy’s writer’s retreat in 2003.
Outside of his Oscar and Emmy nominations and wins, Lear was the first of seven inaugural television pioneers inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1984. He received two Peabody Awards. He infamously was a Kennedy Center Honor recipient in 2017 where he publicly stated he’d boycott the ceremony if President Trump and the First Lady were present. They did not attend and the ceremony went on with Lear in attendance. Lear was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1999 for, as President Bill Clinton stated, holding “up a mirror to American society and chang[ing] the way we look at it.”
In 2016 he was the subject of the documentary, “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You.” He later served as executive producer on the aforementioned reboot of “One Day at a Time.” It was announced in 2019 that he was working in collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda and PBS’ American Masters series on a documentary about actress Rita Moreno titled “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It,” which premiered in 2021.
Lear had his hand and footprints inaugurated at Grauman’s (now TCL) Chinese theater in 2019.
He is survived by his third wife, Lyn, six children, and four grandchildren.
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