Norman Lear
Norman Milton Lear (born July 27, 1922) is an American television writer and film and television producer who has produced, written, created, or developed over 100 shows. Lear is known for many popular 1970s sitcoms, including "All in the Family", "Maude", "Sanford and Son", "One Day at a Time," "The Jeffersons", and "Good Times". Lear continued to actively produce television, including the 2017 remake of "One Day at a Time" and the Netflix revival of "Good Times" in 2021. Lear has received many awards, including five Emmys, the National Medal of Arts, and the Kennedy Center Honors. He  is a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame. Lear is also known for his political activism and funding of liberal and progressive causes and politicians. In 1980, Lear founded the advocacy organization People for the American Way to counter the influence of the Christian right in politics, and in the early 2000s, he mounted a tour of the Declaration of Independence. Early life. Lear was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Jeanette ("née" Seicol) and Hyman "Herman" Lear, a traveling salesman. He had a younger sister, Claire Lear Brown (1925–2015). Lear grew up in a Jewish  household in Connecticut and had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony. His mother was originally from Ukraine, while his father's family was from Russia. When Lear was nine years old, he lived in Chelsea, MA [Interview with Norman Lear on NPR - air date January 16, 2022] when his father went to prison for selling fake bonds. Lear thought of his father as a "rascal" and said that the character of Archie Bunker (whom Lear depicted as white Protestant on the show) was in part inspired by his father, while the character of Edith Bunker was in part inspired by his mother . However, Lear has said the moment which inspired his lifetime of advocacy was another event which he experienced at the age of nine, when he first came across infamous anti-semitic Catholic radio priest Father Charles Coughlin while tinkering with his crystal radio set. Lear has also said he would hear more of Coughlin's radio sermons over time, and found out that Coughlin would at times find different ways to promote anti-semitism by also targeting people whom Jews considered to be "great heroes," such as US President Franklin Roosevelt. Lear graduated from Weaver High School in Hartford, Connecticut , in 1940 and subsequently attended Emerson College in Boston, but dropped out in 1942 to join the United States Army Air Forces. Lear enlisted in the United States Army in September 1942. He served in the Mediterranean theater as a radio operator/gunner on Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers with the 772nd Bombardment Squadron, 463d Operations Group of the Fifteenth Air Force; he also described bombing Germany in the European theater. Lear flew 52 combat missions, for which he was awarded the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters. Lear was discharged from the Army in 1945, and his fellow  World War II crew members are featured in the books "Crew Umbriago", by Daniel P. Carroll (tail gunner), and "772nd Bomb Squadron: The Men, The Memories", by Turner Publishing and Co. Career. After World War II, Lear had a career in public relations. The career choice was inspired by his Uncle Jack: "My dad had a brother, Jack, who flipped me a quarter every time he saw me. He was a press agent so I wanted to be a press agent. That's the only role model I had. So all I wanted was to grow up to be a  guy who could flip a quarter to a nephew." Lear decided to move to California to restart his career in publicity, driving with his toddler daughter across the country. His first night in Los Angeles, Lear stumbled upon a production of George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara" at a 90-seat theater in the round Circle Theater off Sunset Boulevard. One of the actors in the play was Sydney Chaplin, who was the son of actors Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey. Chaplin, Alan Mowbray and Dame Gladys Cooper sat in front of him, and after the show was over, Chaplin  performed. Lear had a first cousin in Los Angeles, Elaine, married to Ed Simmons, who wanted to be a comedy writer. Simmons and Lear teamed up to sell home furnishings door-to-door for a company called The Gans Brothers and later sold family photos door-to-door. Throughout the 1950s, Lear and Simmons turned out comedy sketches for television appearances of Martin and Lewis, Rowan and Martin, and others. They frequently wrote for Martin and Lewis when they appeared on the "Colgate Comedy Hour" and a 1953 article from "Billboard" magazine stated that Lear and Simmons were guaranteed a  record-breaking $52,000 each to write for five additional Martin and Lewis appearances on the "Colgate Comedy Hour" that year. In a 2015 interview with Vanity Magazine, Lear said that Jerry Lewis had hired him and Simmons to become writers for Martin and Lewis three weeks before the comedy duo made their first appearance on the Colgate Comedy Hour in 1950. Lear also acknowledged in 1986 that he and Simmons were the main writers for "The Martin and Lewis Show" for three years. In 1954, Lear was enlisted as a writer hoping to salvage the new Celeste Holm CBS  sitcom, "Honestly, Celeste!", but the program was canceled after eight episodes. During this time, he became the producer of NBC's short-lived (26 episodes) sitcom "The Martha Raye Show", after Nat Hiken left as the series director. Lear also wrote some of the opening monologues for "The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show", which aired from 1956 to 1961. In 1959, Lear created his first television series, a half-hour western for Revue Studios called "The Deputy", starring Henry Fonda. 1970s. Starting out as a comedy writer, then a film director (he wrote and produced the 1967 film "Divorce American Style  and directed the 1971 film Cold Turkey", both starring Dick Van Dyke), Lear tried to sell a concept for a sitcom about a blue-collar American family to ABC. They rejected the show after two pilots were taped: "Justice for All" in 1968 and "Those Were the Days" in 1969. After a third pilot was taped, CBS picked up the show, known as "All in the Family". It premiered January 12, 1971, to disappointing ratings, but it took home several Emmy Awards that year, including Outstanding Comedy Series. The show did very well in summer reruns, and it flourished in  the 1971–72 season, becoming the top-rated show on TV for the next five years. After falling from the #1 spot, "All in the Family" still remained in the top ten, well after it transitioned into "Archie Bunker's Place". The show was based loosely on the British sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part", about an irascible working-class Tory and his Socialist son-in-law. Lear's second big TV sitcom, "Sanford and Son", was also based on a British sitcom, "Steptoe and Son", about a west London junk dealer and his son. Lear changed the setting to the  Watts section of Los Angeles and the characters to African-Americans, and the NBC show "Sanford and Son" was an instant hit. Numerous hit shows followed thereafter, including "Maude", "The Jeffersons" (as with "Maude" a spin-off of "All in the Family"), "One Day at a Time", and "Good Times" (which was a spinoff of "Maude"). What most of the Lear sitcoms had in common was that they were shot on videotape in place of film, used a live studio audience, and dealt with the social and political issues of the day. "Maude" is generally considered to be based on  Lear's wife Frances, something she herself claimed, with Charlie Hauck serving as main producer and writer. Lear's longtime producing partner was Bud Yorkin, who also produced "All in the Family", "Sanford and Son", "What's Happening!!", "Maude", and "The Jeffersons". Yorkin split with Lear in 1975. He started a production company with writer/producers Saul Turteltaub and Bernie Orenstein, but they had only two shows that ran more than a year: "What's Happening!!" and "Carter Country". The Lear/Yorkin company was known as Tandem Productions that was founded in 1958. Lear and talent agent Jerry Perenchio founded  T.A.T. Communications ("T.A.T." stood for the Yiddish phrase "Tuchus Affen Tisch", which meant "Putting one's ass on the line.") in 1974, which co-existed with Tandem Productions and was often referred to in periodicals as Tandem/T.A.T. The Lear organization was one of the most successful independent TV producers of the 1970s. TAT produced the influential and award-winning 1981 film "The Wave" about Ron Jones' social experiment. Lear also developed the cult favorite TV series "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" ("MH MH") which was turned down by the networks as "too controversial" and placed it into first run syndication  with 128 stations in January 1976. A year later, Lear added another program into first-run syndication along with "MH MH", "All That Glitters". He planned in 1977 to offer three hours of prime-time Saturday programming directly, with the stations placing his production company in the position of an occasional network. 1980s. In 1980, Lear founded the organization People for the American Way for the purpose of counteracting the Christian right organization Moral Majority, founded in 1979. In the fall of 1981, Lear began a 14-month run as the host of a revival of the classic game show  Quiz Kids for the CBS Cable Network. In January 1982, Lear and Jerry Perenchio bought out Avco Embassy Pictures from Avco Financial Corporation, and the Avco part of its name was dropped after merging that with T.A.T. Communications Company to form Embassy Communications, Inc. Embassy Pictures was led by Alan Horn and Martin Schaeffer, later co-founders of Castle Rock Entertainment with Rob Reiner. In March 1982, Lear produced an ABC television special titled "I Love Liberty", which was aimed to counterbalance groups like the Moral Majority. Among the many guests who appeared on the special was conservative icon and  the 1964 U.S. presidential election's Republican nominee Barry Goldwater. On June 18, 1985, Lear and Perenchio sold Embassy Communications to Columbia Pictures (then owned by the Coca-Cola Company), which acquired Embassy's film and television division (including Embassy's in-house television productions and the television rights to the Embassy theatrical library) for $485 million in shares of The Coca-Cola Company. Lear and Perenchio split the net proceeds (about $250 million). Coke later sold the film division to Dino De Laurentiis and the home video arm to Nelson Holdings (led by Barry Spikings). The brand  Tandem Productions was abandoned in 1986 with the cancellation of "Diff'rent Strokes", and Embassy ceased to exist as a single entity in late 1986, having been split into different components owned by different entities. The Embassy TV division became ELP Communications in 1988, but shows originally produced by Embassy were now under the Columbia Pictures Television banner from 1988 to 1996 and the Columbia TriStar Television banner from 1996 to 2002. Lear's Act III Communications, founded in 1986 with Tom McGrath as president, produced several notable films, including Rob Reiner's next three films: "The Sure Thing", "Stand By  Me", and "The Princess Bride", as well as "Fried Green Tomatoes". On February 2, 1989, Norman Lear's Act III Communications formed a joint venture with Columbia Pictures Television called "Act III Television" to produce television series instead of managing. 1990s. Lear attempted to return to TV production in the 1990s with the shows "Sunday Dinner", "The Powers That Be", and "704 Hauser", the last one putting a different family in the house from "All in the Family". None of the series proved successful. Lear's Act III Communications was founded in 1986 and led initially by Tom McGrath, who  met Lear while negotiating on behalf of Coca-Cola the acquisition of Lear's old company, and later by Hal Gaba, a former Embassy Pictures executive. This included: Act III Theatres, sold to KKR in 1997; Act III Broadcasting, sold to Abry Communications; and Act III Publishing, sold to PriMedia. Lear is also the owner of Concord Records, and in 2005 consummated a 50% interest in the film library and production assets of Village Roadshow Productions Pty Ltd. In 1997, Lear and Jim George produced the Kids' WB series "Channel Umptee-3". It premiered on October 25, 1997. The cartoon was  the first to meet the Federal Communications Commission's then-new educational/informal programming requirements. It received positive reviews, but ratings were low and it was eventually canceled after one season, with the finale airing September 4, 1998. 2000s. In 2003, Lear made an appearance on "South Park" during the "I'm a Little Bit Country" episode, providing the voice of Benjamin Franklin. He also served as a consultant on the episodes "I'm a Little Bit Country" and "Cancelled". Lear has attended a "South Park" writers' retreat, and served as the officiant at co-creator Trey Parker's wedding . 2010s. Lear is spotlighted in the 2016 documentary "Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You". In 2017, Lear served as executive producer for "One Day at a Time", the reboot of his 1975-1984 show of the same name that premiered on Netflix starring Justina Machado and Rita Moreno as a Cuban-American family. He has hosted a podcast, "All of the Above with Norman Lear", since May 1, 2017. On July 29, 2019, it was announced that Lear had teamed with Lin-Manuel Miranda to make an American Masters documentary about Moreno's life, tentatively titled "Rita Moreno: The  Girl Who Decided to Go For It". In 2020, it was announced that Lear and Act III Productions would executive produce a revival of "Who’s The Boss?" In 2014, Lear published "Even This I Get To Experience," a memoir. Awards. In 1967, Lear was nominated for an Academy Award for writing "Divorce American Style". Lear was among the first seven television pioneers inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1984. He received five Emmy Awards (two in 1971, one each in 1972 and 1973, and one in 2019) and two Peabody Awards (a personal award in 1977  and an individual award in 2016). He received the Humanist Arts Award from the American Humanist Association in 1977. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6615 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1980, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 1999, President Bill Clinton awarded the National Medal of Arts to Lear, noting, "Norman Lear has held up a mirror to American society and changed the way we look at it." Also in 1999, he and Bud Yorkin received the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of excellence and innovation in  creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television. In February 2017, Lear was awarded with the "Media Icon" Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition. On May 12, 2017, Lear was awarded the fourth annual Woody Guthrie Prize presented by the Woody Guthrie Center based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event took place in the Clive Davis Theater at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. The Woody Guthrie Prize is given annually to an artist who exemplifies the spirit and life work of Guthrie by speaking for the less fortunate through music, literature, film, dance  or other art forms and serving as a positive force for social change in America. Previous honorees include Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples and Kris Kristofferson. On August 3, 2017, it was announced that the Kennedy Center had made Lear, along with Carmen de Lavallade, Lionel Richie, LL Cool J, and Gloria Estefan, one of the recipients of the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors. US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were scheduled to be seated with the honorees during the Kennedy Center ceremony, which took place on December 3, 2017, and they were planning to host a reception with  them at the White House earlier in the evening. Variety magazine's senior editor Ted Johnson reacted with statements such as "That in and of itself will be an interesting moment, as Lear and Estefan have been particularly outspoken against Trump and his policies." It was afterwards announced that Lear would boycott the White House reception. In the end, the President and First Lady did not attend. Lear was honored as The New Jewish Home's Eight over Eighty Gala 2017 honoree. In 2019, Lear was awarded the Britannia Award for Excellence in Television. The "Norman Lear Achievement Award in  Television," issued by the Producers Guild of America, was named after Lear, and he was a recipient in 2005. Political and cultural activities. In addition to his success as a TV writer and producer, Lear is an outspoken supporter of First Amendment and liberal causes. The only time that he did not support the Democratic candidate for President was in 1980. He supported John Anderson because he considered the Carter administration to be "a complete disaster". Lear was one of the wealthy Jewish Angelenos known as the Malibu Mafia. In the 1970s and 1980s, the group discussed progressive and liberal  political issues, and worked together to fund them. They helped to fund the legal defense of Daniel Ellsberg who had released the "Pentagon Papers", and they backed the struggling progressive magazine "The Nation" to keep it afloat. In 1975, they formed the Energy Action Committee to oppose Big Oil's powerful lobby in Washington. In 1981, Lear founded People for the American Way (PFAW), a progressive advocacy organization formed in reaction to the politics of the Christian right. PFAW ran several advertising campaigns opposing the interjection of religion in politics. PFAW succeeded in stopping Reagan's 1987 nomination of Robert  Bork to the Supreme Court. Lear, a longtime critic of far right Christian nationalism, is an advocate for the advancement of secularism. Prominent right-wing Christians (such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart), have accused Lear of being an atheist and holding an anti-Christian bias. In the January 21, 1987 issue of "The Christian Century", Lear associate Martin E. Marty (a Lutheran professor of church history at the University of Chicago Divinity School between 1963 and 1998) rejected those allegations, stating the television producer honored religious moral values and complimenting Lear's understanding of Christianity. Marty also  noted that while Lear and his family had never practiced Orthodox Judaism, the television producer was a follower of Judaism. In a 2009 interview with US News journalist Dan Gilgoff, Lear rejected claims by right-wing Christian nationalists that he was an atheist and prejudiced against Christianity. Lear holds religious beliefs and has integrated some evangelical Christian language into his Born Again American campaign. He does believe that religion should be kept separate from politics and policymaking. In a 2014 interview with "The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles" journalist Rob Eshman, Lear described himself as a "total Jew" but  never a practicing one. In 1989, Lear founded the Business Enterprise Trust, an educational program that used annual awards, business school case studies, and videos to spotlight exemplary social innovations in American business until it ended in 1998. He announced in 1992 that he would reduce his political activism. In 2000, he provided an endowment for a multidisciplinary research and public policy center that explored the convergence of entertainment, commerce, and society at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. It was later named the Norman Lear Center in recognition. Lear serves on the National Advisory Board of the Young  Storytellers Foundation. He has written articles for "The Huffington Post". Lear is a trustee emeritus at The Paley Center for Media. Declaration of Independence. In 2001, Lear and his wife, Lyn, purchased a Dunlap broadside—one of the first published copies of the United States Declaration of Independence—for $8.1 million. Not a document collector, Lear said in a press release and on the "Today" show that his intent was to tour the document around the United States so that the country could experience its "birth certificate" firsthand. Through the end of 2004, the document traveled throughout the United  States in the Declaration of Independence Roadtrip, which Lear organized, visiting several presidential libraries, dozens of museums, as well as the 2002 Olympics, Super Bowl XXXVI, and the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia. Lear and Rob Reiner produced a filmed, dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence—the last project filmed by famed cinematographer Conrad Hall—on July 4, 2001, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The film, introduced by Morgan Freeman, features Kathy Bates, Benicio del Toro, Michael Douglas, Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Graham Greene, Ming-Na, Edward Norton, Winona Ryder, Kevin Spacey, and Renée Zellweger as readers. The film  was directed by Arvin Brown and scored by John Williams. Declare Yourself. In 2004, Lear established Declare Yourself, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign created to empower and encourage eligible 18- to 29-year-olds in America to register and vote. Since then, it has registered almost 4 million young people. 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Lear was one of 98 "prominent members of Los Angeles' Jewish community" that signed an open letter supporting the proposed nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers led by the United States. The letter called for the resolution of the bill, warning that the ending  of the agreement by Congress would be a "tragic mistake". The letter was also signed by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad; Walt Disney Concert Hall architect Frank Gehry; "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner, and many more. Personal life. Lear has been married three times: Lear is a godparent to actress and singer Katey Sagal. In 1977, African American screenwriter Eric Monte filed a lawsuit accusing ABC and CBS producers Norman Lear, Bud Yorkin and others of stealing his ideas for "Good Times", "The Jeffersons", and "What's Happening!!" Monte received a $1-million settlement and a small percentage of the  residuals from "Good Times" and one percent ownership of the show. Monte, due to his lack of business knowledge and experience as well as legal representation, would not receive royalties for other shows which he created. However, Lear and other Hollywood producers, outraged over the lawsuit, blacklisted Eric Monte and labeled him too difficult to work with. Appearances in popular culture. Lear plays the protagonist in the video to "Happy Birthday to Me", the first single from musician and actor Paul Hipp's 2015 album "The Remote Distance". "The top of my bucket list always included a desire to sing . More than that — a desire to enchant an audience with my voice. I ached to be Sinatra or Tormé for just a night. You say a night's too much? How about just one song?" My friend, actor, singer-guitarist and composer, Paul Hipp, wrote the happy birthday song when he turned fifty. I loved it and asked if I could perform it as I turn ninety-three. That was the result, and I don't care what you say, I love it." TV productions. Note: The above chart does not include the made-for-television movies "The Wave", which  aired on October 4, 1981, or "Heartsounds", which aired on September 30, 1984.