Norman Lear, responsible for revolutionizing television in the 1970s with grounding breaking hits like All in the Family, Good Times and The Jeffersons, has died. He was 101.
Lear died on Monday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, a spokesperson said.
Lear remained active in the entertainment industry as he neared the centenary mark, winning Emmy Awards in 2019 and 2020 for installments of Live in Front of a Studio Audience, in which episodes of All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Good Times were reenacted with new performers.
Lear’s success in television helped make him a prominent and influential political voice behind the scenes, leading to his founding in the early 1980s of People for the American Way, a group to counter the influence of the religious right. Like his creative efforts, he remained active in politics throughout his life, including in 2017 when, upon learning that he would receive a Kennedy Center honor, he said that he would not attend a White House reception beforehand to protest Donald Trump’s moves to defund the arts. That led to other recipients also canceling their plans to attend the Trump ceremony. Trump himself skipped the ceremony.
Lear already had an established career as a writer and director in TV and movies in 1970, when in the late 1960s, he tried to sell a sitcom about a blue collar American family. Two pilots were rejected by ABC. But CBS picked up the show, based in part of the British sitcom Til Death Due Us Part. When it debuted on Jan. 12, 1971, the ratings were not stellar, but it was lauded creatively, even as the network worried about its content. But its audience picked up in subsequent months, and by the next season it was in the top ten.
With its unvarnished portrayal of a bigot in Archie Bunker, often warring against his liberal son-in-law, the show actually resonated with audiences of all political stripes. But it also ushered in a new era of the primetime TV landscape, with more topical — and controversial — fare replacing rural and fantasy sitcoms. Shows like Gomer Pyle USMC and The Andy Griffith Show were huge hits in the 60s, but they ignored the Vietnam war and civil rights movement happening in real life.
More to come.