Norman Lear Dead: The Legendary TV Producer Was 101

Norman Lear, the legendary producer who changed the face of television comedy care of groundbreaking series like All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons and One Day at a Time, has died. He was 101.

“Thank you for the moving outpouring of love and support in honor of our wonderful husband, father, and grandfather,” said Norman Lear’s family in a statement. “Norman lived a life of creativity, tenacity, and empathy. He deeply loved our country and spent a lifetime helping to preserve its founding ideals of justice and equality for all. Knowing and loving him has been the greatest of gifts. We ask for your understanding as we mourn privately in celebration of this remarkable human being.”

Born on July 27, 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut, Norman Lear began his career in television in the 1950s writing sketches for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, among others. He produced episodic television for personalities like Martha Raye, Henry Fonda, Andy Williams, Celeste Holm and Tennessee Ernie Ford. He and then partner Bud Yorkin created Tandem Productions in the 1950s. And he segued onto the big screen as the writer and producer for entries like Divorce American Style in 1967 (which resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, story and Screenplay), and Cold Turkey in 1971, both starring Dick Van Dyke.

At a time in 1960s when television was riddled with escapist comedies like The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Addams Family and The Munsters, Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin tackled then taboo subjects such as racism, abortion, menopause, rape, homosexuality and religion.

Unlike the then innocence of sitcom storytelling, where a happy ending was a prerequisite for an episode of any comedy, Lear built a TV world reflective of reality. He brought taboo subjects into American homes, provoking conversation and reflection. And what you saw in a Norman Lear sitcom was what you, the viewer, were often experiencing and could relate to. It felt real.

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While Lear in the late 1960s began preparations on a sitcom featuring a blue-collar family, it took three years (and two failed pilots for ABC) to get All in the Family on the air on CBS. And it took three Emmy Awards in that first season (including Outstanding Comedy Series) to get noticed.

By season two, All in the Family rose to the top-rated series in all of television. Next amongst Lear’s upcoming roster of hits was Sanford and Son on NBC, followed by Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons and One Day at a Time, which were all immediate hits on CBS.

Minus the traditional rose-colored sitcom glasses, Norman Lear “held up a mirror to American society and changed the way we look it,” noted President Bill Clinton upon presenting Lear with the National Medal of Arts in 1999. “His departure from traditional, two-dimensional television characters was risky. It showed the enormous respect he has for the judgment, the sense and the heart of the American people.”

Naturally, Lear had some misses along the way (including comedies All’s Fair, Apple Pie, Hot L Baltimore, a.k.a. Pablo and Sunday Dinner; and family drama Palmerstown, U.S.A.). But he also developed the cult favorite Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman for late night syndication.

More recently, Lear’s The Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials with Jimmy Kimmel (including recreations of episodes from All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times, The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes) won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) in 2019 and 2020, respectively, And the reboot of One Day at a Time on Netflix, with three generations of a Cuban family at the center, further accentuated the value and the importance of the topical style of Norman Lear comedy storytelling.

"I emphasize the common humanity. To laugh at them and live with them for a half-hour is to share in their humanity," said Lear in 2017 at the time of the modern day One Day at a Time. “Issues change over the decades, too, but humor remains a shared response, even in difficult situations, "because the foolishness of the human condition is a constant. It doesn't go away."

Norman Lear is survived by his third wife Lyn Davis, six children and four grandchildren.