Legendary writer and producer Norman Lear, who had an unmistakable effect on American television over his six-decade career, died Tuesday at the age of 101.
Lear’s career began in the 1950s, when he sold jokes and sketches to famous comedians such as Jerry Lewis. Despite his late entry into television, Lear had enormous popularity in the early 1970s with his pioneering sitcom “All in the Family.”
As he approached his 50s, Lear persuaded CBS to take a chance on the show in 1971, according to the New York Times. Although based on the British series “Till Death Do Us Part,” Lear transformed it into a uniquely American story, bringing impassioned conversations about race, class, religion, politics, and the age gap into living rooms throughout the country.
The first show based on “All in the Family” was “Maude.” It changed the setting from a conservative neighborhood in Queens, New York, to an upper-middle-class home in Westchester County that was happy to be liberal. The show, which starred Bea Arthur as the opinionated suburbanite Maude, carried on Lear’s tradition of using heated family arguments to talk about social problems.
The ideological conflict in “Maude” permeated interactions with maid Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) as well as the family. Rolle’s remarkable performance inspired her to create her own sitcom, which followed the story of a close-knit but suffering Black family in the Chicago slums.
With “Good Times,” Lear and series co-creators Eric Monte and Mike Evans dug further into cultural themes. The show examined how working-class families’ issues — like the Evanses’ — differ from the Bunkers’ in “All in the Family.”
In keeping with the offshoot trend, “The Jeffersons” arose as a more sophisticated version of “Good Times,” delving into the struggles of a prosperous Black family living in a posh Manhattan neighborhood.
George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley), one of Lear’s most famous creations, paralleled the social satire in Maude and Archie Bunker. As he navigated his environment with humor and wisdom, George, a successful self-made man with strong ideas, often turned to his wife Louise (Isabel Sanford) for assistance.
Despite his accomplishment, Lear’s legacy has been tainted by subsequent revelations about his actions and character.
Monte, co-creator of “Good Times” and “The Jeffersons,” was the mastermind behind the iconic 1974 film, “Cooley High.” He accused Lear of stealing his ideas for “Good Times.” Monte labeled Lear as “racist, hypocritical, a thief, and a liar.” His lawsuit against Lear, ABC, and others resulted in a $1 million settlement in favor of Monte, who settled allegedly because he couldn’t get a suitable lawyer to take his case. After winning the settlement, Monte, 79, said Hollywood blackballed him. With no income, the settlement money quickly disappeared, and Monte was forced to live at a Salvation Army Center in California before returning to his hometown of Chicago.
“I caught hell because Norman Lear was incredibly racist, but he didn’t think so,” Monte said in an earlier interview. “And everything they wrote was stereotypic.”
