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On Tuesday, December fifth, Norman

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Lear died at the great old age

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of one hundred and one. All

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the superlatives you've been reading about

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his contributions to television are

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justified. He fused

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comedy with social commentary in

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a way no one had before on TV.

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And here's the wonder of it all, he kept

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it funny. There was nothing eat

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your spinach about his shows. If

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you heard our season two episode on

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television's Rural Purge of the

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early nineteen seventies, you know

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how insulated from the real world

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television was until then. No

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one changed that more than Norman

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Lear by bringing in stories

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and characters that audiences hadn't

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seen on TV or oftentimes

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in their own lives. His shows

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weren't so much progressive as

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they were humane, and

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did I mention they were funny. Personal

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note. I became friends with Norman

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through his son in law, CBS

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News chief medical correspondent and

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my friend doctor John Lapouch. I'll

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always be grateful to have known Norman,

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to be able to witness how much his

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family adored him, and

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to have stood around a piano with him on

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New Year's Eve twenty nineteen, singing

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I'll be seeing you, what

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a conscience, what a heart.

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Here's an abbreviated version of an interview

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I did with Norman in twenty fifteen

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at the Austin Film Festival, where

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he was being honored, not long after

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his memoir was released. I

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can't think of any scripted comedies

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that generate the kind of discussion

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that your shows did back

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in the seventies and eighties. Is

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television doing something wrong?

1:58

No, I think the kind of discussion

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you referred to that we generated it

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may not be generated now. There's

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more to do with the fact that we

2:08

were new at the time and there

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were only three networks. So

2:13

you were either going to watch the

2:15

Roaster's ruined and the Boss is coming to

2:17

dinner over here, or

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you're going to see Auncie need to really struggle

2:22

with a with a with a problem

2:25

American families are struggling with or mod

2:28

or good Times or the Jeffersons.

2:30

I mean, that's a that's a modest explanation.

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That's real. I mean, I don't know about minus.

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It's it's what I think.

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Was occurring during that time.

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Were you thinking, you

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know.

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What's another social issue that hasn't been

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spoken about that we can address what's what's another

2:46

taboo we can explore? Or were you just

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thinking, you know what, I just want to tell good stories.

2:53

Well, both we wanted to tell good

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stories. But I

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advised writers to read

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the LA Times and also to get the New York

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Times, and if you had the time

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for read the Wall Street Journal to

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get a broadering of attitudes and

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so forth, and come in with those

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things that would

3:14

a story make.

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Good times, samfer and Son, the

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Jeffersons. Why

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were you drawn to

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black characters and topics?

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I think because on Maud,

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for example, esther role

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was doing so well as Florida,

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it was so clear that she could

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anchor a show. And

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if the network didn't think she could anchor a

3:41

show, on an episode of Maud, we

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introduced her husband when he came to pick her

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up one night. It was John Amos. And

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now you saw a really solid

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couple. And now the network saw that too,

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and in quick order they said, you

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know, they may be a show with those people. Well,

3:58

of course that's what we were thinking.

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So it happened

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very naturally, and there the

4:06

understanding of realization that

4:09

oh, this would be the first black family. That

4:11

was exciting. But it was like an afterthought,

4:14

and we realized, how could we not realize?

4:17

But it started with the talent of the performance.

4:20

So it happened more organically. You weren't

4:22

thinking, there, I'm going to break ground.

4:24

No, no, no, it happened

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quite organically as a result of the talents

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we were working with.

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But in your book you talk about

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taking the train into New York

4:35

City when you were a kid to see theater and

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what would happen.

4:39

Yeah, on the trains of New York now Haven

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and Hartford Railroad, slipping into

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one hundred and twenty fifth Street, Harlem.

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In Harlem, Yes, the

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tenements were like they

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felt like they were eight feet away. They were probably thirty

4:55

fee They were very close. And

4:57

the windows leading into the

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apartment were, you

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know, for six minutes

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or so, very visible, and life

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inside those windows and sometimes

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when the fire escape outside those windows.

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And I used to wonder about.

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Them, you know, who were these families?

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Were these families, what were they thinking? What

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were their problems? That woman,

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what was her favorite item of clothing? Who

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was her favorite child? What was it? That

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child? What did she he want to be when

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they grew up? I

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guess that's a writer's.

5:32

Yeah, telling stories imagining scenarios

5:35

relationships.

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Well, I also had something in common with them.

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You know, I knew by then, when

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I'm sixteen seventeen years old, I

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knew by then that as a Jewish

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kid, there were people who hated me simply

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for that reason. And

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I learned that from Father Conglin, a

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radio priest who was a vicious

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anti vid wing, rapidly

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right wing and anti Semitic, and

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and I understood by certainly

6:09

by then that black people had it worse

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than I had it. But

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I had that in common. It was an affinity

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that was important

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to me.

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Later this year at the Apollo

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on the fortieth anniversary of the premiere

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of The Jefferson's You're going to be honored

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for your contribution to

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African American culture.

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Yeah, I love. I'm proud of that.

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I love that people talk

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to you about you know, what

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your shows meant? Does that? Has

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that happened a lot? In particular with African

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American adult is It.

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Has happened a lot. I grew up with your show.

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My father and I

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we used to laugh, you know, I

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never saw my father laugh like that. I hear that

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a lot. It's so touching.

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And we watched it as a family.

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We don't watch anything as a family. Now. We watched

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Your All in a family as a family,

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and we talked about

7:11

Archie, and we talked about the subject

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matter. And that's

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the thing. The one thing

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that I think the show accomplished

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that I can count on because

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I've heard it through all the years, was that there

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are big words to me. We talked, We

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looked at the show, and we talked. And

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if entertainment is about anything,

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it's about causing people to walk out of a

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theater and hum the tunes

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or talk the subject or you

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know, the message or the content.

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Not surprisingly, much of Norman's

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comedy was shaped by his childhood.

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When he was nine years old, his father

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went to prison for selling fake

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bonds. When you found out as

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a nine year old that your father was going to prison, how

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did that change your outlook on life?

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I was my father was going to prison. I

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was bereft. I adored him.

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I loved his zest for life. He was

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gone. He was seen being

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manacled to a detective walking down

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the steps of the courthouse. There

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were a crowd of people in the house. My mother

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was selling the furniture she couldn't

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live in shame and Chelsea, and

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there were a lot of people, so I knew a

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lot I didn't, And I

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was in that, in that condition,

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when a neighbor or an adult

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sun grown guy puts his hand

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on my shoulder and says, well,

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you're the man in the house now, Norman, and

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they're there, A man doesn't cry.

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Nine years old, I'm hearing that, And

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sometime later I imagine that, you

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know, thinking about that, as I thought about it

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often, I thought,

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well, teaches me a lot about

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the foolishness of the human condition.

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So I think that fool

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taught me how

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foolish we are, you know how.

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And also that in

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the most solemn or tragic of moments,

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there is humor, because

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saying to a nine year old in that condition,

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you're the man that has

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to be as funny as anything. I know

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how.

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How much like Archie Bunker was

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your father?

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Not at all like

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Archie Bunker, except in certain

9:40

attitudes. I mean,

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Carol transcended anything I might

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have imagined my father could be.

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What was what is the first adjective

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that you'd use to describe Archie Bunker?

9:54

H fearful,

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fearful of progress, fearful of tomorrow,

10:03

fearful of God,

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have got never able to admit it that

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he isn't good enough for

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what's coming.

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He's also lovable, oh yes.

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Lovable in his love for family, for

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his family.

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You don't like when people fixate on

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Archie Bunker being bigoted, saying, oh he was,

10:23

he was a bigot.

10:25

Well, it doesn't cover the world, it doesn't cover

10:27

him.

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You know, you wrote, created,

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developed a lot of these roles and

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then cast them. The

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actors so often ended up affecting the role

10:37

itself and changing the direction.

10:39

Of the role. Sure, yeah, sure, I

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mean what kind of a head would I have

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had if writing all

10:47

in the family I had Carol O'Connor

10:49

in mine. You know, Carol

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O'Connor gave

10:54

me something he had that he didn't

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know he had. I

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remember him telling me there was a cab driver

11:01

that he was thinking of when he read the script,

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and he was using

11:06

that cab driver. You

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know that his image of that cab driver

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is he delivered his

11:14

version of Archie Bunker. But

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his version of Archie Bunker is nothing I

11:19

could have had in mind. So

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you know, I wrote some words and he inhabited

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them.

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And what about be Arthur and Maud.

11:28

How much did she

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affect the development of the role.

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Well, she affected enormously, and

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she is quite different from

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Carol O'Connor. I knew her well. I

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had seen her on Broadway,

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I'd seen her off Broadway. We had become

11:46

friends. So Maud

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was specifically written with her in mind.

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And you have a very special relationship

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to that role.

11:55

Yes, yes, that role

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was in a sense me

12:03

in the sense of her the

12:06

way she was political. She

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felt she

12:12

was for me, a bleeding heart conservative

12:15

in the sense that you could not

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if you were dealing with fairness and justice.

12:22

She was one thousand percent progressive.

12:27

She would be called by anybody a

12:29

liberal, But I view one's

12:32

protection of a First Amendment and

12:34

the Bill of Rights and those guarantees

12:38

that we will be I

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don't like the word tolerant. That

12:42

the United States the

12:45

law protects our ability

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to be equal under the law, and

12:52

that's a conservative for me. That's

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the ultimate conservative position,

12:57

something you will not give up on. Conservative

13:00

and it's and it's considered

13:03

our culture.

13:04

The bleeding heart, it's just

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a mod a is a bleeding our conservative. I

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love the theme song for Maud.

13:11

Oh thank the

13:15

Alan.

13:17

Wrote, But I can never remember the last

13:20

lyrics.

13:20

And then there's mud, and then there's that

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that enterprising arising

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right, ond.

13:28

Right, it's enterprising, never compromising.

13:30

Never compromising some other arising

13:33

right.

13:33

Right, ond bomb.

13:37

Right.

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What is your favorite of the theme songs of the shows?

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I love them? Are? I think by

13:43

now moving on up has become such

13:45

an anthem.

13:46

Well, it's got that amazing bridge. Fish,

13:48

don't fry in the kitchen, beans,

13:50

don't burn on the griill. Took

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a whole lot of climb

13:55

in just to get up that hill.

13:56

Right one dayre I really

13:59

into them? Is extent, all right.

14:01

And let me just also say that I've noticed

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that you handle and this is going to sound like

14:05

a silly compliment, but you

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handle adulation well.

14:11

I've seen during our time here

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people come up saying your show

14:15

means this to me, meant so much, and my

14:18

goodness, your Norman lear and you handle

14:20

it very well.

14:21

Yeah, you know what it comes

14:24

to mind. You

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see a wonderful we all

14:29

see a wonderful plant, and

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we admire the plant,

14:35

and it's representative of all

14:38

the plants we've ever seen and all

14:40

of the other joyful

14:42

things in nature that make us

14:45

feel so great. And

14:47

it's an expression of

14:51

love of nature, our

14:54

relationship to that plant as we're looking

14:56

at it. And and

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I think that adulation

15:02

that that that comes to me as

15:04

an expression of our own humanity.

15:06

For humanity, it isn't

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me, it's it's it's well,

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he's a good guy, and it makes me feel

15:13

good, and I'm happy to tell him. But

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I'm telling the world about them. I

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mean, and

15:24

it has to be right, you know. I

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think that's incontrovertible.

15:29

Is there one question

15:32

throughout your life that you've been

15:34

trying to answer?

15:39

I guess the question of question is

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what follows this now?

15:43

I haven't been trying to answer it because I

15:45

know, you know, there's too much evidence that I'm

15:47

not going to be able to find the answer. But

15:51

there's something exciting about

15:53

that about not knowing.

15:55

It would be great if

15:58

you went to a hereafter, because

16:00

so many of the great stores in

16:02

your shows have passed on, and if you could

16:05

be reunited with them.

16:07

I would love that. If I could introduce,

16:11

you know, Carol Ocanna the Bernon Shaw.

16:15

Hey, Bernie, meet Carol,

16:19

I'd like that. That would be that

16:22

would be a dream