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Career path finder images2/12/2024 ![]() However, all three series drew scrutiny for relying on what critics described as stereotypical character traits. “Good Times” has been called the first show to portray a two-parent Black household. “The Jeffersons,” a comedy about a wealthy Black couple that moves to a “deluxe apartment in the sky,” was notable for portraying upscale Black leads as well as an interracial couple as their neighbors. “Sanford and Son” addressed racism frankly. O’Connor reprised the role of a lifetime in the moderately popular series “Archie Bunker’s Place” (1979-83). Lear received four Emmys and a Peabody for the series, which reached younger viewers over the years through cable reruns. “All in the Family” flailed in its first season, but it went on to become one of the most popular and critically adored shows of the 1970s. They argued about the most contentious subjects of the era with an intensity rarely seen on American narrative television, let alone a prime-time network sitcom. The show often revolved around the bitter but frequently hilarious clashes between Bunker and his liberal son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic, played by the future filmmaker and activist Rob Reiner. He returned to the small screen in the early 1970s to create and produce “All in the Family.” The show was loosely inspired by the British series “Till Death Us Do Part” (1965-75), but Lear invested his version with a thoroughly American spirit. He then turned to writing and producing movies such as “Come Blow Your Horn” (1963) the Oscar-nominated “Divorce American Style” (1967) and the satire “Cold Turkey” (1971), which he directed. Lear eventually found work as a TV writer and producer on short-lived sitcoms, and in 1959 he created his first series: “The Deputy,” a Western starring Henry Fonda. Writers on the set of "The NBC Comedy Hour" Lear is second from left. He got his first break in entertainment in the early 1950s, teaming up with comedy writer Ed Simmons and collaborating on sketches for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, and other major comics of the Eisenhower era. When World War II ended, he found work in public relations. ![]() ![]() Army Air Forces, serving as a radio operator and gunner. But he dropped out in 1942 to enlist in the U.S. Lear graduated from Weaver High School in Hartford in 1940 and then enrolled at Emerson College in Boston. Lear’s imprint can be found on innumerable contemporary series that confront the American status quo. Lear was revered by generations of showrunners, writers, producers and performers, who saw him as a gifted master of small-screen entertainment and a revolutionary who made television more politically vital, morally urgent and socially relevant. In the course of his celebrated career, Lear received an array of honors, including induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame six Emmy Awards a Peabody Lifetime Achievement Award a National Medal of Arts and, most recently, the Carol Burnett Award for lifetime achievement at the virtual Golden Globes in February 2021. Jean Stapleton, Carroll O'Connor, Norman Lear, Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers and Mike Evans on the set of "All in the Family" in 1971. "But I think that the sight of the American flag being used to attack Capitol Police would have sickened him,” Lear wrote in an editorial published in The New York Times in July 2022, referring to the Jan. ![]() He probably would have been a Trump voter. If Archie had been around 50 years later, he probably would have watched Fox News. "For all his faults, Archie loved his country and he loved his family, even when they called him out on his ignorance and bigotries. Lear based the character on his own father. Bunker, played by Carroll O’Connor, was a cantankerous yet tender family patriarch who endeared himself to millions of viewers despite his regressive views - or perhaps because of them. Lear’s most lasting creation might be Archie Bunker, the irascible antihero at the center of “All in the Family” (1971-79). In his off-screen life, Lear was a committed progressive and outspoken champion of civic responsibility. Lear’s hugely popular shows tackled hot-button issues that network executives and some viewers had long considered taboo, such as racism, sexism, the women’s liberation movement, antisemitism, abortion, homophobia, the Vietnam War and class conflict. In an astonishingly prolific career that spanned more than six decades, Lear created or developed some of the most seminal comedies in television history, including “All in the Family,” “Sanford and Son,” “Maude,” “Good Times,” “The Jeffersons” and “One Day at a Time,” as well as its 2017 reboot anchored by a Latino cast.
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