“Norman passed away peacefully on December 5, 2023, surrounded by his family as we told stories and sang songs until the very end.” So his family announced the death of Norman Lear, the television writer and producer behind “All in the Family,” “Maude” and “The Jeffersons.” He was 101. News of his death spread on Wednesday, December 6, and the cause was not given.
The family statement, posted on Instagram, described a man who “marveled at his cup of coffee every morning, the shape of the tree outside his window, and the sounds of beautiful music.” It was people, they wrote, who kept his mind and heart young.
The shows
Lear worked on more than 100 TV shows over his career, Yahoo Lifestyle noted. Beyond “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” he was known for “Good Times” and “One Day at a Time.” These sitcoms put injustice and ordinary people on prime-time screens. The 2017 Kennedy Center Honors recognized his contribution to television, and in 2021 he received the Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award.
Actress Valerie Bertinelli, who played Barbara Cooper on the original “One Day at a Time” from 1975 to 1984, answered the family’s post with a broken-heart emoji. She also shared a selfie of the two of them with the caption “He meant the world to me.”
Rob Reiner, the director who starred in “All in the Family,” wrote on December 6 that he loved Lear “with all my heart” and called him a second father.
A childhood that shaped the work
Lear was born in 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, a salesman who mostly failed and was later jailed for selling fake bonds, was part of the inspiration for Archie Bunker, according to Kveller’s Lior Zaltzman, both in his politics and in the way he spoke to his wife.
While his father was in prison, Lear stumbled on the radio show of Father Coughlin, a vehemently antisemitic religious leader. A boy of about nine, he understood that people could hate him just for being born Jewish. That, Zaltzman wrote, made him want to fight for anyone hated for who they were.
His grandmother Lizzy, who spoke Yiddish, left a mark too. Lear told the Yiddish Book Center that she had “the greatest smile in the history of smiles.” Zaltzman, citing Rhonda Garelick in the New York Times, links her to the way his shows treated middle-aged women as complex characters instead of punchlines.
Politics and family
He never hid his politics. In 1980 he founded People for the American Way, a response to groups like Moral Majority that promoted free speech, abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights. Last year, Kveller said, he wrote of reading Donald Trump’s words about American Jews and feeling nine years old again.
Lear married three times and had six children. He was with his wife Lyn until the end. His last post before his death was about a song, “Decisions, Decisions,” recorded with his grandson Noah LaPook. At the end of the track, Lear laughs and tells the young musician, “I love it.”
Sources
- Jewish TV Legend Norman Lear Was the Definition of a Mensch – Kveller
- Valerie Bertinelli Speaks Out After Learning of Norman Lear’s Death
