15 of Norman Lear’s Essential Works

In a 2016 Sundance Q&A with Lena Dunham, Lear said he actually didn’t want to do the All in the Family spinoff, which ran for four seasons on CBS. 

“I prevented it from happening for some months,” Lear recalled. “The only way it got on was when [network owner William Paley] called me to his office and had four or five pages of names of people who would be out of work if the show didn’t go on. And so the show went on.” 

Lear said it was star Carroll O’Connor, Archie himself, who pushed hard for the series, too, though Lear called him “difficult” despite his acting talents and the fact he “worshipped the ground he walked on.” 

“He didn’t understand the character the way I felt I wished him to be, and he was the character,” Lear continued. “God, that’s all so interesting and complicated.”