Rob Reiner, Quinta Brunson and more celebrities pay tribute to Norman Lear

Norman Lear, a pioneer of American television and a lifelong political activist, died on Tuesday at the age of 101, his family announced Wednesday morning. Lear was beloved by the industry and audiences alike. He shaped much of what we know of the situational comedy today and continued throughout his life to advocate for the form and the people who create it, as recently as this summer voicing his support for the Writers Guild of America strike. “[It] was people—those he just met and those he knew for years—who kept his mind and heart forever young,” his family said in their statement, and many of those people came forward to pay tribute to Lear on Wednesday, including Rob Reiner, Quinta Brunson, and John Leguizamo, among others.

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“I loved Norman Lear with all my heart. He was my second father. Sending my love to Lyn and the whole Lear family,” Reiner wrote on Twitter/X, while Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson wrote, “My Goat. What a life. Rest well, Norman Lear.”

“R.i.p. Norman Lear. A master of story telling and a healer through his shows!” Leguizamo shared on his own social media. “He is what all of showbiz should be aspiring to. He is the consummate creative producer we have long abandoned in the industry.” Meanwhile, The Wire creator David Simon wrote, “Anyone who ever had a chance to say something pointed or political in an American television entertainment owes Norman Lear their adoration and awe. He saw what was possible in that vacuous glowing box and, almost singularly, he made it so.”

“Without the goat who do we have left? Thank you for everything you taught us about ourselves and the lessons your children of the pen (like @quintabrunson Michael Schur & others) will hopefully be able to keep teaching us for many years to come. RIP,” playwright and actor Jeremy O. Harris posted, sharing a selfie from a dinner with Lear. “You were always so kind and curious with new writers and it’s one of the great honors of my life to have gotten to know you even a bit. Your whole family was full of gems and that’s bc you were a crown jewel.”

“Norman lived a life of curiosity, tenacity, and empathy. He deeply loved our country and spent a lifetime helping to preserve its founding ideals of justice and equality for all,” his family said in their statement. “He began his career in the earliest days of live television and discovered a passion for writing about the real lives of Americans, not a glossy ideal. At first, his ideas were met with closed doors and misunderstanding. However, he stuck to his conviction that the ‘foolishness of the human condition’ made great television, and eventually he was heard.”

Read on for more tributes to Lear.