Norman Lear

Norman Lear

Norman Lear (born July 27, 1922) is a Jewish-American television writer and producer who produced such popular sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, Good Times and Maude. Some consider him the most successful television producer of all time, given the shows he and his production companies produced.

Biography

Lear was born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He attended Emerson College in Boston, but dropped out in 1942 to join the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He served as a radio operator on board a Boeing B17 Flying Fortress bomber with the Fifteenth Air Force 463rd Bombardment Group 772nd Bombardment Squadron and received a decoration Air Medal for his wartime accomplishments before leaving the military in 1945. Norman Lear and fellow crewmembers during WWII are featured in the book "Crew Umbriago" by Daniel P.Carroll(tailgunner) and also in another book 772nd Bomb Squadron The Men-The Memories by Turner Publishing Company.

Starting out as a comedy writer, then a film director (he wrote and produced the 1969 film Divorce, American Style and directed the 1971 film Cold Turkey, both starring Dick Van Dyke), Lear tried to sell a concept for a sitcom about a blue-collar American family to ABC. They rejected the show after two pilots were filmed. After a third pilot was shot, CBS picked up the show, known as All in the Family. It premiered January 12, 1971 to disappointing ratings, but it took home several Emmy Awards that year, including Outstanding Comedy Series. The show did very well in summer reruns, and it flourished in the 1971-1972 season, becoming the #1 rated show on TV; for the next five years, All in the Family would be the top-rated show of each season, and after falling from the #1 spot, would still remain in the top ten, well after it transitioned into Archie Bunker's Place. The show was based on the British sitcom Til Death Us Do Part, about an irate working-class Tory and his Socialist son-in-law.

Lear's second big TV hit was Sanford and Son, also based on a British sitcom (Steptoe and Son) about a Cockney junk dealer and his son. Lear changed the setting to Los Angeles and the characters to African-Americans, and the NBC show was an instant hit. Numerous hit shows followed thereafter, including Maude (the lead character of which was reportedly based on Lear's then-wife Frances), Silver Spoons and Who's the Boss.

What most of the Lear sitcoms had in common are that they were character-driven, had a flat, theatrical look similar to soap operas, and very often dealt with social or political issues of the day. Ironically, although Lear's shows are often considered somewhat autobiographical and closely identified with his personal experiences, his early hits were actually all adapted from someone else's creations: the two aforementioned British adaptations and "Maude", while reputedly based on Lear's wife, was actually the brainchild of series producer Charlie Hauck.

Lear's longtime producing partner was Bud Yorkin, who served as executive producer of Sanford and Son, split with Lear in 1975. He started a production company with writer/producers Saul Turteltaub and Bernie Orenstein, but they had only one show that ran more than a year: What's Happening!!. The Lear/Yorkin company was known as Tandem Productions. Lear and talent agent Jerry Perenchio founded T.A.T. Communications (T.A.T. stood for "Tokas-Adamn-Tokin", which is Yiddish for "Putting one's butt on the line") in 1975, which co-existed with Tandem Productions and was often referred to in periodicals as Tandem/T.A.T. The Lear organization was one of the most successful independent TV producers of the 1970s.

Lear himself stepped down as production supervisor on his shows in 1978, as there were too many for him to personally supervise while running the business itself.

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Norman Lear

In 1982, the company bought out Avco Embassy Pictures from Avco Financial Corporation, and the Avco part of its name was dropped. Embassy Pictures was led by (current Warner Bros. President) Alan Horn and Martin Schaeffer, later co-founders of Castle Rock Entertainment with Rob Reiner. Under Horn and Schaeefer, Embassy was a collossal failure in film production, which led to the subsequent sale of the entire enterprise. In 1985, Lear sold all his film and television production holdings to Columbia Pictures (then owned by the Coca-Cola Company) which acquired Embassy's film and television division (which included Embassy's in-house television productions and the television rights to the Embassy theatrical library) for $465 million in shares of The Coca-Cola Company. Lear and his longtime partner Jerry Perenchio split the net proceeds (about $250mm). Coke later sold the film division to Dino DeLaurentis and the home video arm to Nelson entertainment (led by barry Spikings).

The brand Tandem Productions was abandoned in 1986 with the cancellation of Diff'rent Strokes, and Embassy ceased to exist as a single entity in late 1987, having been split into different components owned by different entities. The Embassy TV division became ELP Communications in 1988, but shows originally produced by Embassy were now under the Columbia Pictures Television banner from 1988-1994 and the Columbia TriStar Television banner from 1994-1998.

Lear attempted to return to TV production in the 1990s with the shows Sunday Dinner, The Powers that Be, and 704 Hauser, the last one putting a different family in the house from All in the Family. None of the series proved successful, despite critical acclaim.

However, Lear was successful as a businessman, especially with his leveraged acquisition vehicle Act III Communications, founded in 1986 and led initially by Tom McGrath (who met Lear while negotiating on behalf of Coca-Cola the acquisition of Lear's old company) and later by Hal Gaba, a former Embassy executive. This included: Act III Theatres, sold to KKR in 1994 at what is to this day considered a record premium; Act III Broadcasting, sold to Abry Communications; and Act III Publishing, sold to PriMedia. Lear is also the owner of Concord Records and in 2005 consummated a 50% interest in the film library and production assets of Village Roadshow Productions Pty.

Lear is unofficially credited with giving Rob Reiner, son of Carl Reiner (and a star of All in the Family) his start as a director by financing the mockumentary This is Spinal Tap. Lear's Act III Communications, founded in 1986 with Tom McGrath as President, produced several notable films, including Rob Reiner's next two films: Stand By Me, and The Princess Bride as well as Fried Green Tomatoes. He cowrote a number of episodes of South Park, and provided the voice of Benjamin Franklin in the 7th season episode I'm a Little Bit Country.

Awards

In 1969, Lear was nominated for an Academy Award for writing Divorce, American Style. Lear was among the first seven television pioneers inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1984. He received four Emmy Awards (in 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973) and a Peabody Award in 1977. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6615 Hollywood Boulevard.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton awarded the National Medal of Arts to Mr. Lear, noting that “Norman Lear has held up a mirror to American society and changed the way we look at it.”

Lear's most popular shows and movies continue to be shown to new generations today on TV and on DVD.

Political and cultural activities

In addition to his success as a TV producer and businessman, Lear is an outspoken supporter of First Amendment and liberal causes. The only time that he didn't support a Democrat was in 1980 when he voted for John Anderson because he considered the Carter administration to be "a disaster". Taking a less active role in his TV productions in 1978, he soon turned his eyes to political activism, founding People for the American Way in 1981. People for the American Way ran a number of campaigns about religion in politics, and in 1987 helped lead the campaign to stop Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Lear later founded the Business Enterprise Trust in 1989, an educational program that used annual awards, business school case studies, and videos to cast a spotlight on exemplary social innovations in American business. He also founded the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication in 2000, a multidisciplinary research and public policy center dedicated to exploring the convergence of entertainment, commerce and society.

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Norman Lear

In 2001, Lear and his third wife, Lynn, purchased a Dunlap broadside -- a rare, original copy of the Declaration of Independence -- for $8.1 million. Not a document collector, Lear stated in a press release and on The Today Show the following day that his intent was to tour the document around the United States so that the country could experience its "birth certificate" first-hand.

That summer, Lear and Rob Reiner executive-produced a filmed, dramatic reading of the document -- the last project filmed by famed cinematographer Conrad Hall -- on July 4, 2001 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The film, introduced by Morgan Freeman, features the Declaration of Independence performed aloud by Kathy Bates, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Douglas, Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Graham Greene, Ming-Na, Edward Norton, Winona Ryder, Kevin Spacey, and Renée Zellweger. The film was directed by Arvin Brown and scored by composer John Williams.

The document traveled throughout the United States, visiting several presidential libraries, dozens of museums, as well as the 2002 Olympics, Super Bowl XXXVI, and the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia. Through the end of 2004, it was part of the Declaration of Independence Road Trip and the Declare Yourself campaigns.

Lear currently divides his time between his home in Los Angeles County and a residence in Shaftsbury, Vermont (see [1]).

Notable TV productions

Tandem Productions:

• All in the Family (1971–1979)
• Sanford and Son (1972–1977)
• Maude (1972–1978)
• Good Times (1974–1979)
• Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986)
• Archie Bunker's Place (1979–1983)
• Gloria (1982–1983)

T.A.T. Communications/Embassy Television/Embassy Communications/ELP Communications:

• The Jeffersons (1975–1985)
• Hot L Baltimore (1975)
• Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976–1978)
• One Day at a Time (1975–1984)
• Fernwood 2Nite (1977)
• The Facts of Life (1979–1988)
• Silver Spoons (1982–1987)
• Square Pegs (1982–1983)
• Who's the Boss? (1984–1992)
• 227 (1985–1990)
• Beakman's World (1992–1998)

Other:

• All That Glitters (1977)
• Sunday Dinner (1991)
• The Powers That Be (1992–1993)
• 704 Hauser (1994)

Note: Today, all of Lear's television programs are owned by Sony Pictures Television.

External links

• Norman Lear at IMDb
• Biography of Norman Lear at the Museum of Broadcast Communications website
• Norman Lear Image Gallery from allinthefamilysit.com
• 2005 interview with Norman Lear
• 2006 story on Lear and All in the Family that describes Lear's interests and his life in Vermont
• People for the American Way
• Declare Yourself
• Independence Road Trip
• 463rd Bombardment Group Historical Society