Producer-writer Norman Lear, whose groundbreaking hit comedies resembling “All in the Family” and “Maude” addressed race, abortion and different social points not often seen earlier than on U.S. tv, died on Tuesday, on the age of 101, his household stated. Lear, one of the crucial influential folks in tv, died at his Los Angeles dwelling of pure causes, “surrounded by his family as we told stories and sang songs until the very end,” the household stated on Facebook on Wednesday.

Lear, who gained six Emmy Awards for his work in tv, was recognized for his campaigning for liberal causes, together with voting rights, and labored properly into his 90s. In addition to “All in the Family” and “Maude,” Lear dominated American TV screens within the Seventies and ’80s with the scenario comedies “Sanford and Son,” “The Jeffersons,” and the soap-opera spoof “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” At one level within the Seventies, Lear had eight exhibits on the air with an estimated 120 million viewers, Time journal stated.

By drawing materials from social themes of the time, Lear’s exhibits made community executives nervous as a result of that they had depth and an air of controversy. “For him to say that he didn’t have an impact on not only television but society is … a little too humble,” stated Rob Reiner, who had a co-starring position on “All in the Family” earlier than turning into a movie director.

“I loved Norman Lear with all my heart,” Reiner stated on the X social media platform after information of his dying. “He was my second father.” President Joe Biden hailed Lear as a “transformational force in American culture.”

“Norman loved America and told our stories with heart, facing the good, the bad, and the truth of who we are as a nation striving to form a more perfect union,” he stated in a press release. Lear and manufacturing companion Bud Yorkin put “All in the Family” on the air in January 1971, and the present would go on to win 4 Emmys for greatest comedy in its 9 seasons. It was primarily based on a British present, “Til Death Do Us Part,” and gave U.S. tv one in every of its most memorable and controversial characters: Archie Bunker.

Veteran actor Carroll O’Connor portrayed Archie as a crude, loud, blue-collar New Yorker who spouted racist, homophobic and antisemitic feedback. He was forged towards a scatterbrained spouse he known as “Dingbat,” a liberal daughter and an much more liberal son-in-law he known as “Meathead,” performed by Reiner. “All in the Family” was the top-rated present on U.S. tv for 5 straight years, based on CBS, and TV Guide ranked it fourth on its record of tv’s all-time biggest exhibits.

Born on July 27, 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut, Norman Milton Lear’s most lasting creation was partly primarily based on truth. Many of the tough phrases that got here out of Archie’s mouth had first been spoken by Lear’s personal father, Herman Lear, who went to jail for promoting pretend bonds, and incessantly advised his spouse to “stifle” herself and known as his son “the laziest white kid I ever saw.” “I grew up in a family that lived at the top of its lungs and the ends of its nerves,” Lear advised Esquire journal.

Some critics stated the Archie Bunker character put a laughing face on bigotry, however Lear stated it solely pointed to the complexity of humanity. A yr after “All in the Family” began, Lear aired “Maude,” a spin-off that starred Bea Arthur as Archie’s acerbic sister-in-law and political reverse.

As with Bunker, the character was like none beforehand seen on American tv. Maude was on her fourth husband, protested marijuana legal guidelines and had an abortion earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the process nationwide. Her husband battled alcoholism, had two nervous breakdowns and tried suicide. Black characters in U.S. tv within the ’70s had been principally restricted to minor roles till Lear made them the main focus of a few of his exhibits.

“Good Times” centered on a working-class Black household dwelling in a public housing mission in Chicago. Many of the present’s episodes take care of the household’s efforts to tug their approach out of the circumstances by means of onerous work and research. “The Jeffersons,” one other “All in the Family” spin-off, featured an upwardly cellular Black couple who moved to Manhattan’s upscale Upper East Side, the place most of their neighbors had been white. The present’s lead character George was brash, formidable and unapologetic. Lear’s different hits included “Sanford and Son,” a sitcom a couple of Black junkyard proprietor in a Los Angeles neighborhood.

While Lear was celebrated for his inclusion, some critics additionally stated a lot of his depictions of Black characters tended to perpetuate stereotypes. Lear produced a string of different hit exhibits, together with “Diff’rent Strokes,” “Fernwood 2 Night,” and the “All in the Family” spin-off “Archie Bunker’s Place.” But Lear additionally had flops resembling “All That Glitters,” “Sunday Dinner” and one other “All in the Family” spin-off, “Gloria.”

Lear dropped out of faculty throughout World War Two to affix the Army and flew 52 fight missions in B-17 bombers. He went to Los Angeles in 1950 with the intention of being a publicist however started writing for TV stars resembling Danny Thomas, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin and Andy Williams. Lear shifted focus in 1981 and based the liberal activist group People for the American Way to spice up voting rights and battle right-wing extremism. He additionally established the Norman Lear Center on the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication.

In 2001, he and a companion bought an unique copy of the American Declaration of Independence and despatched it on a three-year tour of U.S. faculties, libraries and occasions. He rebooted his Seventies TV sequence “One Day at a Time” to give attention to a Cuban American household in 2017, and three years later he earned his sixth Emmy for a dwell particular broadcast of “All in the Family” and “Good Times.”

In February 2021, Lear acquired the Carol Burnett Award, a lifetime achievement award, on the Golden Globe Awards ceremony, for his contributions to tv. Lear, who was satisfied that laughter had lengthened his personal life, used humor to counterpoint the lives of others, his on-line obituary stated.

“I’ve never been in a situation in my life, however tragic, where I didn’t see comedy,” Lear stated within the 2016 documentary, “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You.” Lear is survived by his third spouse, Lyn, and his six youngsters. A non-public service for his speedy household will probably be held. (Writing and reporting by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Costas Pitas; Editing by Diane Craft, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

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