{"id":6259,"date":"2024-07-04T13:43:24","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T13:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohajone.press\/?p=6259"},"modified":"2024-07-04T13:43:25","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T13:43:25","slug":"tv-pioneer-norman-lear-changing-television-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kohajone.press\/?p=6259","title":{"rendered":"TV Pioneer Norman Lear: Changing Television Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For many in Hollywood, from movie stars and directors to screenwriters and network executives, Norman Lear was a creative force, an inspiration and, crucially, a dear friend. With revolutionary programs like All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times<\/em> and more, he brought contemporary realities into America\u2019s living room and reinvented the medium of television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout his life, Lear strove to represent the truth of contemporary culture. This extended to the exceptional collection of art he built alongside his wife, Lyn Davis Lear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This May, their collection will be offered at Christie\u2019s in New York as part of the 20th and 21st Century marquee week. Ahead of the sales, some of Lear\u2019s biggest fans \u2014 who were also friends, colleagues and mentees \u2014 look back on his contributions to American entertainment and the many ways his legacy endures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billy Crystal, actor, writer, director and comedian<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I met Norman for the first time in 1975 at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. It was early in my standup career and this was my first trip to Los Angeles. I was living on Long Island, substitute teaching during the day and trying to be a comedian at night. I did a set and it went very well. Afterwards, I was outside when Mr. Lear came out along with Carl Reiner to say hello. I was overwhelmed. We talked for a few minutes, they both said some lovely things and I didn\u2019t need a plane to fly home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A few days later, as I was feeding my 2-year-old daughter, the phone rang. I answered and a woman asked if it was me, and said, \u201cHold on for Norman Lear.\u201d \u201cHello, this is Norman Lear, we met at the comedy store,\u201d he said, as if I wouldn\u2019t know him. \u201cThere\u2019s a part on All in the Family<\/em> coming up next week. You\u2019d play Mike\u2019s best friend, and I think you\u2019d be terrific with Rob [Reiner]. Can you get out here?\u201d He tracked me down and called me at home! There were tons of actors who could have played that part in LA, but he had a feeling about me. It still makes me so emotional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Entertainment<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018At the first rehearsal, as I was meeting Rob and Sally [Struthers] and the rest of the cast for that episode, Norman stressed how inclusive the process is: if you have any ideas, don\u2019t hesitate. At that moment, I knew firsthand what an amazing producer he was, how he loved the input of others to help make the end product as good as it could be. I was a total newcomer, yet he and Rob and the writers were open to suggestions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Lear\u2019s shows weren\u2019t merely hilarious. Never silly, never pandering, they were honest and pointed, and they were accepted because they were always clothed in the truth. He took on subjects that were real and never backed off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I think his touch is still influencing the way shows are developed today. There\u2019s almost a silent, What would Norman do?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What I\u2019ll remember most though is his warmth and humour and intelligence and integrity. For all his genius and for all of his epic contributions to American culture, he always felt like a kind, funny, charming uncle to me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The first time I met Norman was during the taping of the pilot of black-ish<\/em>. He had heard about the show, and he was unbelievably supportive in a way that he did not have to be, lending his voice and his experience and telling me to basically be myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Norman influenced me as an artist probably more than anyone else in television because, to me, his message was: Be yourself and tell your story. You can\u2019t be anyone else, but you can tell your story through the lenses of other people, and I think that\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned as a storyteller. I can\u2019t tell a woman\u2019s story, but I can tell my story through the women that have helped raise me and that I\u2019ve helped raise. I can tell my story through the women that I\u2019ve worked with. I can tell my story through the white guys that I know and how I see them reflected in my eyes. I think that\u2019s the biggest part of who Norman was and that I really try to continue to do as an artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The show of Norman\u2019s that resonated with me most, although most of them did, was The Jeffersons<\/em>. I don\u2019t think I had seen a portrayal of a Black man who was not afraid of sticking it back to the man in a way like that. I remember my dad in particular always liked who Mr. Jefferson was. And I remember, for me, I wanted to be that guy in some way for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The messages that Norman talked about and the messages that he so artfully showed through his characters\u2019 voices were the truth. They talked about the world. They talked about things that people felt: the ugly, the good, the happy, the sad. He used television to hold a mirror to society by really reflecting the conversations that were happening around the dinner table, that were happening in the bedroom, that were happening at work. He took those private conversations and broadcast them to the world.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shonda Rhimes, screenwriter, producer and founder of Shondaland<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I have great personal memories of Norman, and my favourite one might be when we were at a retreat for a weekend. I was supposed to interview him and I was so nervous to do the interview and just honoured by the opportunity. He just took my hand and, he could tell how nervous I was, and he told me, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be okay. Let\u2019s just do this.\u201d We got up on stage and had a really good time. That was really kind of him and very generous, and he\u2019s always been that kind of person. If I had to describe Norman in three words, I\u2019d call him brilliant, hilarious and forever young. Always young, period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman\u2019s gifts to the community continue to resonate in the entertainment industries because he wrote about humanity. He made humanity funny and smart and interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If you think of anything from Maude<\/em> to Good Times <\/em>to The Jeffersons<\/em>, you realize that you\u2019re watching Norman reflect society back to itself. That\u2019s what I really liked: he took topics that weren\u2019t normally on television and he showed America, showed the world, who they were at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I think Norman\u2019s gifts to the community continue to resonate in the entertainment industries because he wrote about humanity. He made humanity funny and smart and interesting. Whether the people were great or whether the people were flawed, he managed to tell stories in a way that taught us how to look inside people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The best piece of advice Norman gave me is to treat each day as if it\u2019s another work day, to always be working on something. To him, that was the best way to stay young and to stay engaged.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ted Sarandos, Co-CEO of Netflix<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I used to see the words Created by Norman Lear<\/em> so often that I thought it was like In God We Trust<\/em>. I thought it was just a phrase that somebody made up. I didn\u2019t know there was an actual person called Norman Lear making all of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I told Norman that the subconscious inspiration for binge television was probably my bingeing\u00a0Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman<\/em>\u00a0in 1976 when I was 12 years old. This show was one of Norman\u2019s masterpieces. It\u2019s a soap, and where I grew up in Arizona, it played in the middle of the day so I couldn\u2019t watch the show. But on Sunday nights at 10:30pm, the local station that carried the show would rerun all five episodes. My parents, who should have made me go to bed on Sunday night at 10:30 pm, allowed me to stay up and watch all five episodes of\u00a0Mary Hartman<\/em>\u00a0from that week, every week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Entertainment<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Norman really cared about two things. He cared about making you laugh, and he cared about making you think, and he cared about them very much in that order. There are so many people and so many storylines [from his shows] that even today are relatively controversial. Norman always pushed that envelope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I was constantly learning at the feet of Norman Lear, and I believe we all are. He encouraged me to be bold, to make hard decisions, that ideas are very important in a culture and in a society, and to be able to push them forward. And a big part of that is having courage and surrounding yourself with great storytellers.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reginald Hudlin, writer, director, producer and former president of entertainment for BET<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Norman was a revolutionary, and he was a revolutionary over and over again, which is really hard to do. It\u2019s hard enough to have a hit anything: a hit movie, hit record, hit TV show. Not only did he have multiple hits, he changed the medium multiple times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Norman was able to say profound things about who we are as Americans, who we are as people, and not for one second stint on the entertainment value. It\u2019s very easy to preach, and usually when you do that, you\u2019re speaking to the people who already agree with you. He figured out how to never compromise on entertainment value. By doing so, he reached the people who needed to hear the message most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Norman was able to capture where we were as a society by being honest about things. A lot of television is aspirational and treats aspirational lifestyles like they\u2019re normal. Norman didn\u2019t do that. He said: here\u2019s working class people. These are the jobs they have, this is how they live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Norman also acknowledged race. He didn\u2019t talk about Black people in a monolithic way. He had two different shows with two very different kinds of Black people. He had working class people, and he had upper middle class people, and they both had very full, detailed lives. I related to those characters when they came out, and they have stood the test of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"norman<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Generations of creators in television and film were inspired by what Norman did. And then his activism, his willingness to take his financial success and his celebrity and continue to be politically active up until the end of his life, is so admirable. I\u2019m so grateful that he existed.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phil Rosenthal, writer, producer and creator of Everybody Loves Raymond<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I always say that all of television could be separated into two parts: BN and AN, Before Norman and After Norman. That\u2019s how much of an impact he had with All in the Family<\/em> and all the shows that came after, like Maude <\/em>and Good Times<\/em>. He was tapping into what was happening in America and commenting on it, too. There was a real point of view, and it was one of love and inclusiveness and joy and trying to make the world better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018All In the Family<\/em> was my favourite show as a kid, even when I didn\u2019t understand the politics, because the characters were so well drawn and so funny and touching. He understood that if you don\u2019t care about the people telling you the message, you\u2019re not going to listen to the message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Entertainment<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I was in the middle of the first season of Everybody Loves Raymond<\/em>, and there was a call in the writer\u2019s room that Norman Lear was on line one. Now, Norman was one of my idols, probably the most influential television person in my life. I picked up the phone. I said, \u201cHello.\u201d He said, \u201cI hear we\u2019re fans of each other\u2026we should have lunch tomorrow. Can you meet me at Pinot on Ventura at like 12?\u201d I said of course. \u201cOh,\u201d he added \u201cAnd there\u2019s someone else here who wants to meet you too. He\u2019s a fan too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I get there and Norman is sitting there with Carl Reiner, and I drop dead. They treated me like I was a nephew, like I was family. They felt like family to me, and I stayed family with them for over 25 years. Norman and Lyn and their family, they\u2019ve just been family to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Norman and Lyn were also incredible art collectors. Their homes were galleries of incredible modern art; very youthful, very joyful and life-affirming, which was Norman and Lyn\u2019s whole being. There were marvellous pieces that you couldn\u2019t believe you were seeing in someone\u2019s home, and it was such a great reflection of their youthful spirit.\u2019<\/p>\n

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