Norman Lear, Legendary TV and Movie Producer, Dies at 101

It is hard to overemphasize just how shocked the world was after All in the Family, Norman Lear’s sitcom about a lovable bigot living in Astoria, premiered in January 1971. “A wretched program,” scathed Life magazine. Even the president of the United was disgusted, convinced it was forwarding a bisexual agenda. “I think the son-in-law, obviously, apparently goes both ways,” Nixon told H.R. Haldeman in a secretly recorded White House tape.

For all the awards Lear received over his lifetime—three Emmys, a Peabody, and a National Medal of Honor, to name a few—Lear, who died Tuesday at 101, was no doubt proudest of being despised by Nixon. After all, neither Life’s nor the soon to be disgraced president’s opinion would be shared by the general public. They flocked to the outspoken liberal’s reality-filled, agenda-pushing comedies to a degree that is almost unfathomable today: by the end of the ’74-’75 season, Lear had developed five of the top ten Nielsen rated shows.

But what set him apart was not simply his popularity, it was his content. During a period when television was whitewashing the cultural revolution and urban strife that was engulfing the country, Lear embraced it, tackling racism, poverty, feminism, and every other issue that was alighting the conversations that took place around the formica-topped kitchen tables of the 1970s.

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