Rob Reiner revealed why he credits working with Andy Griffith for getting him his role on All in the Family.
While appearing on the September 10 episode of “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” Reiner, 78, spoke to host Ted Danson about how he was cast as Mike “Meathead” Stivic on the sitcom.
“They had done two pilots at ABC that were rejected before it went to CBS and was done at CBS,” he said of the Norman Lear show.
He went on to explain that All in the Family was an adaptation of a British series called Till Death Us Do Part. In the UK show, patriarch Alf Garnett was portrayed “very much” like how Carroll O’Connor’s character, Archie Bunker, was on All in the Family. Meanwhile, Jean Stapleton appeared on the sitcom as Archie’s wife, Edith.
“In the first two pilots, they had two different sets of Mike and Glorias,” Reiner explained, referencing Edith and Archie’s daughter, Gloria, and her husband, Michael Stivic. “I auditioned for one of them, but I was not developed yet as an actor.”
Around the same time, Reiner began working with Griffith on the series Headmaster. Reiner and his writing partner Phil Michigan wrote “four or five” episodes of the show, which aired in 1970.
“One of the episodes we wrote was about a young teacher who falls in love with a high school student, and I played that character in the show,” Reiner recalled of the show’s third episode titled “Valerie Has an Emotional Gestalt for the Teacher.”
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Despite not being a success, Lear saw Reiner’s work on Headmaster and believed he was “developing.” He added, “And so they had me come back in.”
Reiner once again read for the part of Mike alongside Penny Marshall as Gloria, whom he was just months away from marrying at the time. The couple split in 1981, but remained friends until her death in 2018.
“And Penny obviously didn’t get the part, and I got it,” Reiner remembered, noting that Sally Struthers eventually got the role of Gloria. “They said Penny looked more like she would be Jean Stapleton’s daughter, but Sally Struthers looked more like Carol’s daughter.”
This story was originally reported by Parade on Sep 15, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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