<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing up in the 1970s, I always loved his shows. They just resonated with me. They made me laugh,\u201d said Tripp Whetsell about the late Norman Lear, who passed away in 2023 at age 101 and whose seven-decade career created shows that would forever alter the television landscape: All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons<\/i>, and One Day at a Time<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Now, \u201cthe man in the white hat\u201d who created a body of work that boldly tackled topics that were, at the time, considered small-screen taboos: race, class, sexuality, politics, and religion, citizen is the subject of Whetsell\u2019s latest book, \u201cNorman Lear: His Life & Times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recently, the author, who is also a business historian, entertainment journalist, and public relations executive, sat in conversation about it with New York Times<\/i> bestselling author and writing professor, Susan Shapiro, at an event hosted by NYC institution Frank E. Campbell, which has transformed its historic spaces into venues for author readings, jazz concerts, and community gatherings.<\/p>\n
Joining them were actors from Lear\u2019s 1970s TV series\/soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Harman<\/i>, Louise Lasser, who played the title role, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award, and Greg Mullavey, known for his role as Tom Hartman.<\/p>\n
In his book, Whetsell offers an intimate portrait of Lear, detailing how the storytelling legend created the gold standard for television comedies, produced shows that were the first to give underrepresented members of society an authentic prime-time voice, while encouraging audiences to confront their own humanity and shortcomings.<\/p>\n
When asked by Shapiro how his book differed from Lear\u2019s own memoir, Whetsell said, \u201cHis memoir was a great book, but this is his entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The author went on to describe Lear\u2019s very difficult childhood during the Great Depression, when his father went to prison, leaving the 9-year-old with an absentee mother. Young Norman was shuttled among various relatives in New York and Boston. No surprise he learned to use humor as a coping mechanism. \u201cThat was the way he was able to survive,\u201d said Whetsell.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to adulthood, when Lear <\/b>worked in the early days of television as a writer after being a press agent. He partnered with a guy who was dating his cousin, and they became a comedy writing team. Eventually, one thing would lead to the next, and in the 1960s, he was making feature films. Then he set out to get the American rights to Till Death Do Us Part<\/i>. He had about three years to get the show on the air. When he did, it had transformed into All In The Family<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact,\u201d says Whetsell, \u201cthe very first All In The Family<\/i> was called Meet The Bunkers<\/i>. He insisted that go on the air first. It was a very controversial show. You see Archie just spread-eagled; in terms of every epithet, he came out swinging.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called Lear\u2019s signature show \u201cso bold,\u201d and added that, \u201cAll of the shows were so bold, each in its own way. They were game changers because they were an entirely new playing field; never been done before. They were way ahead of their time.\u201d Then he shared a fact from his book about how Sammy Davis Jr. was the most famous person to appear on All In The Family,<\/i> making it the most famous episode ever. \u201cParticularly the kissing thing at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
The author did get to meet his entertainment idol when Lear agreed to speak at his alma mater, Emerson College in Boston, in classes Whetsell was teaching there. The author also learned a lot about the entertainment icon through years of research. \u201c[Norman Lear] wasn\u2019t always perfect. He was not always the easiest guy to get along with, nor did he always share enough credit for his successes, but he was generally a very charitable man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louise Lasser chimed in, calling her former boss a mensch, and Greg Mullavey shared that \u201cNorman was the nicest guy in the world. He always had his door open and said, \u2018Any time you want to talk to me, we\u2019ll talk.\u2019 There\u2019s only one time he didn\u2019t want to see me–when I wanted more money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The upbeat mood of the room changed momentarily when Shapiro asked what the biggest challenge was when writing the book, and Whetsell admitted sadly that, \u201cUnfortunately, I couldn\u2019t get Norman\u2019s participation because he was 99 at the time and just couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the discussion turned to the state of modern television, Whetsell said that today\u2019s showrunners and writers can learn from pioneer Lear by never being afraid to take risks and going with their gut. \u201cIf you believe in something, keep pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if any current shows carry on Lear\u2019s tradition, Whetsell noted that \u201cjust about every show today carries on his tradition to some extent, because he was the guy who opened the door. In any genre, whether it\u2019s a half-hour sitcom or Law & Order<\/i>, he pushed the boulder over the hill first and made possible all these other shows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norman Lear changed America not only via entertainment but also with his activism.<\/p>\n
In 1980, the show business giant founded the organization People for the American Way to challenge the Christian right agenda of the Moral Majority and fought for the First Amendment. Hence the reason that, according to Whetsell, \u201cWhen Jimmy Kimmel returned to air, the talk show host posted a picture of Norman.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNorman Lear: His Life & Times,\u201d by Tripp Whetsell is out now.<\/p>\n
Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel \u201cThe Last Single Woman in New York City.\u201d<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.westsidespirit.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cGrowing up in the 1970s, I always loved his shows. They just resonated with me. They made me laugh,\u201d said Tripp Whetsell about the late Norman Lear, who passed away in 2023 at age 101 and whose seven-decade career created shows that would forever alter the television landscape: All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2081049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[391223],"class_list":["post-2081048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-tripp-whetsell"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Norman-Lear-Changed-TV-And-No-One-Changed-The-Channel.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2081048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2081050,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081048\/revisions\/2081050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2081049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2081048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2081048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2081048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}