{"id":1638,"date":"2024-07-03T12:57:51","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T12:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/?p=1638"},"modified":"2024-07-03T12:57:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T12:57:51","slug":"tv-pioneer-norman-lear-changing-television-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/?p=1638","title":{"rendered":"TV Pioneer Norman Lear: Changing Television Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times<\/em>\u00a0and more, he brought contemporary realities into America\u2019s living room and reinvented the medium of television.<\/p>\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

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\u00a0All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times<\/em>\u00a0and more, he brought contemporary realities into America\u2019s living room and reinvented the medium of television.<\/p>\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.\"Entertainment<\/p>\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

\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

\u2018I think his touch is still influencing the way shows are developed today. There\u2019s almost a silent,\u00a0What would Norman do?<\/em><\/p>\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\u2018The first time I met Norman was during the taping of the pilot of\u00a0black-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

\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.\"Entertainment<\/p>\n

\u2018The show of Norman\u2019s that resonated with me most, although most of them did, was\u00a0The 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

\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

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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…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amazinggstory.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}