In Praise of New Haven's Native Son Norman Lear at 100

The man who gave us “All in the Family” and other groundbreaking TV shows recently celebrated his 100th birthday and clearly has not lost his upbeat fighting spirit.

Norman Lear commemorated his centennial by writing a perceptive guest essay for the New York Times entitled “On My 100th Birthday, Reflections on Archie Bunker and Donald Trump.”

“Well, I made it. I am 100 years old today,” was how he began the essay, published July 27.

But he added, “I’m a bit worried that I may be in better shape than our democracy is.”

Lear said he is deeply troubled by the insurrectionists’ attack on Congress Jan. 6, 2021. “Those concerns have only grown with every revelation about just how far Mr. Trump was willing to go to stay in office after being rejected by voters — and about his ongoing efforts to install loyalists in positions with the power to sway future elections.”

If many of us assume Lear is simply a Hollywood liberal who’s always lived on Easy Street, check out how he continued his essay: “I don’t take the threat of authoritarianism lightly. As a young man, I dropped out of college when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. I flew more than 50 missions in a B-17 bomber to defeat fascism consuming Europe. I am a flag-waving believer in truth, justice and the American way, and I don’t understand how so many people who call themselves patriots can support efforts to undermine our democracy and our Constitution.”

Lear praised those few Republican lawmakers and White House staffers under Trump who have resisted him and sought common ground with those of us who have different political views.

“Encouraging that kind of conversation was a goal of mine when we began broadcasting ‘All in the Family’ in 1971,” Lear wrote. He noted his show differed from other TV fare by addressing “the kinds of topics Archie Bunker and his family argued about — issues that were dividing Americans from one another, such as racism, feminism, homosexuality, the Vietnam War and Watergate.”

“For all his faults, Archie loved his country,” Lear wrote. “If Archie had been around 50 years later, he probably would have watched Fox News. He probably would have been a Trump voter. But I think the sight of the American flag being used to attack Capitol Police would have sickened him.”

Lear admitted, “I often feel disheartened by the direction that our politics, courts and culture are taking.” But he added, “I do not lose faith in our country or its future.” He said he continues to believe “that Americans will find ways to build solidarity on behalf of our values, our country and our fragile planet.”

Lear wrote he always tries to remain forward-focused; two of his favorite words are “over” and “next.”

He concluded his essay: “This is our century, dear reader, yours and mine. Let us encourage one another with visions of a shared future. And let us bring all the grit and openheartedness and creative spirit we can muster to gather together and build that future.”

Those of us who live in New Haven can take special pride in our ties to Lear — he was born here and grew up in an ethnically diverse downtown neighborhood, overcoming a difficult family situation.

In October 2014 I read Lear’s new memoir “Even This I Get to Experience” and I wrote about it in my column for the New Haven Register. My editors put it on page one and gave it a great headline: “Norman Lear’s Lonely but Colorful Elm City Years Led to a TV Revelation.”

“Imagine being separated from your charismatic but sometimes foolish and unethical father for three years when you’re 9 to 11, being farmed out by your mother to live with your grandparents while your dad is in prison for selling phony bonds,” I wrote.

I quoted Lear: “My mother and sister were nowhere to be found. My dad was a hole in my heart.” He described his mother as “a world-class narcissist.”

For a while Lear lived with his uncle in New Haven. The youngster read Horatio Alger’s “Sink or Swim,” which inspired Lear to overcome his own difficulties. “That was my option: sink or swim,” he remembered. “I was going to swim. I wasn’t going to sink.”

Even after his dad finally was sprung from prison in the summer of 1934, Lear recalled all was not mellow on the home front. His parents “lived at the ends of their nerves and the tops of their lungs.” The veins on his dad’s neck bulged as he yelled to his wife: “Stifle yourself!”

Does this ring a bell?

In his memoir Lear wrote: “Despite all the hurts and disappointments, how I loved my father! I wrote love letters to him all my life, many of them in ‘All in the Family,’ in which Archie has so many of my father’s characteristics.”

“All in the Family” debuted on Jan. 12, 1971 and TV has never been the same. The show lasted for eight seasons; Lear went on to produce “Maude,” “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times.”

I’m old enough to remember when “All in the Family” hit the screens. It was an immediate sensation, a revelation. It sure changed my life; I’d been raised on “Leave it to Beaver,” “Green Acres” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Now, finally, during my junior year at college, here was something fresh, relevant and timely.

It was also really funny.

Happy birthday, Norman!