Grady faculty member interviews Norman Lear for research project

In October, Taylor Cole Miller, assistant professor of Entertainment and Media Studies, conducted a one-on-one filmed interview with TV icon Norman Lear, the legendary creator of some of the biggest shows in the 1970s including “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” “Sanford and Son,” and “Maude.”

The two talked about a collection of his lesser-known shows such as “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and “All That Glitters,” as well as his current projects, the “One Day at a Time” reboot for Netflix and his new pilot, “Guess Who Died,” for NBC.

The interview, which took place in Lear’s production offices in Beverly Hills, will be featured in a documentary Miller is producing on the history of sexual nonconformity on American television.

This segment below was filmed about a week after Bob Schiller, one of Lear’s writers for “All in the Family” and “Maude” passed away. He reminisced about how they kept adding a few years to one another’s lives through laughter.

“If there is anything that adds time to life, I think it’s laughter,” Lear said.

Lear was recognized by the Peabody Awards this past May with an Individual Award for revolutionizing and democratizing “a traditionally timid, overwhelmingly white-bread medium with a collection of recognizable, risible characters whose racial and gender diversity was as unprecedented as their biases and brash opinions.”

Date: November 16, 2017
Author:  Taylor Cole Miller, Sarah Freeman,  taylor.miller@uga.edu, freemans@uga.edu