Writer/producer Norman Lear’s youthful spirit, inquisitive mind and groundbreaking sitcoms are the stuff of a true AMERICAN MASTER. Photo courtesy Norman Lear.

“My family is the greatest joy in my life,” says 93-year-old Norman Lear at the close of Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, the 2016 documentary profile of the trailblazing TV writer/producer filmed for American Masters by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.

Norman Lear continued to live his best life throughout his 90s, and passed away on December 5, 2023 at the age of 101. To acknowledge Lear’s passing and to celebrate his remarkable life and legacy, the 90-minute documentary, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, will be rebroadcast on the PBS American Masters series tonight, Friday, December 8, 2023, 9:00 – 10:30 p.m. ET. (Check local listings for air times in your region.)  It will also stream in the weeks ahead via http://pbs.org. (See below for additional availability.)

Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You  made its broadcast debut seven years ago on PBS on October 25, 2016, following its well-received run on the festival circuit and in select theaters during the summer of 2016. There is no better way to become reacquainted with the beloved visionary and his game-changing sitcoms than to revisit this wonderful film.  I applaud PBS for this rebroadcast and encourage you to read my updated FrontRowCenter Norman Lear tribute below.

In Norman Lear’s universe, the term “family” covered a lot of ground.  The families he was fortunate to shape and share his life with, especially on the job, are the stuff of legend.

Norman Lear, circa the 1920s. Photo courtesy Act III Productions.

The writer/producer/show runner of such groundbreaking hit TV sitcoms as All in the Family; Maude; The Jeffersons; Good Times and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman had a rough start. While Norman Lear’s father may have espoused Archie Bunker’s narrow-minded world view, he did not, however, share Archie’s hard-working, law-abiding, family centered lifestyle. Norman’s dad relocated to a jail cell when his son was nine, and the boy was subsequently sent off to live with various uncles and finally landed with his grandparents. He later asked his mom, “How come I have no memory of you?”

Admittedly “a striver,” he persevered and managed to make a giant leap forward from working three jobs on the Coney Island Boardwalk to Emerson College, which he departed in patriotic fervor to enlist after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The filmmakers fashioned a clever collage illustrating Lear’s back story by blending passages from his memoir, vintage family photos and archival clips from his early work as a scribe on seminal TV variety shows. A slapstick bit from”The Colgate Comedy Hour,” starring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin (1950), actually features Lear on-camera with Lewis.

While the specifics of his rise to the top as the writer, producer and show runner responsible for six of the top 10 shows on TV during the 1970s are best recapped in Lear’s memoir, Even This I Get to Experience (Penguin, 2014), there are extensive clips from those hit shows and insightful anecdotes to relish in the film.

From left: Jean Stapleton, Carroll O’Connor, Norman Lear, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers on the set of ALL IN THE FAMILY. Photo: CBS Photo Archive.

It was an era when footage of Vietnam casualties and anti-war protests blanketed the evening news at dinner time. Welcome antidotes to the bloody carnage and campus sit-ins were Lear’s fearless TV families who served up hot button social issues with humor and a twist of reality that upended romanticized post-war portraits of American family life. In the process, Lear raised the hackles of TV censors and the religious right and landed on President Richard M. Nixon’s enemies list.

Clips from controversial episodes of All in the Family, Maude and The Jeffersons are highlights, as well as some hilarious shtick with Lear’s pals and contemporaries, comedy legends Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Reflections on Lear’s important contributions to the national discourse come from Rob (“Meathead”) Reiner, now a noted film director; George Clooney; Bill Moyers; Russell Simmons; and Jon Stewart, as well as Lear’s former partners and colleagues, including, via archival footage, actresses Bea (Maude) Arthur and Esther (Good Times) Rolle.

Especially enlightening are Lear’s candid anecdotes about his actors.  Lear had much to say about Carroll O’Connor (his casting as Archie Bunker and O’Connor’s ongoing challenges, as a liberal Irish Catholic, with the role and scripts).  Lear and actor John Amos also reframed the problematic success of Good Times and the fine line they walked to stem the stereotyping of the sitcom’s break-out young star.

Ever the patriot and social activist, Lear went on to buy a copy of the Declaration of Independence, tour with it on the lecture circuit, and launch a liberal advocacy organization, People for the American Way (PFAW).

Norman Lear loved his family, his signature hat and his morning cup of coffee. Photo: Andrew Renneisen/The New York Times.

With his strong physical constitution and inquisitive mind still on full throttle during the production of this film, Lear credited his tight-knit family and “childlike view of the world,” with his healthy, productive longevity.

In light of his passing at the extraordinary age of 101, I urge you to share some laughs and a tear or two with this marvelous, age-defying national treasure at 93. His transformative contributions to our television landscape are as relevant today as they were in the 1970s and 1980s, especially in light of the racism, bigotry, bullying, sexism and threats to the U.S. Constitution that continue to darken our recent and upcoming U.S. Presidential elections.

A production of LokiFilms and THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC’S American Masters for WNET, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You will be rebroadcast on the PBS American Masters series tonight, Friday, December 8, 2023, 9:00 – 10:30 p.m. ET. (Check local listings for air times in your region.)  It will also stream in the weeks ahead via all station-branded PBS platforms, including http://PBS.org and the PBS Video App and, for members, on PBS Passport.  Contact ShopPBS.org for DVDs and  https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/masters/norman-lear/ for clips, background info and updated streaming guidelines.–Judith Trojan