Norman Lear V. Carroll O’Connor
When Carroll O’Connor wasn’t acting like a dick, he sure was being an asshole. That’s according to the new memoir by Norman Lear. His new book, “Even This I Get to Experience” is out Tuesday, October 14th.
In the autobiography, 92 year old Lear goes through his life and career including his gigantic success with “All In The Family” and how working with TV’s Archie Bunker, Carroll O’Connor, became a creative nightmare. Lear thought that O’Connor’s anger and insecurities over differences of opinion on scripts could have gotten the series taken off the air.
Lear writes about one volatile situation involving the script for the episode called “The Elevator Story”. The premise was that Archie Bunker would be stuck in an elevator with a Hispanic woman going into labor. O’Connor was adamant about not shooting the episode.
Lear writes – “Carroll fell to pieces and began to cry. He couldn’t go on, hated the show, couldn’t bear me, and cried to a point that made me realize that this behavior, this degree of testing, had to end here. If he won this battle, the creative team would be throttled and the show I believed in would die anyway.”
Norman Lear won the battle and the episode won an Emmy Award. And he would go on to become the biggest sitcom producer in television with hits like Good Times, Sanford & Son, Maude, The Jeffersons and others. At one point in his career, he had 9 different shows running on TV.
Norman Lear’s “Even This I Get to Experience” is available for pre-order on Amazon and at NormanLear.com
