Screenwriting : Norman Lear by Laurie Ashbourne

 I only met him once, and though he had already changed my life, he did again, and again.

As tributes pour in for the legendary creator of Archie Bunker and All in the Family, the Jeffersons, Maude, Mary Hartman and countless others, what Norman Lear did best was make everyone feel noticed and accepted, and he did so with a laugh on his lips EVERY SINGLE MOMENT (and was working up until his last breath of 101 years).  

As a child, One Day at a Time was the one that really hit home for me. Aside from the fact that one of my best friends was Valerie Bertinelli’s cousin and she was from my home town, this was the life of being raised by a single mom who had a lot of life left in her, that made me feel like I was noticed and accepted.

Norman Lear was not just a prolific, writer, script supervisor, producer and mensch, he walked the talk and created the non profit People for the American Way, an organization that fights for equal rights for all walks of life. I was fortunate enough to partner with this organization in my documentary life and via that life, one day I got a call that Norman was holding a private focus group screening of a documentary about his (and others) time in the military, this is an aspect of his life that is rarely spoken of, and certainly not present in all of the tributes since his passing, but it was at his core.

Before he set about changing American culture, he defended the American way of life. Born in my mom’s hometown in Connecticut on July 27, 1922, he was 19 years old when the Japanese Naval Air Forces bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.

"I couldn't wait to enlist," he said.

He dropped out of Boston's Emerson College to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Forces. Originally assigned to pilot training, he couldn't pass the math sections, so he became a radio operator on a B-17 Flying Fortress with the 772nd Bombardment Squadron as a radioman, he was also responsible for manning one of the plane's 13 machine guns. He would fly 52 missions over Nazi-occupied territory before the war's end, at a time when surviving to fly 25 missions was considered next to impossible. He survived the war and was discharged as a technical sergeant, having received five Air Medals.

After his 1945 discharge, Lear tried to begin a career as a press agent in Los Angeles. It was a short-lived career. He soon began writing comedy with Ed Simmons, his cousin's husband, and by 1952, the duo were writing for Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.

Just before the pandemic, I was invited to Sony’s lot where he had an office to offer notes on his doc about this time in the war. It was a very emotional moment for him, and yet he instilled his incredible sense of humor through the human condition to present what would otherwise be a dry historical recollection. It led to another doc that I am releasing next year called THE REAL AMERICAN. But more importantly, it cemented in my spine, the need to use our gift of storytelling to make the world a bit happier without being dogmatic about it. I believe our goal is not to live forever, but to create something that will, in that way, Norman Lear will outlive the humanity he so perfectly depicted.

Fun fact, his iconic hat started because he'd pick at his scalp when thinking about his writing, finally his wife put a hat on him so he would stop scabbing his scalp.

I spent today watching the first season of ALL IN THE FAMILY on Amazon, it still holds up.

if we could each only produce and inspire to a fraction of his level, the world would be a better place.