Quote

It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared - we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring - the more they cared, the harder they laughed.

Norman Lear

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Norman Lear
Age: 102
Born: 1922
Born: July 27
Actor
Businessperson
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Showrunner
Television Producer
Television Writer
New Haven
Connecticut
Norman Milton Lear
Live
Laughed
Mind
Caring
People
Average
Minds
Harder
Early
Audience
Crossed
Working
Cared

More quotes by Norman Lear

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You're in the business - when you're a writer, producer, director - to get ratings.
Norman Lear
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In the area we're discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings.
Norman Lear
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'All in the Family' took ten weeks to take off in 1971, and we were lucky to start in January, because if it had started in the regular fall season of 1970, I don't know if we would have lasted. The ratings didn't take off until the end of that fall season, when the other two networks ran out of fresh shows.
Norman Lear
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I stop and look at traffic accidents. I won't hang around, but when I hear something is terrible, as bad as it is, I've gotta look at it.
Norman Lear
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I don't know how you can look back with regret if you're at a moment when everything seems fine.
Norman Lear
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I got a call from an agent to come to New York City, and write for the 'Ford Star Revue.' Because at the time there wasn't much 'national television'.
Norman Lear
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But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.
Norman Lear
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I was the laziest white kid my dad ever met.
Norman Lear
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Culturally, I think 'All in the Family' was universal enough to have good timing at any time.
Norman Lear
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I wanted to work with Bert Lahr [the 'Cowardly Lion' in 'The Wizard of Oz'], and I did.
Norman Lear
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Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.
Norman Lear
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We just may be the most well-informed, yet least self-aware, people in history.
Norman Lear
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I think Americans have become a - much more a nation of consumers than citizens.
Norman Lear
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The complete control of one party over everything - I would, I think, feel the same way if it were [the Democrats in charge]. It's not the American way.
Norman Lear
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I guess because the shows were activist in their own way - the marriage of my public activism and my career activism, you know - people understand me very well. They also understand there's a very strong bipartisan part in all of this.
Norman Lear
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We mocked that concept ['movies are better than ever'] by doing a sketch that was about a theater trying to get one customer to come in...and that customer was Jerry Lewis. It generated so much controversy that Dean [Martin] and Jerry [Lewis] had to apologize in a full page ad in Variety.
Norman Lear
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There was no real controversy with All In The Family. That came from the people on the business end.
Norman Lear
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I guess the story that best defines us [with Bud Yorkin] and our relationship goes back to the [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis show. The four stage managers on that show became major TV creators and directors - John Rich, Jack Smight, Arthur Penn and Bud Yorkin.
Norman Lear
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Bud [Yorkin] was the kindest and dearest man, and one of the most talented directors there was.
Norman Lear
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So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.
Norman Lear