Quote

I started by writing, with my partner Ed Simmons, a monologue for Danny Thomas, that he performed at Ciro's nightclub in Los Angeles.

Norman Lear

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Thomas
Performed
Angeles
Simmons
Partner
Nightclub
Partners
Danny
Started
Monologue
Writing
Nightclubs
Monologues

More quotes by Norman Lear

Image
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
Image
The evidence seems clear that those business which actively serve their many constitutencies in creative, morally thoughtful ways also, over the long run, serve their shareholders best. Companies do, infact, do well by doing good.
Norman Lear
Image
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
Image
I was the laziest white kid my dad ever met.
Norman Lear
Image
Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.
Norman Lear
Image
'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
Image
Bud [Yorkin] was the kindest and dearest man, and one of the most talented directors there was.
Norman Lear
Image
You know, you throw rocks in the lake and scientists will tell you you're raising the level of the lake, but all you get to see is the ripple.
Norman Lear
Image
I think for television generally, the question that often arises is, Does television lead, or does it follow? You know, does it lead the conversation, or culture, or does it follow what's going on? And I think it does both.
Norman Lear
Image
We just may be the most well-informed, yet least self-aware, people in history.
Norman Lear
Image
I think Americans have become a - much more a nation of consumers than citizens.
Norman Lear
Image
We had two African American writers [Eric Monte and Michael Evans] on the show ['Good Times'] that knew Cabrini Green inside and out, and that's why we set it there.
Norman Lear
Image
When something is over, it is over.
Norman Lear
Image
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
Image
I wanted to meet Bob Hope, and I got to know him pretty well.
Norman Lear
Image
But it also became the experience, or was the experience, of the writers who were attracted to this kind of humor. They're all men or women who come from the same kind of experience in their own lives.
Norman Lear
Image
In this nation, leadership is dollars.
Norman Lear
Image
I think what's dangerous is 24 hours a day, 335 channels, or whatever the hell there is. Too much is too much.
Norman Lear
Image
Life is about having a good time.
Norman Lear
Image
So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.
Norman Lear