Quote

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

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
Movies
Customer
Generated
Full
Page
Apologize
Better
Concept
Jerry
Ever
Variety
Dean
Come
Customers
Apologizing
Trying
Concepts
Ads
Mocked
Much
Pages
Martin
Sketch
Theater
Controversy
Lewis

More quotes by Norman Lear

Image
It seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much.
Norman Lear
Image
Life is about having a good time, and it was a good time. We did some things well and some things poorly, but that was always the case.
Norman Lear
Image
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
Image
So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.
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
When something is over, it is over.
Norman Lear
Image
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
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
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
You're in the business - when you're a writer, producer, director - to get ratings.
Norman Lear
Image
I wanted to meet Bob Hope, and I got to know him pretty well.
Norman Lear
Image
The people responsible for the dollars that will buy the sex and violence so many deplore, don't even know what's going - well, of course they know. But they're comfortably ensconced in their country clubs and churches, and very far removed from the decisions that are made on their behalf.
Norman Lear
Image
I think Americans have become a - much more a nation of consumers than citizens.
Norman Lear
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I wanted to work with Bert Lahr [the 'Cowardly Lion' in 'The Wizard of Oz'], and I did.
Norman Lear
Image
We just may be the most well-informed, yet least self-aware, people in history.
Norman Lear
Image
The movies had a slogan at the time, to distinguish themselves from TV, that said 'movies are better than ever.'
Norman Lear
Image
There was no real controversy with All In The Family. That came from the people on the business end.
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