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We had a Judeo-Christian ethic hanging around a couple thousand years that didn't help erase racism at all. So the notion of the little half-hour comedy changing things is something I think is silly.

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
Years
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Changing
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Christian
Notion
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Helping
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Little
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Something
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Silly

More quotes by 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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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
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The trafficking of sex and violence is comes after the demand for ratings.
Norman Lear
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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
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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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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
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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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In this nation, leadership is dollars.
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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When something is over, it is over.
Norman Lear
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So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.
Norman Lear
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I think that of most leaders in religion as power brokers. They give orders, in a sense, to an audience every week, and that's where the definition of God starts.
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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I was the laziest white kid my dad ever met.
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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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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My dad called me meat head dead from the neck up.
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 think Americans have become a - much more a nation of consumers than citizens.
Norman Lear
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The movies had a slogan at the time, to distinguish themselves from TV, that said 'movies are better than ever.'
Norman Lear