BORN ON THIS DAY: JEAN STAPLETON

The talented Jean Stapleton was born on January 19, 1923 in Manhattan. She was the daughter of Marie A. Stapleton, an opera singer, and Joseph E. Murray, a billboard advertising salesman.She had an elder brother, Jack. Her uncle was a vaudevillian performer, and her brother was a stage actor who inspired her to pursue acting.

Stapleton began her career in 1942 aged 18 in summer stock theatre and made her New York debut in the Off-Broadway play American Gothic. She was featured on Broadway in several hit musicals, such as Funny Girl, Juno, Damn Yankees and Bells Are Ringing, recreating her parts from the latter two musicals in the film versions of Damn Yankees (1958) (her film debut) and Bells Are Ringing (1960).

Stapleton's early television roles included parts in Starlight Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, Lux Video Theater, Woman with a Past, The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, The Patty Duke Show, Dr. Kildare, My Three Sons, Dennis the Menace, Naked City, and as Rosa Criley in a 1963 episode of NBC's medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour, entitled "The Bride Wore Pink". In 1962, Stapleton guest-starred as Mrs. Larsen in "The Hidden Jungle", an episode of the TV series The Defenders (broadcast on December 1 that year), alongside her future All in the Family co-star Carroll O'Connor.

Stapleton bested both Mary Tyler Moore and Marlo Thomas for the "Best Actress in a Comedy" Primetime Emmy award on May 9, 1971. She was offered the role of Mrs. Teevee in the feature film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), but declined because it coincided with the production of the All in the Family pilot (the role ultimately went to Nora Denney).

Stapleton's played the role of Edith in All in the Family, which premiered in 1971. The show was originally broadcast on the CBS network for nine seasons from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979, for a total of 205 episodes. The role earned her three Emmys and two Golden Globes. And the rest is history. Happy birthday dingbat!

RIP: NORMAN LEAR

Writer-producer-developer Norman Lear, who revolutionized American comedy with such daring, immensely popular early-‘70s sitcoms as “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son,” died on Tuesday. He was 101.

Lear’s publicist confirmed to Variety that he died at his home in Los Angeles of natural causes. A private service for immediate family will be held in the coming days.

“Thank you for the moving outpouring of love and support in honor of our wonderful husband, father, and grandfather,” Lear’s family said in a statement. “Norman lived a life of creativity, tenacity, and empathy. He deeply loved our country and spent a lifetime helping to preserve its founding ideals of justice and equality for all. Knowing and loving him has been the greatest of gifts. We ask for your understanding as we mourn privately in celebration of this remarkable human being.”

Lear had already established himself as a top comedy writer and captured a 1968 Oscar nomination for his screenplay for “Divorce American Style” when he concocted the idea for a new sitcom, based on a popular British show, about a conservative, outspokenly bigoted working-class man and his fractious Queens family. “All in the Family” became an immediate hit, seemingly with viewers of all political persuasions.

Lear’s shows were the first to address the serious political, cultural and social flashpoints of the day – racism, abortion, homosexuality, the Vietnam war — by working pointed new wrinkles into the standard domestic comedy formula. No subject was taboo: Two 1977 episodes of “All in the Family” revolved around the attempted rape of lead character Archie Bunker’s wife Edith.

Their fresh outrageousness turned them into huge ratings successes: For a time, “Family” and “Sanford,” based around a Los Angeles Black family, ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country. “All in the Family” itself accounted for no less than six spin-offs. “Family” was also honored with four Emmys in 1971-73 and a 1977 Peabody Award for Lear, “for giving us comedy with a social conscience.” (He received a second Peabody in 2016 for his career achievements.)

Some of Lear’s other creations played with TV conventions. “One Day at a Time” (1975-84) featured a single mother of two young girls as its protagonist, a new concept for a sitcom. Similarly, “Diff’rent Strokes” (1978-86) followed the growing pains of two Black kids adopted by a wealthy white businessman.

Other series developed by Lear were meta before the term ever existed. “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” (1976-77) spoofed the contorted drama of daytime soaps; while the show couldn’t land a network slot, it became a beloved off-the-wall entry in syndication. “Hartman” had its own oddball spinoff, “Fernwood 2 Night,” a parody talk show set in a small Ohio town; the show was later retooled as “America 2-Night,” with its setting relocated to Los Angeles.

Lear always maintained that the basic formula for his comedies always boiled down to the essential: Keep ‘em laughing.

He said in a 2005 Onion A.V. Club interview, “Originally, with all the shows, we went looking for belly laughs. 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.”

Lear’s big-screen credits included the scripts for “Come Blow Your Horn” (1963); “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968); “The Thief Who Came to Dinner” (1971); “Stand by Me” (1986) and “The Princess Bride” (1987), both of which were directed by former “All in the Family” co-star Rob Reiner; and “Fried Green Tomatoes” (1991).

Lear was born in New Haven, Conn., on July 27, 1922. Both his parents were Jews of Russian origin; he claimed in interviews that his father and mother were the inspirations for the characters of Archie and Edith Bunker. He dropped out of Boston’s Emerson College to enlist in the U.S. Air Force in 1942, and served as a radio operator and gunner on B-17 bombers in the European theater, flying 52 missions.

After the war, Lear pursued a career as a press agent, and moved to Los Angeles to set up shop. But he moved into comedy writing after partnering with Ed Simmons, his cousin’s husband. The pair’s first major break came writing for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, then the country’s hottest comedy act, during a run of 1952-53 appearances on “The Colgate Comedy Hour.” Teaming with Bud Yorkin, he became an in-demand scribe for the variety shows of Martha Raye, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Celeste Holm and George Gobel.

In the ‘60s, Lear rang up credits writing and (with Yorkin, his partner in Tandem Productions) producing specials starring Bobby Darin, Danny Kaye, Andy Williams and Henry Fonda (star of a Western series, “The Deputy,” which was created by Lear).

Though Lear had scattered credits on theatrical films in the late ‘60s, he vaulted to the top rank of TV producers with Tandem’s development of “All in the Family,” which was inspired by a similarly acerbic, long-running British series, “Till Death Do Us Part.” Originally picked up by ABC, which grew skittish about its content and dropped it, the show was acquired by CBS, where it became the first U.S. sitcom to be filmed in front of a live audience.

The vibrant new series became an instant smash, riding the terrific chemistry of its four stars: Carroll O’Connor as the conservative, bigoted, foul-mouthed Archie, Jean Stapleton as his dizzy, warm-hearted wife Edith; Sally Struthers as their hard-headed daughter Gloria; and Rob Reiner as Gloria’s hippie hubby Michael “Meathead” Stivic. The show reeled in 22 Emmys over the course of its run; O’Connor collected four Emmys for his work on the show, Stapleton three, Reiner two and Struthers one. (An ABC special about the series and its spinoff “The Jeffersons,” executive produced by Lear, won a 2019 Emmy.)

The show became a cottage industry, spinning off one series after another: “Maude,” with Bea Arthur as Edith’s feisty, acid-tongued cousin (purportedly based on Lear’s second wife Frances); “The Jeffersons,” starring Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford as the Bunkers’ African American former next-door neighbors; “Gloria,” with Struthers reprising her role (following the character’s divorce); “Checking In,” with Marla Gibbs as Florence Johnston, the Jeffersons’ onetime maid; and, in the ‘90s, “704 Hauser,” a poorly-received show that was set in the Bunkers’ old house. “Archie Bunker’s Place,” a sort of spinoff of itself set in the titular character’s Queens bar, ran from 1979-83.

Though “All in the Family” and its successors changed TV forever with their sharp political edge and theretofore unseen frankness, Lear later took a cool look back on what the show ultimately achieved.

He averred, “I didn’t see it changing television at all. 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.”

Lear’s last two creations, the sitcoms “Sunday Dinner” and “704 Hauser,” both saw brief runs in the early ‘90s. While he had nothing to do with its production, he had an executive producer credit on the reboot of “One Day at a Time,” set in L.A.’s Echo Park and focusing on a Latino family, which ran from 2017-2020.

Lear’s latter-day productions included the features “Way Past Cool” (2000) and “El Superstar: The Unlikely Rise of Juan Frances” (2008). His documentary productions included “Pete Seeger: The Power of Song” (2007). He is survived by his third wife Lyn Davis, six children and four grandchildren...

THE PASSING SCENE OF 2013

With every passing year there are great talents that sadly have to leave us. Their passing remind of how quick life goes, and even though their deaths are sad to us fans, their memories live on in their wonderful bodies of work. Here are some of the entertainers of classic Hollywood that left us in 2013...

Patty Andrews

PATTY ANDREWS
Patty Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio whose hits such as the rollicking "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" and the poignant "I Can Dream, Can't I?" captured the home-front spirit of World War II, died in January. She was 94. Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home. She could also deliver sentimental ballads like "I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time" with a sincerity that caused hardened GIs far from home to weep.

PETER O'TOOLE
Peter O'Toole achieved stardom playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He received seven further Oscar nominations – for Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982) and Venus (2006) – and holds the record for the most Academy Award acting nominations without a win. He died on December 14 at the age of 81.

JONATHAN WINTERS
Best known for his improv work and characters like Mearth on Mork & Mindy, Winters died on April 11 of natural causes. He was 87. He is survived by two children and five grandchildren. He never made many films, but he had a memorable role in the 1963 comedy classic, It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World. His last role was as the voice of Papa Smurf in the cartoon film
Smurfs 2.

MARTA EGGERTH
Marta Eggerth was a singer/actress from "The Silver Age of  Operetta". Many of the 20th century's most famous operetta composers, including Oscar Straus composed works especially for her. She made two movies at MGM, appearing opposite Judy Garland in For Me And My Gal (1942) and Presenting Lily Mars (1943). She died on December 26 at the age of 101.

ROGER EBERT
The famed movie critic died in Chicago on April 4, just two days after announcing on his website that he was taking a "leave of presence" from his career. His death, at age 70, followed years of health problems, including a thyroid cancer diagnosis in 2002 that led to the loss of his voice.

JULIE HARRIS
Julie Harris was a famed icon of the American stage. She won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. She also appeared in such films as East of Eden (1955) with James Dean, whom she became friends with, and Requiem For A Heavyweight (1962) with Paul Newman. She remained active despite failing health. She died on August 24 of heart failure.

JEANNE COOPER
Soap opera fans were devastated on May 8 when Cooper, who played Katherine Chancellor on The Young and the Restless for nearly four decades, died after a brief, unspecified illness. Her son was actor Corbin Bernsen.

Jean Stapleton

JEAN STAPLETON
The Emmy-winning All in the Family actress, who played Archie Bunker's wife on the series, died of natural causes on May 31. She was 90 years old. Survived by her two children, John and Pamela, she was described by Roseanne Barr as "a great actor whose range was unbelievable, deep, and majestic."

ANNETTE FUNICELLO
The beloved former Mouseketeer passed away at age 70 in early April, after more than two decades of living with multiple sclerosis. She is survived by her second husband, Glen Holt, and kids Gina, Jack Jr., and Jason, her children with first husband Jack Gilardi.

GEORGE JONES
The "He Stopped Loving Her Today" singer died on April 26 at age 81 after a brief hospitalization in Nashville. "My friend, the greatest singer of all time, has passed," country star Brad Paisley said of Jones, survived by his wife and four grown children. "To those who knew him, our lives were full. To those of you who don't: discover him now."

DEANNA DURBIN
One of the most famous child stars of her time, Durbin died at age 91 in late April. Known for box office smashes like Three Smart Girls, First Love, and Spring Parade, she is survived by her son, Peter David, and daughter Jessica.

BONNIE FRANKLIN
The One Day at a Time star died on March 1 at age 69 after a months-long battle with pancreatic cancer. A veteran theater actress and two-time Golden Globe nominee, Franklin is survived by her mother, Claire, and stepchildren Jed and Julie Minoff.

JAMES GANDOLFINI
The Sopranos star died of an apparent heart attack while vacationing with his son Michael in Rome on June 19. Though he was rushed to the emergency room, efforts to resuscitate him failed. Gandolfini is also survived by his wife, Deborah, and their daughter, Liliana. "He was a special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving person.

Eleanor Parker

ELEANOR PARKER
The stunning Eleanor Parker was an actress of patrician beauty nicknamed “the woman of a thousand faces” for the range of parts she played, from a terrified prisoner in “Caged” to the icy baroness in “The Sound of Music. She died on December 9 at the age of 91. On a personal note, my Grandfather always said my Grandmother looked like Eleanor Parker.

PATSY SWAYZE
Dancing instructor and mother of Patrick Swayze, Patsy Swayze died in September at the age of 87. Patsy taught dance for decades, and her students included Tommy Tune and Debbie Allen.

SLIM WHITMAN
Country singer Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeler who sold millions of records through ever-present TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s and whose song saved the world in the film comedy "Mars Attacks!," died in June at a Florida hospital. He was 90.

FRAN WARREN
Fran Warren, whose 1947 recording of "A Sunday Kind of Love" was one of the classic hits of the big band era died on March 4 of natural causes. She was 87. Warren's career spanned more than 50 years with hits that included the Tony Martin duet "I Said My Pajamas (and Put On My Prayers)," the Lisa Kirk duet "Dearie" and "It's Anybody's Heart." Her films roles included "Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd."

JOHN KERR
John Kerr, the stage and film actor whose credits include the movie "South Pacific," the thriller "The Pit and the Pendulum" and a Tony Award-winning turn in "Tea and Sympathy," died in February. He was 81. He was perhaps best known for playing a sensitive prep school student who is bullied for being a suspected homosexual in Elia Kazan's 1953 Broadway production of "Tea and Sympathy." He went on to reprise the role in a 1956 film version.

PATTI PAGE
Unforgettable songs like "Tennessee Waltz" and "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window?" made Patti Page the best-selling female singer of the 1950s and a star who would spend much of the rest of her life traveling the world. That singing rage Miss Patti Page died on New Year's Day in Encinitas, Calif., according to publicist Schatzi Hageman, ending one of pop music's most diverse careers. She was 85 and just five weeks away from being honored at the Grammy Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy.

Conrad Bain

CONRAD BAIN
One of the most popular sitcoms of the early 1980s was Different Strokes. Actor Conrad Bain played the wonderful role of Mr. Drummand for the series entire run. He was 89. With the exception of a one-off appearance on the TV series Unforgettable in 2011, Bain has not acted since 1996, when he parodied his Diff'rent Strokes character on an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Bain was also a starring player on Norman Lear's 1970s sitcom Maude, playing the uptight Dr. Harmon, a foil to Bea Arthur's title character.

JANE HARVEY
Jane Harvey, who recorded with the Benny Goodman orchestra in the 1940’s and later sang with Desi Arnaz, died at her home in Los Angeles Aug. 15. The cause was cancer. She was 88. She did not stay with the Goodman band long, but one of her most enduring hits with them was "Close As Pages In A Book".

EYDIE GORME
Concert and recording superstar Eydie Gormé, who – performing everything from ballads to bossa nova with singing partner and husband Steve Lawrence – made an indelible impression on American audiences during the swingin' '60s, died August 10. She was 84.

DENNIS FARINA
Dennis Farina, a Chicago native and police officer who turned to acting, died in July at the age of 69 in Arizona. Farina, best known as detective Joe Fontana on the long-running TV series "Law & Order," suffered a blood clot in his lung, publicist Lori De Waal said.

JOAN FONTAINE

Joan Fontaine was a true legend of classic Hollywood.  In 1941, she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her role in Rebecca directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The following year, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) making Fontaine the only actress to ever win an Academy Award in a film directed by Hitchcock. Her sister is equally good actress Olivia DeHavilland, with whom she had a lifelong feud with. Fontaine made her last movie in 1994. She died on December 15 at the age of 96.

PAUL TANNER
Paul Tanner, a trombonist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra who later played a space-age instrument on the Beach Boys hit "Good Vibrations," died at the age of 95 in February. Tanner performed with Miller from 1938 to 1942. During his long career he also worked as a movie studio and ABC musician in California, and performed with stars that included Tex Beneke, Henry Mancini and Arturo Toscanini.

Esther Williams

ESTHER WILLIAMS
Her talent was more than just her swimming ability. Her beauty and her screen prescene made her a favorite of a generation of film goers. Esther Williams was one of MGM's greatest stars. She was 91.  Williams's died in June in her sleep, according to her longtime publicist Harlan Boll. Following in the footsteps of Sonja Henie, who went from skating champion to movie star, Williams became one of Hollywood's biggest moneymakers, appearing in spectacular swimsuit numbers that capitalized on her wholesome beauty and perfect figure" in such films as "Easy to Wed," "Neptune's Daughter" and "Dangerous When Wet".

Rest in peace...

 

RIP: JEAN STAPLETON

 

Growing up my Grandmother always reminded me of Jean Stapleton - although looking back now I don't know what the similarities were. Both women represented a simpler time in my life, and with Jean Stapleton's death today I miss them both. Stapleton was an icon as Edith Bunker on All In The Family, and as for her movies roles, I think my favorite role of hers was as Judy Holiday's friend in 1960's Bells Are Ringing. She dated Eddie Foy Jr in the movie - yes, Eddie Foy of the Seven Little Foys!

Jean Stapleton was 90 years old. Her son John Putch told CNN about her passing and, along with his sister Pamela Putch, wrote an obituary saying that she "passed away peacefully of natural causes" on Friday at her New York City home "surrounded by friends and her immediate family."

 

"No one gave more profound 'how to be a human being' lessons than Jean Stapleton," said Norman Lear, who produced and directed "All in the Family." "Goodbye Edith, darling."

 

The daughter of an opera singer and businessman, Stapleton grew up on Long Island and in New York City. It was there during the early 1940s, while working as a typist for the British War Ministry Office, that she began her career in theater.

 

Stapleton made it to Broadway in the production "In the Summer House" in 1953, the same year of her television debut on the daytime drama "Woman With a Past." Other big stage roles followed, including in "Bells Are Ringing" and "Damn Yankees."

She also did more and more television, including appearances on shows such as "Philco TV Playhouse" and "Dr. Kildare."

 

Her breakout role was as Edith Bunker, the conscience of "All in the Family" as the kindhearted foil to husband Archie, played by the late Carroll O'Connor. "All in the Family" was one of television's most popular shows as it broke ground while tackling a host of social issues such as racism, sexuality, life and death. Edith Bunker, played by Stapleton, for instance revealed that she had breast cancer on the show, a rare occurrence at the time.

 

"I just loved doing it from the very beginning," Stapleton told CNN in 2001, shortly after O'Connor's death.

 

She won three Emmy awards -- in 1971, 1972 and 1978, in addition to five other nominations in which he she fell short -- for her performance in that Lear-helmed show.

 

 

"Jean was a brilliant comedienne with exquisite timing," said Rob Reiner, who played the Bunkers' son-in-law referred to as "Meathead" on the show. "Working with her was one of the greatest experiences of my life."

 

Stapleton kept busy after the show went off in the air in 1979 and kept on racking up more accomplishments. Those include Emmy nominations in 1982 for playing Eleanor Roosevelt in the CBS miniseries "Eleanor, First Lady of the World" and in 1995 as Aunt Vivian in a guest spot on the ABC comedy "Grace Under Fire."

 

In 2002 she was chosen for the Television Academy Hall of Fame, joining the likes of Tim Conway and Bob Mackie in that organization's 15th induction class. Her most recent on-screen credits, according to the IMDB website, are from 2001 when she appeared in the film "Pursuit of Happiness" and the TV movie "Like Mother Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Klimes" along with Mary Tyler Moore.

 

 

 

And after "All in the Family," she continued working in theater, including a nationwide tour as Roosevelt in her one-woman show "Eleanor: Her Secret Journey," the Broadway revival of "Arsenic and Lace" and Obie Award performances in Harold Pinter's "Mountain Language" and "The Birthday Party." Her final stage appearance was in "The Carpetbagger's Children" a few blocks from her home in New York, to which she returned permanently in 2002.

 

Calling her "our collective Mother, with a capital M," John and Pamela Putch -- Stapleton's two children with her husband William Putch, whom she married in 1957 and who died in 1983 -- said "her devotion to her craft and her family taught us all great lessons."

 

"In her own words, she was an 'actress,' not a celebrity," they wrote in her obituary. "The play always came first."

 

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