-
Eric Hirshberg: So I assume that Norman
doesn't need much of an introduction,
-
but TED's audience is global,
-
it's diverse,
-
so I've been tasked
with starting with his bio,
-
which could easily take up
the entire 18 minutes,
-
so instead we're going to do
93 years in 93 seconds or less.
-
(Laughter)
-
You were born in New Hampshire.
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Norman Lear: New Haven, Connecticut.
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EH: New Haven, Connecticut.
-
(Laughter)
-
NL: There goes seven more seconds.
-
EH: Nailed it.
-
(Laughter)
-
You were born in New Haven, Connecticut.
-
Your father was a con man --
I got that right.
-
He was taken away to prison
when you were nine years old.
-
You flew 52 missions
as a fighter pilot in World War II.
-
You came back to --
-
NL: Radio operator.
-
EH: You came to LA
to break into Hollywood,
-
first in publicity, then in TV.
-
You had no training as a writer, formally,
-
but you hustled your way in.
-
Your breakthrough, your debut,
-
was a little show
called "All in the Family."
-
You followed that up with a string of hits
-
that to this day is unmatched
in Hollywood:
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"Sanford and Son," "Maude," "Good Times,"
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"The Jeffersons," "One Day at a Time,"
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"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,"
-
to name literally a fraction of them.
-
Not only are they all commercially --
-
(Applause)
-
Not only are they all
commercially successful,
-
but many of them push our culture forward
-
by giving the underrepresented
members of society
-
their first prime-time voice.
-
You have seven shows
in the top 10 at one time.
-
At one point,
-
you aggregate an audience
of 120 million people per week
-
watching your content.
-
That's more than the audience
for Super Bowl 50,
-
which happens once a year.
-
NL: Holy shit.
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
EH: And we're not even
to the holy shit part.
-
(Laughter)
-
You land yourself
on Richard Nixon's enemies list --
-
he had one.
-
That's an applause line, too.
-
(Applause)
-
You're inducted into the TV Hall of Fame
on the first day that it exists.
-
Then came the movies.
-
"Fried Green Tomatoes,"
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"The Princess Bride," "Stand By Me,"
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"This Is Spinal Tap."
-
(Applause)
-
Again, just to name a fraction.
-
(Applause)
-
Then you wipe the slate clean,
-
start a third act as a political activist
focusing on protecting the First Amendment
-
and the separation of church and state.
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You start People For The American Way.
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You buy the Declaration of Independence
-
and give it back to the people.
-
You stay active in both
entertainment and politics
-
until the ripe old of age of 93,
-
when you write a book
-
and make a documentary
about your life story.
-
And after all that,
-
they finally think
you're ready for a TED Talk.
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
NL: I love being here.
-
And I love you for agreeing to do this.
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EH: Thank you for asking. It's my honor.
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So here's my first question.
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Was your mother proud of you?
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(Laughter)
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NL: My mother ...
-
what a place to start.
-
Let me put it this way --
-
when I came back from the war,
-
she showed me the letters
that I had written her from overseas,
-
and they were absolute love letters.
-
(Laughter)
-
This really sums up my mother.
-
They were love letters,
-
as if I had written them to --
-
they were love letters.
-
A year later I asked my mother
if I could have them,
-
because I'd like to keep them
all the years of my life ...
-
She had thrown them away.
-
(Laughter)
-
That's my mother.
-
(Laughter)
-
The best way I can sum it up
in more recent times is --
-
this is also more recent times --
-
a number of years ago,
-
when they started the Hall of Fame
to which you referred,
-
it was a Sunday morning,
-
when I got a call from the fellow who ran
the TV Academy of Arts and Sciences.
-
He was calling me to tell me
they had met all day yesterday
-
and he was confidentially telling me
they were going to start a hall of fame
-
and these were the inductees.
-
I started to say "Richard Nixon,"
-
because Richard Nixon --
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EH: I don't think he was on their list.
-
NL: William Paley, who started CBS,
-
David Sarnoff, who started NBC,
-
Edward R. Murrow,
-
the greatest of the foreign
correspondents,
-
Patty Chayefsky --
-
I think the best writer
that ever came out of television --
-
Milton Berle, Lucille Ball,
-
and me.
-
EH: Not bad.
-
NL: I call my mother
immediately in Hartford, Connecticut.
-
"Mom, this is what's happened,
-
they're starting a hall of fame,"
-
I tell her the list of names and me,
-
and she says,
-
"Listen, if that's what they
want to do, who am I to say?"
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
That's my Ma.
-
I think it earns that kind of a laugh
-
because everybody
has a piece of that mother.
-
(Laughter)
-
EH: And the sitcom Jewish mother
is born, right there.
-
So your father also played
a large role in your life,
-
mostly by his absence.
-
NL: Yeah.
-
Tell us what happened
when you were nine years old.
-
NL: He was flying to Oklahoma
-
with three guys that my mother said,
-
"I don't want you to have
anything to do with them,
-
I don't trust those men."
-
That's when I heard,
-
maybe not for the first time,
-
"Stifle yourself, Jeanette, I'm going."
-
And he went.
-
It turns out he was picking up
some fake bonds,
-
which he was flying
across the country to sell.
-
But the fact that he was going
to Oklahoma in a plane,
-
and he was going to bring me
back a 10-gallon hat,
-
just like Ken Maynard,
my favorite cowboy wore.
-
You know, this was a few years
after Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic.
-
I mean, it was exotic
that my father was going there.
-
But when he came back,
-
they arrested him as he got off the plane.
-
That night newspapers
were all over the house,
-
my father was with his hat
in front of his face,
-
manacled to a detective.
-
And my mother was selling the furniture,
because we were leaving --
-
she didn't want to stay
in that state of shame,
-
in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
-
And selling the furniture --
-
the house was loaded with people.
-
And in the middle of all of that,
-
some strange horse's ass
put his hand on my shoulder and said,
-
"Well, you're the man of the house now."
-
I'm crying and this asshole says,
"You're the man of the house now."
-
And I think that was the moment
-
I began to understand the foolishness
of the human condition.
-
So ...
-
it took a lot of years to look back at it
and feel it was a benefit.
-
But --
-
EH: It's interesting
you called it a benefit.
-
NL: Benefit in that it gave
me that springboard.
-
I mean that I could think
-
how foolish it was to say
to this crying nine-year-old boy,
-
"You're the man of the house now."
-
And then I was crying and then he said,
-
"And men of the house don't cry."
-
And I ...
-
(Laughter)
-
So ...
-
I look back and I think
-
that's when I learned the foolishness
of the human condition,
-
and it's been that gift that I've used.
-
EH: So you have a father who's absent,
-
you have a mother for whom
apparently nothing is good enough.
-
Do you think that starting out as a kid
who maybe never felt heard
-
started you down a journey
-
that ended with you being an adult
-
with a weekly audience
of 120 million people?
-
NL: I love the way you put that question,
-
because I guess
I've spent my life wanting --
-
if anything, wanting to be heard.
-
I think --
-
It's a simple answer, yes,
-
that was what sparked --
-
well, there were other things, too.
-
When my father was away,
-
I was fooling with a crystal radio set
that we had made together,
-
and I caught a signal that turned out
to be Father Coughlin.
-
(Laughter)
-
Yeah, somebody laughed.
-
(Laughter)
-
But not funny,
-
this was a horse's --
-
not a horse's ass --
-
He was very vocal
about hating the New Deal
-
and Roosevelt and Jews.
-
The first time I ran into an understanding
-
that there were people
in this world that hated me
-
because I was born to Jewish parents.
-
And that had an enormous
effect on my life.
-
EH: So you had a childhood
-
with little in the way
of strong male role models,
-
except for your grandfather.
-
Tell us about him.
-
NL: Oh, my grandfather.
-
Well here's the way I always
talked about that grandfather.
-
There were parades,
-
lots of parades when I was a kid.
-
There were parades on Veteran's Day --
-
there wasn't a President's Day.
-
There was an Abraham Lincoln's birthday,
-
George Washington's birthday
-
and Flag Day ...
-
And lots of little parades.
-
My grandfather used to take me
-
and we'd stand on the street corner,
-
he'd hold my hand
-
and I'd look up and I'd see a tear
running down his eye.
-
And he meant a great deal to me.
-
And he used to write presidents
of the United States.
-
Every letter started,
-
"My dearest, darling Mr. President,"
-
and he'd tell him something
wonderful about what he did.
-
But when he disagreed
with the President he also wrote,
-
"My dearest, darling Mr. President,
-
Didn't I tell you last week ...?"
-
(Laughter)
-
And I would run down the stairs
every now and then
-
and pick up the mail.
-
We were three flights up,
-
74 York Street, New Haven, Connecticut.
-
And I'd pick up a little white envelope
reading, "Shya C. called at this address."
-
And that's the story I have told
about my grandfather --
-
EH: They wrote him back
on the envelopes --
-
NL: They wrote back.
-
But I have shown them myself,
-
going way back to Phil Donahue
and others before him,
-
literally dozens of interviews
in which I told that story.
-
This will be the second time I have said
the whole story was a lie.
-
The truth was my grandfather
took me to parades,
-
we had lots of those.
-
The truth is a tear came down his eye.
-
The truth is he would write
an occasional letter,
-
and I did pick up those little envelopes.
-
But "My dearest darling Mr. President,"
-
all the rest of it,
-
is a story I borrowed from a good friend
-
whose grandfather was that grandfather
who wrote those letters.
-
And, I mean, I stole
Arthur Marshall's grandfather
-
and made him my own.
-
Always.
-
When I started to write my memoir --
-
"Even this --"
-
How about that?
-
"Even This I Get to Experience."
-
When I started to write the memoir
-
and I started to think about it,
-
and then I --
-
I --
-
I did a reasonable amount of crying
-
and I realized how much
I needed the father.
-
So much so that I appropriated
Arthur Marshall's grandfather.
-
So much so, the word "father" --
-
I have six kids by the way.
-
My favorite role in life.
-
It and husband to my wife Lyn.
-
But I stole the man's identity
because I needed the father.
-
Now I've gone through a whole lot of shit
-
and come out on the other side,
-
and I actually give my father --
-
the best thing I --
-
the worst thing I --
-
The word I'd like to use about him
and think about him is --
-
he was a rascal.
-
The fact that he lied
and stole and cheated,
-
and went to prison ...
-
I submerge that in the word "rascal."
-
EH: Well there's a saying that amateurs
borrow and professionals steal.
-
NL: I'm a pro.
-
EH: You're a pro.
-
(Laughter)
-
And that quote is widely
attributed to John Lennon,
-
but it turns out
he stole it from T.S. Eliot.
-
So you're in good company.
-
(Laughter)
-
EH: I want to talk about your work.
-
Obviously the impact of your work
has been written about
-
and I'm sure you've heard
about it all your life:
-
what it meant to people,
-
what it meant to your culture,
-
you heard the applause when I just
named the names of the shows,
-
you raised half the people
in the room through your work.
-
But have there ever been any stories
about the impact of your work
-
that surprised you?
-
NL: Oh, god --
-
surprised me and delighted me
from head to toe.
-
There was "An Evening with Norman Lear"
within the last year
-
that a group of hip-hop impresarios,
-
performers and the Academy put together.
-
The subtext of "An Evening with ..."
-
was "What do a 92-year-old Jew" --
-
then 92 --
-
"and the world of hip-hop have in common?"
-
Russell Simmons
was among seven on the stage.
-
And when he talked about the shows,
-
he wasn't talking about the Hollywood,
-
George Jefferson in "The Jeffersons,"
-
or the show that was a number five show.
-
He was talking about a simple
thing that made a big --
-
EH: Impact on him?
-
NL: An impact on him --
-
I was hesitating over the word, "change."
-
It's hard for me to imagine,
-
you know, changing somebody's life,
-
but that's the way he put it.
-
He saw George Jefferson
write a check on "The Jeffersons,"
-
and he never knew that a black man
could write a check.
-
And he says it just
impacted his life so --
-
it changed his life.
-
And when I hear things like that --
-
little things --
-
because I know that there isn't
anybody in this audience
-
that wasn't likely responsible today for
some little thing they did for somebody,
-
whether it's as little as a smile
or an unexpected "Hello,"
-
that's how little this thing was.
-
It could have been the dresser of the set
-
who put the checkbook on the thing
-
and George had nothing to do
while he was speaking, so he wrote it,
-
I don't know.
-
But --
-
EH: So in addition to the long list
I shared in the beginning,
-
I should have also mentioned
that you invented hip-hop.
-
(Laughter)
-
NL: Well ...
-
EH: I want to talk about --
-
NL: Well, then do it.
-
(Laughter)
-
EH: You've lead a life of accomplishment,
-
but you've also built a life of meaning.
-
And all of us strive to do
both of those things --
-
not all of us manage to.
-
But even those of us who do manage
to accomplish both of those,
-
very rarely do we figure out
how to do them together.
-
You managed to push culture
forward through your art
-
while also achieving world-beating
commercial success.
-
How did you do both?
-
NL: Here's where my mind goes when I hear
that recitation of all I accomplished.
-
This planet is one of a billion,
-
they tell us.
-
In a universe
of which there are billions --
-
billions of universes,
-
billions of planets ...
-
which we're trying to save
-
and it requires saving.
-
But --
-
anything I may have accomplished is --
-
my sister once asked me
what she does about something
-
that was going on
in Newington, Connecticut.
-
And I said, "Write your alderman
or your mayor or something."
-
She said, "Well I'm not
Norman Lear, I'm Claire Lear."
-
And that was the first time
I said what I'm saying,
-
I said, "Claire. With everything
you think about what I may have done
-
and everything you've done," --
-
she never left Newington --
-
"can you get your fingers close enough
-
when you consider the size
of the planet and so forth,
-
to measure anything I may have done
to anything you may have done?"
-
So ...
-
I am convinced we're all responsible
-
for doing as much
as I may have accomplished.
-
And I understand what you're saying --
-
EH: It's an articulate deflection --
-
NL: But you have to really buy into
the size and scope
-
of the creator's enterprise, here.
-
EH: But here on this planet
you have really mattered.
-
NL: I'm a son of a gun.
-
(Laughter)
-
EH: So I have one more question for you.
-
How old do you feel?
-
NL: I am the peer
of whoever I'm talking to.
-
EH: Well, I feel 93.
-
(Applause)
-
NL: We out of here?
-
EH: Well, I feel 93 years old,
-
but I hope to one day feel as young
as the person I'm sitting across from.
-
Ladies and gentlemen,
-
the incomparable Norman Lear.
-
(Applause)
-
NL: Thank you.
-
(Applause)