Movies

How All in the Family Changed the TV Landscape


The creative perseverance Lear showed just to get the right person for the right part is indicative of the lengths Lear would go for creative excellence. He would continue to fight for artistic integrity, transforming prime time comedy with shows like Good Times, One Day at a Time, and the first late-night soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. He brought legendary blue comedian Redd Foxx into homes with Sanford and Son, also based on a British sitcom, Steptoe and Son, which starred Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell, best known for playing Paul McCartney’s grand-dad in A Hard Day’s Night. But before he could do these, and the successful and progressive All in the Family spinoffs The Jeffersons and Maude, he had to face battles, big and small, over the reluctantly changing face of television.

“Patience is a Virgin”

After Lear beat CBS to the rights to adapt Till Death Us Do Part he offered the show to ABC. When it was being developed for the television studio, the family in the original pilot were named the Justices, and the series was titled “Justice for All,” according to a 1991 “All in the Family 20th Anniversary Special.” They considered future Happy Days dad Tom Bosley, and acclaimed character actor Jack Warden for the lead part, before offering the role to Mickey Rooney. According to Even This I Get to Experience, Lear’s pitch to the veteran actor got to the words “You play a bigot” before Rooney stopped him. “Norm, they’re going to kill you, shoot you dead in the streets,” the Hollywood icon warned, asking if Lear might have a series about a blind detective with a big dog somewhere in the works.

Taped in New York on Sept. 3, 1968, the first pilot starred O’Connor and Jean Stapleton as Archie and Edith Justice. Stapleton, a stage-trained character actor who first worked as a stock player in 1941, was a consistent supporting player for playwright Horton Foote. Stapleton originated the role of Mrs. Strakosh in the 1964 Broadway production of Funny Girl, which starred Barbra Streisand. Lear considered her after seeing her performance in Damn Yankees. She’d made guest appearances on TV series like Dr. Kildare and The Defenders.

O’Connor was born in Manhattan but grew up in Queens, the same borough as the Bunker household with the external living room window which wasn’t visible from the interior. O’Connor acted steadily in theaters in Dublin, Ireland, and New York until director Burgess Meredith, assisted by The Addams Family’s John Astin, cast him in the Broadway adaptation of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. O’Connor had roles in major motion pictures, including Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Cleopatra (1963), Point Blank (1967), The Devil’s Brigade (1968), Death of a Gunfighter (1969), Marlowe (1969), and Kelly’s Heroes (1970).  O’Connor appeared on television series like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, The Outer Limits, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, That Girl, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He’d guest starred as a villain in a season 1 episode of Mission Impossible, and was up for the parts the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island and Dr. Smith on Lost in Space.

The first pilot also starred Kelly Jean Peters as Gloria and Tim McIntire as her husband Richard. ABC liked it enough to fund a second pilot, “Those Were the Days,” which shot in Los Angeles on Feb. 10, 1969. Richard was played by Chip Oliver, and Gloria Justice was played by Candice Azzara, who would go on to play Rodney Dangerfield’s wife in Easy Money, and make numerous, memorable guest appearances on Barney Miller. D’Urville Martin played Lionel Jefferson in both pilots. ABC cancelled it after one episode, worried about a show with a foul-mouthed, bigoted character as the lead.



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