In the spirit of the holidays, television icon Norman Lear—on his podcast “All of the Above—is re-airing his two-part interview with host, Robert Scheer. The two delve into politics after World War II, how Lear revolutionized television and today’s political and cultural climate.
Lear also recaps his time at the Kennedy Center Honors, where he was named an honoree earlier this month.
Read the full transcript of the original KCRW’s Scheer Intelligence two-part podcast below, and listen to part I and part II at KCRW.com
Robert Scheer: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where the intelligence comes, hopefully, from my guests. In this case, no question: it’s Norman Lear. And–OK, the man’s a legend, the man has been a major force in making American life liveable. And I’m just going to read, he wrote a book recently, a terrific book. And it’s called Even This I Get to Experience. And the book came out, and you know, I hate to say it, I still buy my books at independent bookstores, but I was on Amazon, I got the electric version, electronic version. I read it, I read it straight through; and that’s not a great thing to do, ‘cause you should take a break and go to the bathroom or something. But I did; I couldn’t put it down. And I just–and then a message flashed and said, “Would you like to be the first one to review it.” So I’m going to read what I said then, impulsively, after reading his book. “Truly brilliant in its honesty, as one would expect from the man who transformed television from a myopic center of banality into a medium of accountability. All of the major controversies that confront us today, from war and peace on through race relations, gay rights, gender equality, freedom of and from religion, economic inequality, the right and obligation to challenge power and the powerful, and the reality that the American ideal would always be a work in progress was brought into the American home by this genius.”
Norman Lear: If I was to be buried, I would want that on my stone.
RS: Oh, there you go. [Laughter] I’m not paying for the stone, but I’ll talk to the people who are in the know. But I really, I meant it; I meant it, I wrote that at three in the morning or something, impulsively; I’ve known you for years. In fact, my wife warned me, don’t do these long introductions, but I do have to say, I met you on assignment from the Los Angeles Times; I was a young reporter. I think you had four of the top ten television shows: All in the Family–what else was on then, Sanford and–?
NL: Maude, Sanford and Sons, Good Times, The Jeffersons.
RS: OK. So you were this overwhelming figure dominating the ratings in television, and the amazing thing is you dealt with all the taboo topics; you had a gay football player long before anyone ever discussed the issue; the gay issue was not front and center, you dealt with gender inequality, as all the things I said before.
NL: We just, only a few weeks ago, remembered that we dealt with transgender on a show called All That Glitters, which was a soap opera that was on five times a week. The show that followed Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which was very successful. All That Glitters wasn’t as successful, wasn’t–I guess wasn’t successful. But in that show, Linda Gray, who became a great star, the company that the show was centered around, fictional company, was putting out a cigarette called–they had the Marlboro Woman. And this guy, played by Linda Gray, became a woman.
RS: Ha–
NL: Oh, my God, it was good. [Laughter] I loved that.
RS: OK. So now, you know, people are used to seeing a lot of wild stuff because of cable and satellite and everything. But people should understand that we’re talking about a time when you had three networks–CBS was the most powerful–and they had programming practices, directors, and censorship was alive and strong. And here was this, this guy out there in California, challenging them in a very profound way. And you won because you got the ratings, but it was a–
NL: Yes, may I–I would underline that. Because of the ratings. It wasn’t because I was this, that, or the other thing; it was because the shows delivered viewers.
RS: Yeah, but it turned out you got the ratings because it turned out the American public was a hell of a lot more tolerant and serious and–even though this was largely comedy–and could entertain a range of ideas. And so–
NL: Who was it, Bob, who said–the name is on the tip of my mind–nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Some wit said that. And I think the establishment, by and large, has gone by that kind of, you know, edict: Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence–I never believed that. We probably are not the best educated people in the world, or country in the world; but we’re wise of heart. There’s enough smartness to go around, if that smartness is appealed to.
RS: Well [Laughs], that’s an important reminder at a time when Donald Trump is president. And you’re going to be honored at the–
NL: Well it applies, in my mind, more now than ever. ‘Cause I think of Donald Trump as the middle finger of the American right hand. They said a long time ago, as he was running, “We see leadership everywhere; we see leadership in the Congress, leadership running for, you know, the republicans or the democrats, or we see leadership in business and we see the automobile with the airbag, you know, killing people but they keep making them, and they keep making them. We see pharmaceutical companies and read stories about how badly they’re treating us. Leadership stinks, leader–there is no leadership. It’s all short term.” I could go on–I will go on. [Laughs]
RS: You will go on. But let me say, by the way–so you’re going to be honored this year at the Kennedy Center on July 4th, right? Of next year–
NL: Yes–no, no, December 2nd.
RS: December 2nd, OK, at the Kennedy Center. And you’re going to be, this coming July 4th you’re going to be 96. And you’re–
NL: No. I’m going to be 95. I will still be 95; it won’t be ‘til the 27th that I’m 96.
RS: OK. [Laughs]
NL: So this will be my 95th Fourth of July.
RS: OK. But you’ll be at the Kennedy Center, and you actually said you wouldn’t go to the White House for a preliminary thing because you were disapproving of Donald Trump’s cuts on the programs for the arts, and so forth. But Donald Trump–and we’re recording this the week that Donald Trump spoke at the UN, and he stressed patriotism–patriotism, patriotism. Very similar in my memory to Richard Nixon stressing patriotism. And you have been, one of your great achievements in your civic achievements is you founded People for the American Way. And you challenged a kind of mindless appeal to patriotism, and you came out for diversity and dissent and questioning and so forth. And I was thinking, watching Donald Trump invoking patriotism, patriotism, the same as Richard Nixon–neither of these guys experienced war and the horror of war, you know, and so forth. You did! You did. You, like George McGovern, who Richard Nixon defeated, you both were up there in those airplanes, flying over Germany in the most dangerous of missions. I forget how many George McGovern had, the democratic candidate now somewhat forgotten. But a truly heroic figure in every aspect of his life, and a man of reason and common sense. And yet his patriotism was challenged by Richard Nixon, but it was George McGovern who won the distinguished Flying Cross, and who flew–I think it was 53 or something, really dangerous missions. And when Norman Lear–you–got involved with People for the American Way, you were attacked all over the place–who is this, you know, character, and he’s disloyal, and blah blah blah. And the fact is–and you at the time, it wasn’t until your book came out, you really addressed this question of your own war record. And I recall you never brought it up–when I interviewed you–
NL: What do you mean, it’s not in the book? Of course it’s in–
RS: Of course–no, I said, when I read it in the book–
NL: Oh.
RS: –but when I interviewed you some 40 years ago for the LA Times, you didn’t mention it.
NL: Yeah.
RS: And you didn’t mention it when you were in the middle of a lot of controversies, and so forth. And yet–
NL: When World War II came along, that was the war where, without question, we were the good guys. I mean, there was no question about that war–that we had been attacked.
RS: That didn’t mean you had to go. You were a kid–
NL: But I had to.
RS: –twenty-year-old kid at Emerson College, right? Back East. And your parents thought, you know, why you? Right? As I recall, you wrote that somewhere. And, ah, you–you went. You said–
NL: Because I thought when–Norman, when you’re 95, you want to be able to say you fought in World War II. [Laughs]
RS: Yeah, and you did.
NL: And I did. And–
RS: And so as long as we’re touching on that, tell us–you know, because you haven’t talked about it a lot; in the book you do a bit. What did it mean? And what did it do to your thinking? I mean, you were up there–
NL: Well, let me–let me start by saying, this is all stuff you’ve read in the book, but when I was nine years old my father went to prison. When I was nine or ten years old my dad was away; I heard Father Coughlin on radio. He was a Catholic priest who was anti-Semitic, pro-fascist, as it turned out; I don’t know if we were using the word fascist at this time, but Hitler was coming along and he liked what was going on in Germany, and he hated Jews, and he said so in his fashion. And it scared the hell out of me. But I had one saving grace: I was, in school there were civics classes. I want to repeat that and repeat that and repeat that. We had civics classes. We were learning, in school, the promises that the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to it, all of those words–meant and made, those promises that were made to all of us. Equal justice under the law, equal opportunity in America under the law. I often think we were in love with America because we understood this. We all love our country today; I wouldn’t challenge anybody’s patriotism. But we were in love with what America was about then. Because we were learning, as kids, what America was about. And those promises we have yet to deliver on are the promises that continue to sustain me. Someday, we’re going to get ahold of ourselves and deliver on those promises.
RS: Such as?
NL: We were rehearsing at Emerson College on a Sunday morning, a play called Two Orphans; I remember that so clearly. Gertrude Binley Kay was our director; she was, you know, a professor at the college. She wore huge hats and [imitating accent] she talked in a Boston Brahmin kind of fashion. That’s a pretty good imitation of Gertrude Binley Kay. And somebody came running in at 10:30 or so in the morning to say they’d just heard on the radio that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And [Laughs], and Gertrude Binley Kay [imitating accent] wished us all to go down to Boylston Street to the Japanese antique store and throw rocks through the window. That was her eruption. My eruption was, I’ve got to join the military. I mean, we weren’t at war that day; we were going to be at war in two days, as it turned out, when FDR declared war. And I just had to be a part of it.
RS: And so–
NL: Out of everything that I said preceding that–out of what I think of as in love with what we were about.
RS: When you say “part of it”–and your experience was really quite similar to George McGovern; McGovern was a divinity student, and he volunteered, and he was a pilot. And, you know, heroically crash-landed his plane to save the troops, and did all these bombing missions and so forth; you know, flying over Germany was the most dangerous thing you could do. And you ended up in that position–
NL: Can I tell you a story about flying over Germany that’s very recent?
RS: Yeah.
NL: Two years ago, about two months before the Veterans Day parade in New York, the Air Force had learned that I had flown, that my group had flown the longest mission in the European theater. There were two theaters of war, the Eastern and the Western. And from Foggia, Italy, where I was stationed to Berlin–it was the longest mission–it was flown twice; I flew it once. They also learned that Tuskegee Airmen had flown with us to protect us; you know, they were in P-51s, we were in bombers, B-17s. And I loved the Tuskegee Airmen, because they seemed to fly closer to us; we felt more protection when we saw their red tails, and sometimes we saw their black faces. Tuskegee Airmen was the only African American group in the Air Force. They asked us–oh, and they found Roscoe Brown, was his name, university president, African American, had been a Tuskegee Airman, and flown that mission. So the two of us led the parade, the Veterans Day parade, two or three years ago. Roscoe has since passed, I’m sorry to say. But that was the thrill of thrills, to meet him, to stand there and shake his hand in front of that crowd and then, you know, travel up Fifth Avenue. But this is also a significant part of the story. Lynn and I, my wife and I, were in Europe a year after that. And our friends the Emersons were the ambassadors in Berlin, still sitting in, and they had–
RS: John Emerson from–
NL: John and Kimberly Emerson. And they invited us to come and stay with them for a few days. We were flying into Berlin, Lynn and I, commercially, and I was remembering the only other time I had flown–I didn’t go into Berlin; we bombed it. I was the radio operator and I had the top gun. The radio operator was the closest position to the bomb bay doors. So I was the guy who leaned over–I had to get up a little and lean over to see that the last bomb left the bay, and then I could tell the pilot he could close the bomb bay doors. On every mission, that was part of my job: to let the pilot know the last bomb had left the bay. So I had the experience, on every mission, of looking down and watching our bombs leave our bay, and then gather with all the bombs from all the other B-17s–hundreds of bombs dropping. And I remember thinking, hundreds of bombs–they don’t all hit a target. One of them hits a farmhouse. And I even imagined a family sitting around the table. And I have a tendency to want to bite my lip as I’m saying this, with the frustration of it. But I remember each and every time thinking, what if it hits a farmhouse? And thinking: “I don’t give a shit. I don’t care. I don’t care.” Then I also recall a day later, or hours later, I don’t know, but at some point thinking: If anybody came to me with a piece of paper and a pencil and said, “Mr. Lear, sign this, and forever you will never–you will never doubt yourself, you will always not care if a bomb hit a family,” and I thought to myself, “I could never sign that. I would never sign that. That’s not me.” But the fact of my life is, I’ve never been tested. I’ve never been tested, thank God. So all I know is, in my life, I’m on record, you know, 35 times we dropped bombs; I flew 52 missions, but 35 times, I didn’t care. In thinking about that, being utterly amazed by it–it still, it’s a big lesson about the human condition.
RS: It’s a lesson that a lot of veterans from that war–that’s why it’s been called the best generation, and so forth–I remember my own brother, my half-brother–my father was German, from Germany. And my brother was also bombing Germany–my brother [inaudible]–and
NL: Eighth Air Force?
RS: Yeah. And he was bombing our home town, my father’s home town. And I’ve been to Germany many times; I’ve talked to my father’s brother, who actually was in the German army and fought on the Russian front. And I know my brother was so impacted by that experience, and other things that we saw during the war, that he became a pacifist; he wouldn’t even let his kids play with war toys after. You know, he felt very strongly about that. But it was interesting, because Japanese people were rounded up and put in camps, and certainly not trusted to fight unless they were translators that could be used in the war against Japan. German Americans, which were the largest immigrant group–there was no problem about their being in the Air Force, fighting. And yet they learned a lot of lessons, all the people fighting. And that was where we got the Civil Rights Movement, had some energy after that; there had been a Civil Rights Movement before, but that was a segregated armed forces, as you point out with the Tuskegee Airmen. And that contradiction–of we were fighting for freedom and so forth, and then you come back–I don’t want to say what motivated you, but I think you were certainly part of a generation that said, wait a minute; we were supposed to be on the side of freedom; why do we still have segregation? Why do we still have these problems in this society? And you in your television writing–
NL: Well, that’s this point I was making about not caring as those bombs dropped. That’s–we have to face our humanity, who we are as human beings; our capacity–I think we, each of us, have the capacity for expressing, if not doing, the evil any other human being is capable of doing.
RS: [omission] We’re back with Norman Lear, discussing an incredible life in the television industry, and a political life. So if we segue coming back from the war, and then your television career where you start as a writer, and basically writing what, comedy? And–
NL: You know, I didn’t set out to be a writer. I came to Los Angeles to be a press agent. The only role model, or the only person I considered a role model, was an uncle who used to flick me a quarter. Or maybe he did it once or twice, and I had made a thing of it. But I remember clearly, I wanted to be a guy who could flip a quarter; he was a press agent; I didn’t even know what a press agent was at that time. But I wanted to be a press agent. So [Laughs] when I was overseas, I went into Foggia and I stood behind–because I spoke a little bit of Italian–behind a printer, and letter by letter, we did this one-page composition about Norman Lear, this press agent in the making who’s going to be out of the service and finish his missions, and wanted to be a press agent. Anyway, I sent this–I still have a copy of it, it’s florid [Laughs]–and sent it to my Uncle Jack; he sent it out to a group of press agent companies. And I had one offer to come to work and one offer to come to a meeting to talk about work. So I had a job before I got out of the Army, and I was a press agent for a while, and I was fired twice. I was fired once, and then a guy kept me for a reason and he fired me again, because of the things that I caused to be printed. [Laughs]
RS: And what was that? I mean, were you–
NL: Well, nobody remembers these names, but among our clients at the Ross Agency in New York were Moss Hart, who was a great playwright, and Kitty Carlisle, who was an actress and a bit of a singer, but a major person and a star of a television show called Guess My Line, or–
RS: Oh, What’s My Line?
NL: What’s My Line, What’s My Line. You guessed what that person’s occupation was. So I wrote of the two of them–they might have known each other, I didn’t know whether they knew each other or not–but I wrote of them, that Moss Hart was gifted with a pocket flask–was gifted by Kitty Carlisle with a pocket flask measured to his hip while he napped. And Dorothy Kilgallen, a famous columnist at the time, printed it. Somebody must have said to Kilgallen after it was in print, “What the hell is that?” And she called George Ross and she said, “Who wrote that? I want that kid fired.” So, I was making $40 a week; he took me [Laughs], he took me down to $35, but he kept me. Weeks later, or months later, we had another show–we had a show on Broadway called, a revue, musical acts and comedy acts and so forth; not a story, but a revue. And one of the acts was Buster Shaver and His Midgets. And the lead midget was a woman named Olive. So I wrote, and Kilgallen again printed, that Buster Shaver was seen shopping Fifth Avenue, he on foot, she on a Saint Bernard. This time Kilgallen called, and this time I was really fired. So we moved to Connecticut, stayed there for a little while, and then came out to California. Oh, and I started to say–I came out to be a press agent, like my uncle. But I ran into Ed Simmons, and our wives were friends, and they went to a movie one night when we each were babysitting our little kid. And he wanted to be a comedy writer. He was working on an idea he had; he asked me to help him, and I did. We wrote this thing that evening, the girls came back from the movies like 10:30, and I said, let’s go out and see if we can sell it. ‘Cause there were a bunch of nightclubs then. Four, five, six blocks away, at Beverly near Fairfax, there was a place called the Bar of Music. And there was a piano player, I used to remember her name well, who did insults and jokes and so forth, playing the piano, and so forth. And we sold it to her for $35 or $30 or whatever the hell it was. And we started to write together every evening.
RS: And that was it.
NL: That was it.
RS: And so you then had a show–I mean, tell–you know, people don’t remember the impact of your shows on CBS. It was incredible. And I use them in teaching, I show some of the old shows, and the issues you dealt with.
NL: But those issues we dealt with were the issues American families were dealing with. We didn’t invent them–we didn’t–
RS: But they weren’t talking about them. And you dared–I mean, I remember, because when I came to interview you in the seventies, and I was working for the LA Times, and I didn’t know you personally and I went to see you, and you already–not already, you were this enormous legend at that point. You owned television; my God, you were the golden guy. And yet you weren’t doing it by cheapening, you weren’t doing it by pandering, you weren’t doing it by selling out. You were doing it by raising the bar. It was astounding. You know? Astounding is the only way I could describe it. And I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. The reason they sent me to interview you, the LA Times sent me out, is–who is this guy? I mean, with no exaggeration, you are the major person–force–that changed television in America. It was banal, it was boring, it was–
NL: It’s hard for me to see it that way–
RS: I know, Norman, I, but I want to–for people listening to this, I want to make it really clear. Television was boring. Now television is exciting; people expect television to be exciting, they expect it to be well written, they expect it to be provocative. But back then–
NL: And it is. I think this is the golden age. You know, it’s so hard to imagine and believe. We had three and then four networks; nobody wanted for content. America [Laughs] didn’t want for content with four networks. And today we have, what, 400 networks? I don’t know. More content than I can keep up with. And I’m talking about content that people tell me, Norman, you mean you haven’t seen–? And I look at it and it’s terrific, just as my good friends suggested it would be. But I haven’t got the time. I don’t think life affords the time to see it all.
RS: Right. But back then, in the day, when you were doing this, television–yes, we all were excited there was this image that had come along in the fifties. But–and it was getting, you know, it was color, it was moving and everything, but it was stilted; it was very safe–that’s the operative word. And at these three networks, you had these guys programming practices, and they were censors. They had to approve everything, right? And they did very much underestimate the audience. Could you just take us through some of those controversies? I mean, you know, like gay rights–for God’s sake, I mean, you dared to–you know, you had Archie Bunker confronting his best friend in a bar who was a football player and he admires this guy and everything, and they’re watching a boxing match, and the guy turns out to be a homosexual. You know, right?
NL: [Laughs] I’ll never forget that scene. They are hand-wrestling at the moment [Laughs] the football player tells him, “Archie, have you ever seen me with a woman? Have you ever heard me talk about a woman? We’ve known each other a lot of years.” “Bah!” Archie just shakes his head, he can’t believe. The guy says, “No, no, really.” And O’Connor’s face as he understands that his good friend, the football player, is gay–oh, my God. Golden. [Laughs]
RS: Golden! Of course. What was the response at the network? Any questions, or–?
NL: You know, it’s one of those things where they were frightened to death of it, and I shouldn’t do it, and–anyway, we did it. And in that case, I think we were heralded. Of course there was some mail, some people didn’t like it, but for the most part, I don’t remember a big contest about that. The same thing with Maude’s abortion. You know, Maude’s abortion took place in, let’s say, October, the show went on the air. Nobody knew what the subject was until they saw it on the air. There was very little reaction to it. I mean, there was some mail, of course, but there was a lot of “Right on, Maude, thank God we aired this.” When the show went into reruns in June, and everybody knew that this episode about Maude’s abortion was coming, that’s when the far-right and the religious right knew it was coming, and that’s when they organized. And they laid down in front of Mr., what’s his name who owned CBS, Paley’s car in New York; they laid down in front of my car, they carried on and carried on and carried on, and it was a ton of mail, and you know. But that’s only–it didn’t come naturally, it came from pocketed groups who were there to complain.
RS: You know, let me suggest something, and this is certainly true of George McGovern, and I want to take it back to that World War II veteran experience. No one could tell you you were un-American. I mean, we’d had a House Un-American Activities Committee; we’d had a blacklist in Hollywood. But there was a whole group of people, particularly these veterans from World War II, who said “Don’t you tell me what being an American is.” OK? And you had that confidence, just like George McGovern did. You know, “Wait a minute, I was there. I fought for this country.” And I had Ron Kovic in my class the other night, you know; he has three quarters of his body paralyzed from his wounds in Vietnam. And you can’t, no one’s going to intimidate Ron Kovic and tell him you can’t speak out and object to the Iraq War, object to the bombings. He’ll say, “Hey, I gave three quarters of my body to this, and I’m in this wheelchair, so don’t tell me.” Well, you guys had that confidence, that generation that came back from World War II; you weren’t going to put up with a lot of garbage, you know? I think there were a lot of–you stood out, but there was a whole group of people–
NL: But it’s people like you who point to it. I didn’t operate from that base or think about that. We did what we had to do.
RS: But you had a certain courage that you were going to do it your way, and no one was–I mean, look. I remember the atmosphere when the so-called religious right, and the Falwells and everybody went after you. It could be very intimidating. And you know, you just took it. And you started this incredible organization, People for the American Way; you got even Gerald Ford and republicans like that to–
NL: Oh, you just reminded me when you said Gerald Ford. Something I want to do now, I’d love to do it on my 95th Fourth of July. I did a show when People For the American Way was one year old. And in 1982, or in ‘81 and we started People For in ‘80, I did a show on ABC called I Love Liberty. And the only way I got it on the air, proving it to be, in advance, nonpartisan–because I wanted to do the most patriotic show, take back the flag. And I think the flag and the Bible today, in America, is considered right. The far right owns the flag and the Bible, because they talk about it all the time. I don’t think you have to have a lapel pin to be a good American or to, you know, for people to know you love your country. So I got Gerald Ford–that’s what reminded me of this–and Ladybird Johnson to co-chair the event. On the screen, co-chair the event. I had Barry Goldwater and Jane Fonda on the same stage. I had John Wayne–oh, my God. It was, I think if I was to be buried, again, and I won’t be [Laughs]. But–is it 95 that causes me to think of that? [Laughter] No, I’ve told this story too often, and I’ve said it the same way: if I was buried with a piece of tape, it would probably be I Love Liberty. I love that so much. And we need it now, to take back those–to talk about America without sounding like Donald Trump.
RS: OK, that’s it for Part 1 of this two-part interview with Norman Lear. My engineers are Kat Yore and Mario Diaz. The producers are Joshua Scheer and Rebecca Mooney. And see you next week with Part 2 of an interview with the legendary Norman Lear.
Robert Scheer: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, Part 2 of my interview with the television creator, legend Norman Lear. A fascinating life, both politically involved in this country, culturally. And welcome, Norman. So let’s talk about Donald Trump a little bit, because he is a product of television. Les Moonves, the head of CBS, the same network you work for, during the campaign he said, you know, Donald Trump may not be good for America but he’s–
Norman Lear: He’s good for CBS.
RS: –he’s great for CBS, bring it on–“Bring it on!” you know, the ratings and so forth. So you, a man who reinvented television and, you know, great comedy but you made it, in the best sense of the word, responsible. Concerned, educational–in the best sense, not the boring sense, but in the best sense, exciting sense. And then here’s a guy who comes along–yes, we could say television is great, but it’s also not always great. And bullying as represented by Donald Trump was celebrated by television; I would think that’s the main characteristic of, you know, a show like The Apprentice and so forth. And it takes this guy to the presidency! He’s a creature of television. What is your appraisal of him?
NL: You know, as I hear you say that, I’m thinking, ah, it had to come to this. [Laughs] This fixation on short-term thinking and what’s good for this moment. And he’s the ultimate example of that. He seemed like–you know, if you want to say “fuck you,” with the middle finger of your right hand, to go back to that metaphor, it happens in a flash. You know, you think it, you do it, you mean it from the bottom of your heart–you know, boom! Take that. And I honestly think the American people were saying, “Take that,” you know. And they gave us the worst–well, the worst example of that was running. The best example of the worst [Laughs] was running. And they said, “Take that.” And I look around today, and there isn’t sufficient reason to change your mind–if you are living an emotionally crowded, difficult economically, life. You know, somebody working your ass off with a couple, three kids you adore, worried about their future. Living, you know, as I don’t know what percentage of Americans are living, finding it so difficult. And through no fault of their own–I mean, there are people, I’m hearing the people in my head that would quarrel with “no fault of their own,” but too many are born into it.
RS: We live in a class-divided society that I suspect when you came out of the Army–because I’m old enough to remember, I was a young kid–you know, you got a bunch of years on me. But I remember the optimism, you know, with Levittown, with the little houses; you know, the jobs were coming back, opportunity. You know, and yes, the Civil Rights Movement was starting as a reminder that they weren’t going to get a break, and women were, you know, kept in, paid less, and so we all know the imperfections. But there was a feeling that this country, the old de Tocqueville celebration of an ever-expanding middle class and opportunity, and the public schools working. And you had that. And now we’ve accepted a situation where just a large number of people–because they use public schools, the thing we loved–they use public, oh, those are not good, you got to send your kid to a special private school and you got to know somebody who’ll get you that advantage. And I–what you just said is really the key thing. The fact is, these people got screwed for the last 20 years because of policies that were followed. We know that, you know; that freed Wall Street greed, and so forth. And one of the things I’ve always liked about you, Norman, is you are deliberately nonpartisan. [Laughs] You’re not indifferent, but you’re nonpartisan. I remember, you got me to support a guy, John Anderson, who was an independent republican from Rockford, Illinois or something. You’ve always been. You know, hey–our friends can be up to bad stuff, our friends can be doing mischief. And I–
NL: Well, I like hearing that. [Laughs] Thank you. I hope that’s true.
RS: No, but I mean you–but you were–
NL: But John Anderson, I do of course remember John Anderson.
RS: Yeah, but I remember all along. Well, when you were even reaching out to John Wayne, or reaching out to Gerald Ford, so–
NL: Or Reagan. Remember our history, yours and mine, with Ronald Reagan?
RS: Just to set the stage, ‘cause it is sort of historically interesting. I had interviewed the first President Bush when he was running. He was running against Reagan. And I had interviewed him after he won the Iowa primaries, it was for the 1988 election. On that, he had said that he believed that you could win a nuclear war; that was the controversy. And then I did the interview–
NL: Well, we have a president right now–
RS: Yeah, I understand. We’ll get to that in a minute. But what happened then was–and I was, for the Los Angeles Times, I was then interviewing Reagan, and I had been conducting these interviews over–you know, ‘cause they’re busy and you got 20 minutes here and a half hour there. And then you had the idea to send a television crew. And the Reagan people accepted it; they were on the plane, and they allowed this portion. And the grilling was about winnable nuclear war, and did the Russians believe in it, and their fallout shelters and all that stuff. And I must say, I had met Reagan much earlier, ‘cause when he was running for governor I had interviewed him for Ramparts magazine. And again, I found he was a guy who would talk to you, and he was confident in his views, and he didn’t pull rank; I actually have very fond memories [Laughs] of Reagan as an individual in that regard. So when you set this thing up–and I think you got their permission. You knew Nancy, right?
NL: Yes.
RS: And you knew Ronald Reagan, right. And so there was your crew on the plane, and that normally would make a candidate very nervous; you know, why is this being televised, this crazy guy Scheer, and I’m talking to him and I got Norman Lear’s crew here. And he was not flummoxed at all about this. And he–you know, yes, he handled himself; he stated his position, and he obviously believed it, you know. And it was quite amazing. And he had also been briefed, you know, that we could shoot down these things, and Edward Teller who he was close to had believed we could have Star Wars defense. So it was an important exchange. And as I recall, you knew Nancy quite well. Did you know Ronald?
NL: Well, as a result of–you know, I don’t remember how–I did know Nancy well enough that she invited me to present to her when a group representing this John Wayne hospital somewhere in Texas. And they were honoring Nancy at the Beverly Hilton hotel. The only time I’ve ever been in a ballroom with tuxedoed men in ten-gallon hats. [Laughs] I’ll never forget that. And Nancy asked me to present to her that evening, and I did. She also, she and Perenchio–Jerry Perenchio, my long-term partner who passed recently, and was an ardent republican–they were flying up to Ronald Reagan’s memorial at the library and invited me to come along. So I sat with Nancy and Jerry at his memorial. I could have been the only–I started to, I was thinking to say, the only liberal. But I consider myself a bleeding-heart conservative. I don’t think of myself as a liberal. Because I think you will not mess with my Bill of Rights, my Declaration, my Constitution, my First Amendment; I think that’s as conservative as you can get. You know, if you really mean it. Then comes the question of affording equal opportunity and equal justice and so forth. That’s where all the work comes in. And my heart bleeds in that direction.
RS: But again, sticking to this nonpartisan or, you know–I know you’ve taken some heat for it. And it’s interesting, because it’s very easy to demonize the other side, and you know, virtue is all on your side. And I think one of your great strengths–after all, All in the Family, you took a conservative, right, Archie Bunker, and you had him be human, you know? [Laughs] And you tried to understand what made him tick. And that’s why the show has such great credibility; conservative people enjoyed watching that show, you know, because he raised a lot of their concerns. And I think we’ve gotten into a place where we think democrats–many people I know, they seem to think the Democratic Party is the center of virtue, and it’s true we don’t have too many moderate republicans around in the mold of Dwight Eisenhower and some of the other folks. But it’s too easy. And I was just wondering about how you regarded this last election. I mean, you had Bernie Sanders, who was not that different than you, actually–another old Jew, right, from back East. And raising a whole bunch of questions. And then you had the anointed candidate, Hillary Clinton. And you know, how did you look at that whole political choice?
NL: The American people, those suffering, and I always think of being in emotionally crowded lives, as I try to imagine what it would be to live like so, like most Americans have to live, and struggle to keep a roof over your head and your kids in school, and their future–and oh my God. And not find leadership! You know, I spoke at the Bohemian Grove. You know about, what the Bohemian Grove is.
RS: Yeah, that’s where rich men gather and they piss on–
NL: It’s largely republican, and you know, several thousand. And it was–I talked about, you mentioned Dwight Eisenhower. And I said, why I said this was when 17 people were running for the republican nomination. And I said, why do I never hear the name Dwight David Eisenhower? Five-star general, led us through World War II, two-term republican president, responsible for the interstate highway system. You know, kept us out of several other near-wars. And you know, there are people who find fault with him, but he was all of what I just mentioned, and he’s never, ever–you never hear his name invoked by 17 people running. You hear Reagan and Reagan and Reagan, and you hear Bush, Bush, Bush. You hear even Gerald Ford, but you don’t hear–why? And the reason was he warned us about the military-industrial complex that I think is choking us to death now. And in his first draft, which I saw, I don’t remember how I saw or heard, at his library in Kansas, he called it the military-industrial congressional complex.
RS: One of my bravest actions as a child was wearing an “I Like Ike” button in the Bronx. [Laughs] I never even met a republican, but I liked this guy. And I.F. Stone, it was this columnist I used to read in the, I forget the name of the paper, the PM or something, one of the newspapers in New York, the legendary journalist–he came out for Ike. And I.F. Stone argued, this guy knows war, he’s a general, and we need peace. We need somebody–and Eisenhower was, by the way, against dropping the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said it was not justified, not necessary, he was opposed to it. And he was very concerned about the misuse of military power. The irony–
NL: Look at that, the republican president–[Laughs] The republican was against the dropping of the bombs, and the haberdasher democrat dropped the bombs.
RS: Yeah, dropped the bombs. And by the way, it’s interesting, because it was supposed to be to save guys like you. Right? You were involved in the war, and so forth. And one of my great heroes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, he’s a great Beat poet, happened to be an anti-sub commander in Normandie and everything, another guy with war experience. And then they shipped him off to Japan, and he was, he visited Nagasaki after the bombing. And that devastation is what, you know–again, like others, it turned him into a lifetime pacifist, he was just so shocked. And yet his life was supposed to be saved by dropping the bomb, basically killing civilians; these were not military targets. Norman, you’re 95 years old. It’s almost going to be a century. I’m going to be there when, you know, unless I kick off before, I’m going to be there when we celebrate your century of life. You were born in ‘22, what, just a few years after the end of World War I, for God’s sake. You saw World War II, you’ve been fighting the good fight, you know, both creatively and politically and so forth, and everything. Did you ever imagine we’d be at this moment now with Donald Trump being president?
NL: No. [Laughs] No, I never, I never imagined. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe I understand. I really believe what I’ve been saying. The American people didn’t want what’s going on now. And they didn’t vote for what’s going on now. They voted against what led up to what’s going on now. And as I watched the republicans, as we sit here now, they in Washington are shoving this anti-Obamacare bill. Which I can’t find a good word for even among republicans. They’re doing it, but they’re not talking about how great it is for the American people, none of them.
RS: You mean ending Obamacare.
NL: Amending, yes, or eliminating Obamacare in favor of whatever the hell it is, some bill. You can call it Ryancare. They’re not proud of it. I don’t hear anybody raving about what’s good for America in this bill. It’s just pushing the bill to get rid of the other. I mean, the American people are bereft. And in their emotionally crowded lives, they don’t have the time to figure it all out. My degree of sophistication, which is not at all as larger as my career would suggest–you know, I struggle myself to understand. I have basic beliefs when I talk about, you know, describe what I mean by being a bleeding-heart conservative. Like I see so clearly what is so great about the America we fought for in World War II, and how little of it is motivating the Congress, democrats and republicans.
RS: [omission] Norman Lear, discussing an incredible life in the television industry and political life. You never lost the common touch. That’s–and I think it’s absolutely critical here, because you never demonized ordinary–I remember, because I traveled with Jerry Falwell when he was attacking you, and I profiled him and so forth. I interviewed Richard Nixon in ‘84 and all that. And I had you in my mind. I want to say this. I know you object when I say you’re a role model, you know, but–OK, I don’t want to get into a big discussion. But I learned from you, from when I first met you, this thing you’ve been stressing all through this interview: don’t underestimate the average person. Don’t underestimate people. And that’s what informed your art and it is why you were so successful–not just in finding an audience, ‘cause you can find an audience by pandering and so forth–but by raising the bar, I think. I mean, if I were to summarize your life, you know–you were the opposite to the Barnum thing, you know, the sucker born every minute. You actually believed in the American people, and I guess, people everywhere.
NL: I do. [Laughs] Everywhere.
RS: Yeah. And one of the reasons I’m doing these podcasts–I mean, this is supposed to be a study of American originals. I say, out of the crazy-quilt of American culture–and I haven’t even asked you, and you might want to mention why your father went to jail when you were nine years old. But we’ve all got these varied histories, we’ve all got different religions and different ethnic backgrounds and different, different, different. But somehow in this crazy-quilt of American life, we have these originals, OK? Some of the people we’ve talked about–Lawrence Ferlinghetti is one example, another 95-year-old, by the way, who’s still going strong. I just saw him a couple weeks ago. And what I try to capture in these podcasts is, what it is about this American experience that has created these American, whether it’s Willie Nelson who I interviewed, or it’s Oliver Stone, you know, or other folks, and Dolores Huerta who I interviewed from the Farm Workers–
NL: Oh, yes! Oh, God–she’s one of my heroes.
RS: Yeah, and 11 children, and she’s out there organizing–
NL: Do you remember the name Marsha Hunt?
RS: Yeah.
NL: She’s going to be 100 on Monday.
RS: Why?
NL: Well, Marsha Hunt was an actress. You have to Google her. You Google, you’re going to find a very pretty woman with a long history of civil rights activities. And I think she suffered the blacklist; if she didn’t suffer the blacklist, she was among the people who were most affected by it. And never stopped speaking her mind, never stopped loving the country. The way I feel–I mean, she expressed in her way everything I’m talking about. And she’s turning 100 on Monday. So I am going to stop by and give her a hug.
RS: People have made fun of Hollywood, you know, obviously as a source of all kinds of scandal and stories and so forth. And I’ve been, I came to L.A. in ‘76, I came out to California to go to graduate school in ‘59 at Berkeley, but then I came down here when I first met you to work at the LA Times in ‘76. And I must say, I know I’ve been told I’ve been naive, but I have met actually not only the most interesting, but really the finest, or some of the finest people I’ve met in this lifetime, right here in this much-maligned Los Angeles community. Really. And I remember our lunches, you know, with Marv Goldberger, who was actually a major physicist, and concerned about nuclear weapons. And Stanley Sheinbaum, who was the police commissioner who fired Daryl Gates over the racism of the police department, and he was a regent. And you know, Warren Beatty, who had the courage to make a movie like Reds. And you know, really fascinating people. And there was never really small talk. We were sort of committed to having small talk, but it never was small talk; it was all about saving the world or what’s going on–I mean, Harold Willens would be at some of those meetings.
NL: I was just thinking about him, too.
RS: Yeah, and just, you know, I could go down–and you mentioned Geoff Cowan, whose father had been head of CBS, and who was the head of the Voice of America, I think the second, and Geoff went on. But these people, whether they were successful, whether they were born rich, whether they made money in Hollywood, whether they had criminals in their background–you know, like your father did get in trouble and so forth. But the fact of the matter is–and this is where people tell me I’m naive–I always felt idealism, maybe sometimes misplaced idealism, but I always felt idealism. And this is with your first and second wives, and everyone else, a lot of people I’ve met–my own wife, who was the associate editor of the LA Times, Narda Zacchino. I mean, the conversations that I–and in your house, where you’ve had one speaker after another; it’s been a great forum in Los Angeles, the Lear household, you know, and you bring all these people. And one movement after another, whether it was civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights and so forth. And I felt, hey, wait a minute. Out of this den of inequity of Hollywood [Laughter] in L.A. has come a fountain of idealism. How the hell did that happen?
NL: I wonder if it doesn’t exist in every community. This is a community that happens to, where, you know, I was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, which was an insurance community. They were not celebrated, you know, in the newspapers or radio or television or so forth, but I have to believe that the same ratio of interested and interesting people, of people who were doing exactly what their, you know, the people in this industry have been doing, some getting caught doing it brilliantly, some getting caught doing it poorly [Laughs]. You know, or doing what they shouldn’t do. I don’t know, people are people and cultures are cultures. And the culture of Hartford, probably at essence if one studied it, wouldn’t be all that different from the culture in Hollywood.
RS: What is the end game? I mean we are, in your case, approaching a century of life. World War I, right now to Donald Trump, and who knows what’s coming in the next years. And you keep yourself in good health; you’ve got, your mind is–trust me, I interviewed you in ‘76; your mind is clearer–and I mean this advisedly, I’m being really serious. I interviewed you. [Laughter] So it’s now, do the math, it’s what, 40 years ago or something, you know, more. You’re more interesting than you were then. And I honestly believe this. You’ve seen a lot more–
NL: Well, and I should be. I mean–
RS: Well yeah, but you know, as another old-timer here, you know–
NL: You don’t stop learning.
RS: Yeah, but everybody tells you, you know, you’re getting, you’re going to forget, and you don’t know this, and you’re slowing down, and so forth. The fact is, you have not slowed down. You really have not. I mean, I’m not bullshitting you. And I’ve talked to you many times over the years. You’ve never been better than you are now, at least in my experience with you.
NL: I want you to phone my home and tell my wife that.
RS: Yeah, I will, you do the same with my wife. [Laughs] We all know that. But the point is, you know, OK. But you’re up against the reality–OK? Because we’ve lost that faith in traditional religion, primitive religion, fundamentalist religion. I don’t know if any of them believe it, or they wouldn’t do what they say anyway. I mean, it’s a question I had about a lot of the religious right. If you really believe you’re going to be judged, and you’ve read the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke, something doesn’t connect year, you know. Because Jesus tells you in the parable of the Good Samaritan, you’d better worry about that other when they’re not in your tribe. And you’d better pick him up, take care of him, take him to the inn and feed them, and that’s how you will be judged, whether you’re going to have this eternal life. Well, by that standard, you’re certainly going to have an eternal life. But I suspect you don’t fully subscribe to what might be a more simple view of fundamentalist religion. You are 95, OK? And let me ask you a question I ask myself. I’m 81, so I can’t [Laughs] I can’t give myself that, but I have had a few operations and so forth, so I understand about mortality. How do you deal with mortality? How do you deal–it’s the one thing we haven’t learned anything more about, right? Science has not helped us. We had the eclipse, we now believe in the eclipse, we’re not–
NL: I have thought for a long while–I’ll express it this way right now, but it’s been on my mind this way for a long time. The fact of my life and yours is that it’s taken me, in my case it’s taken me 95 years, a number of months, weeks, days, hours and so forth, to see you just shift your weight in that chair. To look at you right now and hear my voice saying exactly what I’m saying. And as the seconds tick off, it’s taken me every fucking second of 95-plus years to hear myself say this. So is living in the moment important, or what? Now–it has taken everybody who hears me say this, every split second of their lives to hear me say it. Are we connected, or what? [Laughs] I love thinking about that. I love thinking about that.
RS: Do you have fear about–?
NL: It’s gotten to a place where it feels like bragging to say you don’t fear it. It’s a wonder that as much as we know scientifically, as much as we’ve learned, as much as we continue to learn day by day, we have no guess as to what happens at the conclusion of this game we’re playing. Nobody has ever come back. Do we rest? Do we go on? My wife will give you chapter and verse about what she believes will follow. But at the core of what she believes is faith. Nobody’s proved it. I can’t get there, in any direction; as much as I’ve heard, as we’ve all heard about it’s this, it’s that. But I’m totally satisfied with the wonder of not knowing. I think there’s something gorgeous about that.
RS: Wow. Norman Lear, an American original.
NL: We’re all originals.
RS: Ahh, but you’re a special one.
NL: And there’s nobody can interview me the way you do. Jesus Christ. It’s nice to be loved. [Laughs]
RS: I’m in awe, I must say. I really am, Norman. I’ve interviewed a hell of a lot of people in this world, and I’ve known you for a long time. And I mean, it’s just–you still give a shit! I mean, the amazing thing, OK–I, you know, I was a journalist. Everybody gives you a line. I’ve interviewed Fidel Castro, I interviewed Ronald Reagan. I mean, I’ve interviewed–you know, Gorbachev. I’ve interviewed the good, the bad, the ugly, you know–all over the world, all over the world. And there’s always this big bullshit factor, there’s always this self-glorification, there’s always layering on, layering on, layering on, and another plan, and not taking a position, positioning yourself. I mean you know, it’s always there, you know, and you spend hours trying to get–with you, and I’ve known you, as I said, when I went to interview you back there in the seventies, and I’ve known you forever–you have gotten along with your, you have a great bullshit detector about yourself. That’s–[Laughs], now maybe that informed your comedy, it informed your–you know, not maybe, it definitely–
NL: You know, I think that comes from–I’ve never been afraid of saying “I don’t know.” Or indicating I don’t know. I’ve never felt I had anything to prove except doing what I do as well as I can do it.
RS: That’s it for this edition of Scheer Intelligence where, hah, the intelligence certainly came at a very high level from Norman Lear. Our producers are Rebecca Mooney and Josh Scheer. Our engineers are Kat Yore and Mario Diaz. We’re broadcasting from KCRW in Santa Monica, and next week with another edition of Scheer Intelligence.