To kick off the inaugural Pride LIVE! Hollywood festival on Wednesday, a group of Norman Lear‘s former collaborators and friends took part in a tribute to the TV icon, who broke boundaries in LGBTQ+ storytelling with his many shows.
Moderated by entertainment writer James Colucci, the panel featured The Jeffersons showrunner Jay Moriarty; Sanford and Son and Fernwood 2 Nite writer Bob Iles; Mary Hartman, Marty Hartman creator Gail Parent; actresses Lynne Moody, Liz Torres and Isabella Gomez; One Day at a Time co-creator Mike Royce; Clean Slate co-creator Dan Ewen; author Greg Cope White; and Lear’s producing partner Brent Miller and longtime assistant Cindy Villa.
“I think that Norman is that rare magic that happens when a great humanist is also in charge of some shit, and Norman ended up in charge of some shit,” Ewen said of Lear’s affinity for touching on issues of race, sexuality and other then-taboo topics in his work. “What Norman never lost was the purest curiosity about mankind I’ve ever come across. ‘What’s next for mankind? What are the conversations mankind needs to have?’ And when someone like that is in a situation to have those conversations and convey those conversations in aggregate to a wonderful number of people, that’s where magic happens.”
Moriarty recalled a 1977 episode of The Jeffersons that featured a trans character — as George Jefferson’s old friend Eddie reveals that he is now Edie, a trans woman who has transitioned — and the impact he saw it have.
“Television has a power: 50 million people watching All in the Family and the effect it has. And the letters just from this episode that we wrote — that was always great,” the showrunner said. “Of all of Norman’s shows, you would get letters from people that ‘I was so moved. Never seen anything like this before.’” He also mused, “I think today people say you couldn’t do All in the Family. I think [if] Norman [was] around, you could really do All in the Family today and of course Archie would be a big Trumper. You could treat it a lot lighter.”
Royce spoke about rebooting Lear’s One Day at a Time in 2017, joking, “It was very daunting because we were like, OK, we have to live up to all these legends and Norman Lear is going to be around to be there watching you ruin his legacy, possibly. No pressure, just the king of television is back, and you’re doing his thing.” He added, though, “Norman was such a fan of when you did something great, he was so supportive, especially when it had to do with a social issue of some sort.”
Ewen also noted that Lear is currently up for an Emmy for producing Clean Slate, remembering, “the Emmys right after he passed, right after he left this realm, GLAAD won the Governors Award. And on the same night that that pork pie hat [that Lear wore] was on the side of the stage at the Emmys, GLAAD got up there and said, ‘We need trans storytelling. More people believe they’ve seen a ghost than have ever met a trans person.’ And to know that Norman had already set that in motion — we were on editorial on [Clean Slate] when Norman left us,” as the show starred Laverne Cox and dealt with trans issues.
White — whose memoir The Pink Marine is the basis for Netflix’s upcoming series Boots, which is Lear’s final project — reflected on how he brought his story to Lear in 1992 and he “always supported the story and saw the value in it.”
“The thing that he loved the most, the element, is the fact that I enlisted in the Marine Corps accidentally with my straight best friend, and that friendship has lasted now for 50 something years. And Norman loved the idea of examining two best friends, one straight, one gay, on the same playing field,” White told the crowd. “At the time there wasn’t Will and Grace yet so I didn’t write it as a screenplay or a pilot, because I didn’t see a market for it. And then when the news stories finally started coming out about all the kids that were committing suicide over being bullied instead of standing up and lasting one more day, that’s when I started writing the book.”
He continued, “One thing that I loved hearing from everybody was remembering how Norman fought for things, how he fought for jokes or moments or the abortion issue. Norman was the father of television but he raised hundreds of TV babies, and I believe that the thing that we saw when we watched him do those fights, we became emboldened and that we’re all carrying them forward and we continue those fights. And that’s that’s where his legacy is. TV can continue to grow and develop, and the stories are always there.”
Pride LIVE! Hollywood, a monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ creativity in media and entertainment, is being put on in conjunction with L.A’s Infinity Festival, the Hollywood Partnership and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, with The Hollywood Reporter as presenting media sponsor.
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