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Eric Hirshberg: So I assume that Norman
doesn't need much of an introduction,

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but TED's audience is global,

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it's diverse,

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so I've been tasked
with starting with his bio,

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which could easily take up
the entire 18 minutes,

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so instead we're going to do
93 years in 93 seconds or less.

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You were born in New Hampshire.

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Norman Lear: New Haven, CT.

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EH: New Haven, CT.

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(Laughter)

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NL: There goes [70] seconds.

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EH: Nailed it.

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(Laughter)

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You were born in New Haven, CT.

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Your father was a con man --

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I got that right.

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He was taken away to prison
when you were nine years old.

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You flew 52 missions
as a fighter pilot in World War II.

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You came back to --

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NL: Radio operator.

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EH: You came to LA
to break into Hollywood,

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first in publicity, then in TV.

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You had no training as a writer, formally,

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but you hustled your way in.

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Your breakthrough --

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your debut --

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was a little show
called "All in the Family".

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You follow that up with a string of hits

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that to this day is unmatched
in Hollywood:

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"Sanford and Son",

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"Maude",

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"Good Times",

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"The Jeffersons",

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"One Day at a Time",

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"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman",

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to name literally a fraction of them.

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Not only are they all commercially --

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(Applause)

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Not only are they all
commercially successful,

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but many of them push our culture forward

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by giving the underrepresented
members of society

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their first prime-time voice.

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You have seven shows
in the top 10 at one time.

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At one point,

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you aggregate an audience of 120
million people per week

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watching your content.

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That's more than the audience
for Super Bowl 50

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which happens once a year.

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NL: Holy shit.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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EH: And we're not even
to the holy shit part.

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(Laughter)

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You land yourself
on Richard Nixon's enemies list --

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he had one.

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You're --

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That's an applause line, too.

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(Applause)

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You're inducted into the TV Hall of Fame
on the first day that it exists.

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Then came the movies.

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"Fried Green Tomatoes",

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"The Princess Bride",

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"Stand By Me",

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"This Is Spinal Tap".

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(Applause)

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Again, just to name a fraction.

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Then you wipe the slate clean --

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start a third act as a political activist
focusing on protecting the First Amendment

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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

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and give it back to the people.

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You stay active in both
entertainment and politics

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until the ripe old of age of 93,

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when you write a book

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and make a documentary
about your life story.

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And after all that,

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they finally think you're
ready for a TED Talk.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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NL: I love being here.

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And I love you for agreeing to do this.

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EH: Thank you for asking.

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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 ...

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what a place to start.

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When I came back --

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let me put it this way --

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when I came back from the war,

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she showed me the letters
that I had written her from overseas,

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and they were absolute love letters.

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This really sums up my mother.

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They were love letters,

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as if I had written them to --

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they were love letters.

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A year later I asked my mother
if I could have them

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because I'd like to keep them
all the years of my life ...

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she had thrown them away.

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(Laughter)

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That's my mother.

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(Laughter)

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The best way I can sum it up
in more recent times is --

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this is also more recent times --

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a number of years ago,

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when they started the Hall of Fame
to which you referred,

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it was a Sunday morning

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when I got a call from the fellow who ran
the TV Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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He was calling me to tell me
they had met all day yesterday

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and he was confidentially telling me
they were going to start a hall of fame

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and these were the inductees.

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I started to say Richard Nixon

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because Richard Nixon --

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EH: I don't think he was on their list.

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NL: William Paley who started CBS,

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David Sarnoff who started NBC,

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Edward R. Morrow,

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the greatest of the foreign
correspondents,

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Patty Chayefsky --

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I think the best writer
that ever came out of television --

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Milton Berle,

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Lucille Ball

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and me.

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EH: Not bad.

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NL: I call my mother
immediately in Hartford, CT.

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"Mom, this is what's happened,

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they're starting a hall of fame,"

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I tell her the list of names and me,

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and she says,

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"Listen, if that's what they
want to do, who am I to say?"

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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NL: So that's ...

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That's my Ma.

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I think it earns that kind of a laugh

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because everybody
has a piece of that mother.

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(Laughter)

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EH: And the sitcom Jewish mother
is born right there.

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So your father also played
a large role in your life,

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mostly by his absence.

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Tell us what happened when
you were nine years old.

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NL: He was ...

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he was flying to Oklahoma

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with three guys that my mother said,

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"Don't --

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I don't want you to have
anything to do with them,

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I don't trust those men."

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That's when I heard,

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maybe not for the first time,

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"Stifle yourself, Jeanette, I'm going."

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And he went.

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It turns out he was selling --

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picking up some fake bonds,

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which he was flying
across the country to sell.

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But the fact that he was
going to Oklahoma in a plane,

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and he was going to bring me
back a 10-gallon hat,

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just like Ken Maynard,
my favorite cowboy wore.

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You know this was a few years after
Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic--

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planes were --

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I mean it was exotic
that my father was going there.

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But when he came back,

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they arrested him as he got off the plane.

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That night newspapers
were all over the house,

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my father was with his hat
in front of his face,

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manacled to a detective.

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And my mother was selling the furniture
because we were leaving --

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she couldn't afford --

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she didn't want to stay
in that state of shame,

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in Chelsea, MA.

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And selling the furniture,

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the house was loaded with people.

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And in the middle of all of that,

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some strange horse's ass
put his hand on my shoulder and said,

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"Well, you're the man of the house now."

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I'm crying and this asshole says
"You're the man of the house now."

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And I think that was the moment

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I began to understand the foolishness
of the human condition.

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So ...

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it took a lot of years to look back at it
and feel it was a benefit.

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But --

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EH: It's interesting
you call it a benefit.

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Listening to you --

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NL: Benefit in that it gave
me that springboard.

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I mean that I could think

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how foolish it was to say
to this crying nine-year-old boy,

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"You're the man of the house now."

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And then I was crying and then he said,

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"And men of the house don't cry."

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And I ...

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(Laughter)

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So ...

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I look back and I think

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that's when I learned the foolishness
of the human condition,

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and it's been that gift that I've used.

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EH: So you have a father who's absent,

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you have a mother for whom
apparently nothing is good enough.

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Do you think that starting out as a kid
who maybe never felt heard

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started you down a journey

201
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that ended with you being an adult

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with a weekly audience
of 120 million people?

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NL: I love the way you put that question,

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because I guess I've
spent my life wanting --

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if anything, wanting to be heard.

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I think ...

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it's a simple answer,

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yes,

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that was what sparked --

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well, there's are other things, too.

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When my father was away,

212
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I was fooling with a crystal radio set
that we had made together,

213
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and I caught a signal that turned
out to be Father Coughlin on --

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Yeah, somebody laughed.

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(Laughter)

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But not funny,

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this was a horse's--

218
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not a horse's ass --

219
00:09:00,338 --> 00:09:02,821
he was very vocal
about hating the New Deal

220
00:09:02,821 --> 00:09:05,284
and Roosevelt and Jews.

221
00:09:06,256 --> 00:09:09,613
The first time I ran into an understanding

222
00:09:09,613 --> 00:09:12,530
that there were people
in this world that hated me

223
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because I was born to Jewish parents.

224
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And that had an enormous
effect on my life.

225
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EH: So you had a childhood

226
00:09:21,472 --> 00:09:25,172
with little in the way of strong
male role models,

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00:09:25,172 --> 00:09:27,432
except for your grandfather.

228
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Tell us about him.

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NL: Oh, my grandfather.

230
00:09:31,466 --> 00:09:35,784
Well here's the way I always
talked about that grandfather.

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00:09:37,767 --> 00:09:38,780
There were parades,

232
00:09:38,780 --> 00:09:40,685
lots of parades when I was a kid.

233
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There were parades on Veteran's Day,

234
00:09:42,422 --> 00:09:43,419
on President's --

235
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there wasn't a President's Day.

236
00:09:44,902 --> 00:09:46,891
There was for Abraham Lincoln's birthday,

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George Washington's birthday

238
00:09:48,278 --> 00:09:51,925
and Flag Day ...

239
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and lots of little parades.

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My grandfather used to take me

241
00:09:55,044 --> 00:09:56,794
and we'd stand on the street corner,

242
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he'd hold my hand

243
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and I'd look up and I'd see a tear
running down his eye.

244
00:10:03,910 --> 00:10:06,298
And he meant a great deal to me.

245
00:10:06,298 --> 00:10:11,680
And he used to write Presidents
of the United States.

246
00:10:11,680 --> 00:10:12,676
Every President --

247
00:10:12,676 --> 00:10:13,712
every letter started,

248
00:10:13,712 --> 00:10:16,556
"My dearest, darling Mr. President,"

249
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and he'd tell him something
wonderful about what he did.

250
00:10:21,069 --> 00:10:24,025
But when he disagreed
with the President he also wrote,

251
00:10:24,025 --> 00:10:25,715
"My dearest, darling Mr. President,

252
00:10:25,715 --> 00:10:27,534
didn't I tell you last week...?"

253
00:10:27,534 --> 00:10:29,113
(Laughter)

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And I would run down the stairs
every now and then

255
00:10:34,763 --> 00:10:35,918
and pick up the mail.

256
00:10:35,918 --> 00:10:37,213
We were three flights up,

257
00:10:37,213 --> 00:10:40,567
74 York Street, New Haven, CT.

258
00:10:41,155 --> 00:10:47,557
And I'd pick up a little white envelope
reading, "Shya C. called at this address."

259
00:10:50,991 --> 00:10:55,294
And that's the story I have told
about my grandfather --

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00:10:55,294 --> 00:10:57,339
EH: They wrote him back
on the envelopes --

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NL: They wrote back.

262
00:11:01,024 --> 00:11:05,292
But I have shown them myself,

263
00:11:05,292 --> 00:11:10,581
going way back to Phil Donahue
and others before him,

264
00:11:10,581 --> 00:11:11,593
dozens --

265
00:11:11,593 --> 00:11:12,587
literally --

266
00:11:12,587 --> 00:11:15,177
of interviews in which I told that story.

267
00:11:16,405 --> 00:11:21,839
This will be the second time I have said
the whole story was a lie.

268
00:11:24,477 --> 00:11:28,471
The truth was my grandfather
took me to parades,

269
00:11:28,471 --> 00:11:30,142
we had lots of those.

270
00:11:30,454 --> 00:11:33,240
The truth is a tear came down his eye.

271
00:11:33,515 --> 00:11:37,231
The truth is he would write
an occasional letter,

272
00:11:37,231 --> 00:11:40,388
and I did pick up those little envelopes.

273
00:11:40,780 --> 00:11:44,148
But, "My dearest darling Mr. President,"

274
00:11:44,148 --> 00:11:46,676
all the rest of it,

275
00:11:46,676 --> 00:11:51,141
is a story I borrowed from a good friend

276
00:11:51,141 --> 00:11:56,651
whose grandfather was that grandfather
who wrote those letters.

277
00:11:58,768 --> 00:12:00,978
And --

278
00:12:00,978 --> 00:12:05,228
I mean, I stole Arthur
Marshall's grandfather

279
00:12:05,228 --> 00:12:07,748
and made him my own.

280
00:12:09,169 --> 00:12:10,171
Always.

281
00:12:10,171 --> 00:12:12,809
When I started to write my memoir --

282
00:12:12,809 --> 00:12:14,269
"Even this --"

283
00:12:14,269 --> 00:12:15,329
How about that?

284
00:12:15,329 --> 00:12:17,465
"Even This I Get To Experience".

285
00:12:18,957 --> 00:12:20,623
When I started to write the memoir

286
00:12:20,623 --> 00:12:22,272
and I started to think about it,

287
00:12:22,272 --> 00:12:24,442
and then I ...

288
00:12:24,442 --> 00:12:26,643
I ...

289
00:12:26,643 --> 00:12:30,607
I did a reasonable amount of crying

290
00:12:30,607 --> 00:12:35,402
and I realized how much
I needed the father.

291
00:12:35,402 --> 00:12:39,187
So much so that I appropriated
Arthur Marshall's grandfather.

292
00:12:39,742 --> 00:12:40,987
So much so,

293
00:12:40,987 --> 00:12:42,899
the word "father" --

294
00:12:42,899 --> 00:12:44,844
I have six kids by the way.

295
00:12:45,434 --> 00:12:47,566
My favorite role in life.

296
00:12:49,636 --> 00:12:53,719
And husband to my wife Lynn.

297
00:12:56,219 --> 00:13:00,700
But I stole the man's identity
because I needed the father.

298
00:13:01,340 --> 00:13:04,950
Now I've gone through a whole lot of shit

299
00:13:04,950 --> 00:13:06,715
and come out on the other side,

300
00:13:06,715 --> 00:13:08,481
and I actually give --

301
00:13:08,481 --> 00:13:09,826
the best thing I --

302
00:13:09,826 --> 00:13:11,958
the worst thing I --

303
00:13:11,958 --> 00:13:14,819
the word I'd like to use about him
and think about him is --

304
00:13:14,819 --> 00:13:16,689
he was a rascal.

305
00:13:17,329 --> 00:13:22,172
The fact that he lied
and stole and cheated,

306
00:13:22,172 --> 00:13:25,770
and went to prison ...

307
00:13:25,770 --> 00:13:29,206
I submerge that in the word "rascal".

308
00:13:30,038 --> 00:13:35,936
EH: Well there's a saying that amatuers
borrow and professionals steal.

309
00:13:36,366 --> 00:13:37,615
NL: I'm a pro.

310
00:13:37,615 --> 00:13:38,634
EH: You're a pro.

311
00:13:38,634 --> 00:13:39,633
(Laughter)

312
00:13:40,221 --> 00:13:43,301
And that quote is widely
attributed to John Lennon,

313
00:13:43,301 --> 00:13:45,515
but it turns out he
stole it from T.S. Eliot.

314
00:13:45,515 --> 00:13:46,928
So you're in good company.

315
00:13:46,928 --> 00:13:48,086
(Laughter)

316
00:13:51,861 --> 00:13:53,527
EH: I want to talk about your work.

317
00:13:53,527 --> 00:13:56,149
Obviously the impact of your work
has been written about

318
00:13:56,149 --> 00:13:58,436
and I'm sure you've
heard about it all your life:

319
00:13:58,436 --> 00:13:59,577
what it meant to people,

320
00:13:59,577 --> 00:14:01,007
what it meant to your culture,

321
00:14:01,007 --> 00:14:04,002
you heard the applause when I just
named the names of the shows,

322
00:14:04,002 --> 00:14:07,322
you raised half the people
in the room through your work.

323
00:14:07,322 --> 00:14:10,736
But have there ever been any stories
about the impact of your work

324
00:14:10,736 --> 00:14:12,570
that surprised you?

325
00:14:12,953 --> 00:14:14,387
NL: Oh, god --

326
00:14:14,387 --> 00:14:19,171
surprised me and delighted me
from head to toe.

327
00:14:21,765 --> 00:14:27,130
There was "An Evening Wtih Norman Lear"
within the last year

328
00:14:27,130 --> 00:14:30,657
that a group of Hip-Hop impresarios,

329
00:14:30,657 --> 00:14:35,027
performers and the Academy put together.

330
00:14:36,187 --> 00:14:38,131
The subtext of "An Evening With ..."

331
00:14:38,131 --> 00:14:41,943
was "What do a 92-year-old Jew" --

332
00:14:41,943 --> 00:14:42,936
then 92 --

333
00:14:42,936 --> 00:14:45,242
"and the world of Hip-Hop
have in common?"

334
00:14:45,242 --> 00:14:48,423
Russel Simmons was
among seven on the stage.

335
00:14:49,022 --> 00:14:53,387
And when he talked about the shows,

336
00:14:53,387 --> 00:14:59,343
he wasn't talking about
the Hollywood George Jefferson

337
00:14:59,343 --> 00:15:01,433
in "The Jeffersons",

338
00:15:01,433 --> 00:15:03,463
or the show that was the number five show,

339
00:15:03,463 --> 00:15:05,018
or the --

340
00:15:05,018 --> 00:15:10,498
he was talking about a simple
thing that made a big ...

341
00:15:13,324 --> 00:15:14,515
EH: Impact on him?

342
00:15:15,086 --> 00:15:16,641
NL: An impact on him --

343
00:15:16,641 --> 00:15:19,011
I was hesitating over the word, "change."

344
00:15:19,669 --> 00:15:22,017
It's hard for me to imagine,

345
00:15:22,017 --> 00:15:23,869
you know, changing somebody's life,

346
00:15:23,869 --> 00:15:25,902
but that's the way he put it.

347
00:15:25,902 --> 00:15:31,791
He saw George Jefferson
write a check on "The Jeffersons",

348
00:15:31,791 --> 00:15:35,994
and he never knew that a black man
could write a check.

349
00:15:37,052 --> 00:15:41,765
And he says it just
impacted his life so --

350
00:15:41,765 --> 00:15:43,670
it changed his life.

351
00:15:43,670 --> 00:15:46,972
And when I hear things like that --

352
00:15:46,972 --> 00:15:48,671
little things --

353
00:15:48,671 --> 00:15:51,877
because I know that there isn't
anybody in this audience

354
00:15:51,877 --> 00:15:58,704
that wasn't likely responsible today for
some little thing they did for somebody,

355
00:15:58,704 --> 00:16:03,857
whether it's as little as a smile
or an unexpected "hello,"

356
00:16:03,857 --> 00:16:06,727
that's how little this thing was.

357
00:16:07,455 --> 00:16:11,128
It could have been the dresser of the set

358
00:16:11,128 --> 00:16:12,838
who put the checkbook on the thing

359
00:16:12,838 --> 00:16:16,680
and George had nothing to do
while he was speaking so he wrote it,

360
00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:18,113
I don't know.

361
00:16:18,113 --> 00:16:19,634
But --

362
00:16:19,634 --> 00:16:22,596
EH: So in addition to the long list
I shared in the beginning,

363
00:16:22,596 --> 00:16:25,187
I should have also mentioned
that you invented Hip-Hop.

364
00:16:25,187 --> 00:16:26,278
(Laughter)

365
00:16:26,278 --> 00:16:27,393
NL: Well ...

366
00:16:28,906 --> 00:16:30,690
EH: I want to talk about --

367
00:16:30,690 --> 00:16:31,874
NL: Well, then do it.

368
00:16:31,874 --> 00:16:34,265
(Laughter)

369
00:16:37,989 --> 00:16:40,659
EH: You've lead a life of accomplishment,

370
00:16:40,659 --> 00:16:43,004
but you've also built a life of meaning.

371
00:16:43,004 --> 00:16:45,567
And all of us strive to do
both of those things --

372
00:16:45,567 --> 00:16:48,220
not all of us manage to.

373
00:16:48,220 --> 00:16:51,851
But even those of us who do
manage to accomplish both of those,

374
00:16:51,851 --> 00:16:54,707
very rarely do we figure out
how to do them together.

375
00:16:55,125 --> 00:16:59,948
You managed to push culture
forward through your art

376
00:16:59,948 --> 00:17:04,059
while also achieving [world ...]
commercial success.

377
00:17:04,059 --> 00:17:06,310
How did you do both?

378
00:17:11,645 --> 00:17:14,097
NL: When I hear that --

379
00:17:14,097 --> 00:17:17,952
here's where my mind goes when I hear
that recitation of all I accomplished.

380
00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:23,813
This planet is one of a billion,

381
00:17:23,813 --> 00:17:25,345
they tell us.

382
00:17:25,345 --> 00:17:30,717
In a universe of which
there are billions --

383
00:17:30,717 --> 00:17:32,309
billions of universes,

384
00:17:32,309 --> 00:17:36,082
billions of planets ...

385
00:17:36,082 --> 00:17:37,847
which we're trying to save

386
00:17:37,847 --> 00:17:41,036
and it requires a --

387
00:17:41,787 --> 00:17:44,050
But ...

388
00:17:44,050 --> 00:17:48,240
anything I may have accomplished is --

389
00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:51,833
my sister once asked me
what she does about something

390
00:17:51,833 --> 00:17:54,799
that was going on in Newington, CT.

391
00:17:54,799 --> 00:17:57,748
And I said, "Write your alderman
or your mayor or something."

392
00:17:57,748 --> 00:18:01,879
She said, "Well I'm not
Norman Lear, I'm Claire Lear."

393
00:18:01,879 --> 00:18:06,359
And that was the first time
I said what I'm saying,

394
00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:10,722
I said, "Claire. With everything
you think about what I may have done

395
00:18:10,722 --> 00:18:12,197
and everything you've done," --

396
00:18:12,197 --> 00:18:14,590
she never left Newington --

397
00:18:14,590 --> 00:18:16,418
"can you get your fingers close enough

398
00:18:16,418 --> 00:18:20,533
when you consider the size
of the planet and so forth,

399
00:18:20,533 --> 00:18:24,405
to measure anything I may have done
to anything you may have done?"

400
00:18:24,405 --> 00:18:26,598
So ...

401
00:18:26,598 --> 00:18:30,243
I am convinced we're all responsible

402
00:18:30,243 --> 00:18:33,772
for doing as much
as I may have accomplished.

403
00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:37,183
And I understand what you saying --

404
00:18:37,183 --> 00:18:38,903
EH: It's an articulate deflection --

405
00:18:38,903 --> 00:18:40,709
NL: But you have to think about the --

406
00:18:40,709 --> 00:18:42,863
you have to really buy
into the size and scope

407
00:18:42,863 --> 00:18:44,882
of the creator's enterprise, here.

408
00:18:44,882 --> 00:18:47,750
EH: But here on this planet
you have really, really mattered.

409
00:18:47,750 --> 00:18:49,440
NL: I'm a son of a gun.

410
00:18:49,440 --> 00:18:50,717
(Laughter)

411
00:18:50,717 --> 00:18:54,177
EH: So I have one more question for you.

412
00:18:54,951 --> 00:18:56,855
How old do you feel?

413
00:18:57,761 --> 00:19:02,381
NL: I am the peer
of whoever I'm talking to.

414
00:19:02,895 --> 00:19:04,100
EH: Well I feel 93.

415
00:19:04,100 --> 00:19:06,819
(Applause)

416
00:19:10,693 --> 00:19:12,256
NL: We out of here?

417
00:19:12,256 --> 00:19:13,926
EH: Well I feel 93 years old,

418
00:19:13,926 --> 00:19:17,571
but I hope to one day feel as young
as the person I'm sitting across from.

419
00:19:17,871 --> 00:19:18,913
Ladies and gentleman,

420
00:19:18,913 --> 00:19:20,361
the incomparable Norman Lear.

421
00:19:20,361 --> 00:19:22,218
(Applause)

422
00:19:26,275 --> 00:19:27,598
NL: Thank you

423
00:19:27,598 --> 00:19:29,804
(Applause)