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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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(Laughter)

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You were born in New Hampshire.

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Norman Lear: New Haven, Connecticut.

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EH: New Haven, Connecticut.

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(Laughter)

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NL: There goes seven more seconds.

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EH: Nailed it.

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(Laughter)

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You were born in New Haven, Connecticut.

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Your father was a con man --
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, your debut,

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

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You followed 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," "Maude," "Good Times,"

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"The Jeffersons," "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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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," "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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(Applause)

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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. 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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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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(Laughter)

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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. Murrow,

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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, 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, Connecticut.

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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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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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NL: Yeah.

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Tell us what happened
when you were nine years old.

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NL: He was flying to Oklahoma

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with three guys that my mother said,

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

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in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

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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 called it a benefit.

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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

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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, yes,

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that was what sparked --

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well, there were other things, too.

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When my father was away,

198
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I was fooling with a crystal radio set
that we had made together,

199
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and I caught a signal that turned out
to be Father Coughlin.

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(Laughter)

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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 --

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not a horse's ass --

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He was very vocal
about hating the New Deal

207
00:09:02,821 --> 00:09:05,284
and Roosevelt and Jews.

208
00:09:06,256 --> 00:09:09,589
The first time I ran into an understanding

209
00:09:09,613 --> 00:09:12,506
that there were people
in this world that hated me

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because I was born to Jewish parents.

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And that had an enormous
effect on my life.

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EH: So you had a childhood

213
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with little in the way
of strong male role models,

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except for your grandfather.

215
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Tell us about him.

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00:09:29,176 --> 00:09:30,326
NL: Oh, my grandfather.

217
00:09:31,323 --> 00:09:35,784
Well here's the way I always
talked about that grandfather.

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There were parades,

219
00:09:38,780 --> 00:09:40,661
lots of parades when I was a kid.

220
00:09:40,685 --> 00:09:42,597
There were parades on Veteran's Day --

221
00:09:42,621 --> 00:09:44,189
there wasn't a President's Day.

222
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There was an Abraham Lincoln's birthday,

223
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George Washington's birthday

224
00:09:48,278 --> 00:09:50,768
and Flag Day ...

225
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And lots of little parades.

226
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My grandfather used to take me

227
00:09:55,057 --> 00:09:56,783
and we'd stand on the street corner,

228
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he'd hold my hand

229
00:09:58,167 --> 00:10:01,230
and I'd look up and I'd see a tear
running down his eye.

230
00:10:03,910 --> 00:10:06,274
And he meant a great deal to me.

231
00:10:06,298 --> 00:10:11,656
And he used to write presidents
of the United States.

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00:10:11,680 --> 00:10:13,300
Every letter started,

233
00:10:13,324 --> 00:10:16,403
"My dearest, darling Mr. President,"

234
00:10:16,427 --> 00:10:21,045
and he'd tell him something
wonderful about what he did.

235
00:10:21,069 --> 00:10:24,001
But when he disagreed
with the President he also wrote,

236
00:10:24,025 --> 00:10:25,692
"My dearest, darling Mr. President,

237
00:10:25,716 --> 00:10:27,510
Didn't I tell you last week ...?"

238
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(Laughter)

239
00:10:29,559 --> 00:10:34,739
And I would run down the stairs
every now and then

240
00:10:34,763 --> 00:10:35,995
and pick up the mail.

241
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We were three flights up,

242
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74 York Street, New Haven, Connecticut.

243
00:10:40,945 --> 00:10:47,557
And I'd pick up a little white envelope
reading, "Shya C. called at this address."

244
00:10:50,734 --> 00:10:55,270
And that's the story I have told
about my grandfather --

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EH: They wrote him back
on the envelopes --

246
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NL: They wrote back.

247
00:11:00,862 --> 00:11:05,268
But I have shown them myself,

248
00:11:05,292 --> 00:11:10,410
going way back to Phil Donahue
and others before him,

249
00:11:10,434 --> 00:11:14,743
literally dozens of interviews
in which I told that story.

250
00:11:16,283 --> 00:11:21,402
This will be the second time I have said
the whole story was a lie.

251
00:11:24,151 --> 00:11:28,343
The truth was my grandfather
took me to parades,

252
00:11:28,367 --> 00:11:29,690
we had lots of those.

253
00:11:30,094 --> 00:11:32,474
The truth is a tear came down his eye.

254
00:11:33,340 --> 00:11:37,047
The truth is he would write
an occasional letter,

255
00:11:37,071 --> 00:11:39,474
and I did pick up those little envelopes.

256
00:11:40,536 --> 00:11:43,948
But "My dearest darling Mr. President,"

257
00:11:43,972 --> 00:11:46,434
all the rest of it,

258
00:11:46,458 --> 00:11:50,974
is a story I borrowed from a good friend

259
00:11:50,998 --> 00:11:56,508
whose grandfather was that grandfather
who wrote those letters.

260
00:11:58,506 --> 00:12:04,951
And, I mean, I stole
Arthur Marshall's grandfather

261
00:12:04,975 --> 00:12:06,705
and made him my own.

262
00:12:08,997 --> 00:12:10,147
Always.

263
00:12:10,171 --> 00:12:12,785
When I started to write my memoir --

264
00:12:12,809 --> 00:12:14,261
"Even this --"

265
00:12:14,285 --> 00:12:15,450
How about that?

266
00:12:15,474 --> 00:12:17,705
"Even This I Get to Experience."

267
00:12:18,848 --> 00:12:20,599
When I started to write the memoir

268
00:12:20,623 --> 00:12:22,182
and I started to think about it,

269
00:12:22,206 --> 00:12:23,356
and then I --

270
00:12:24,275 --> 00:12:25,425
I --

271
00:12:26,529 --> 00:12:30,331
I did a reasonable amount of crying

272
00:12:30,355 --> 00:12:34,188
and I realized how much
I needed the father.

273
00:12:35,139 --> 00:12:38,440
So much so that I appropriated
Arthur Marshall's grandfather.

274
00:12:39,575 --> 00:12:42,012
So much so, the word "father" --

275
00:12:42,573 --> 00:12:44,518
I have six kids by the way.

276
00:12:45,273 --> 00:12:46,980
My favorite role in life.

277
00:12:49,482 --> 00:12:51,958
It and husband to my wife Lyn.

278
00:12:55,972 --> 00:13:00,453
But I stole the man's identity
because I needed the father.

279
00:13:01,243 --> 00:13:04,926
Now I've gone through a whole lot of shit

280
00:13:04,950 --> 00:13:06,957
and come out on the other side,

281
00:13:06,981 --> 00:13:08,568
and I actually give my father --

282
00:13:08,592 --> 00:13:09,802
the best thing I --

283
00:13:09,826 --> 00:13:11,115
the worst thing I --

284
00:13:11,711 --> 00:13:14,795
The word I'd like to use about him
and think about him is --

285
00:13:14,819 --> 00:13:16,187
he was a rascal.

286
00:13:17,020 --> 00:13:21,933
The fact that he lied
and stole and cheated,

287
00:13:21,957 --> 00:13:23,157
and went to prison ...

288
00:13:25,349 --> 00:13:29,206
I submerge that in the word "rascal."

289
00:13:29,809 --> 00:13:35,936
EH: Well there's a saying that amateurs
borrow and professionals steal.

290
00:13:36,366 --> 00:13:37,591
NL: I'm a pro.

291
00:13:37,615 --> 00:13:38,766
EH: You're a pro.

292
00:13:38,790 --> 00:13:40,106
(Laughter)

293
00:13:40,130 --> 00:13:43,277
And that quote is widely
attributed to John Lennon,

294
00:13:43,301 --> 00:13:45,491
but it turns out
he stole it from T.S. Eliot.

295
00:13:45,515 --> 00:13:46,904
So you're in good company.

296
00:13:46,928 --> 00:13:48,086
(Laughter)

297
00:13:50,602 --> 00:13:52,927
EH: I want to talk about your work.

298
00:13:52,951 --> 00:13:55,657
Obviously the impact of your work
has been written about

299
00:13:55,681 --> 00:13:58,047
and I'm sure you've heard
about it all your life:

300
00:13:58,071 --> 00:13:59,222
what it meant to people,

301
00:13:59,246 --> 00:14:00,676
what it meant to your culture,

302
00:14:00,700 --> 00:14:03,701
you heard the applause when I just
named the names of the shows,

303
00:14:03,725 --> 00:14:07,153
you raised half the people
in the room through your work.

304
00:14:07,177 --> 00:14:10,712
But have there ever been any stories
about the impact of your work

305
00:14:10,736 --> 00:14:12,050
that surprised you?

306
00:14:12,740 --> 00:14:13,954
NL: Oh, god --

307
00:14:14,387 --> 00:14:19,279
surprised me and delighted me
from head to toe.

308
00:14:21,437 --> 00:14:26,930
There was "An Evening with Norman Lear"
within the last year

309
00:14:26,954 --> 00:14:30,458
that a group of hip-hop impresarios,

310
00:14:30,482 --> 00:14:34,418
performers and the Academy put together.

311
00:14:35,902 --> 00:14:37,806
The subtext of "An Evening with ..."

312
00:14:37,830 --> 00:14:41,919
was "What do a 92-year-old Jew" --

313
00:14:41,943 --> 00:14:43,094
then 92 --

314
00:14:43,118 --> 00:14:45,131
"and the world of hip-hop have in common?"

315
00:14:45,155 --> 00:14:47,844
Russell Simmons
was among seven on the stage.

316
00:14:48,783 --> 00:14:53,104
And when he talked about the shows,

317
00:14:53,128 --> 00:14:57,661
he wasn't talking about the Hollywood,

318
00:14:57,685 --> 00:15:01,409
George Jefferson in "The Jeffersons,"

319
00:15:01,433 --> 00:15:03,848
or the show that was a number five show.

320
00:15:04,847 --> 00:15:10,498
He was talking about a simple
thing that made a big --

321
00:15:13,324 --> 00:15:14,525
EH: Impact on him?

322
00:15:14,549 --> 00:15:16,487
NL: An impact on him --

323
00:15:16,511 --> 00:15:19,018
I was hesitating over the word, "change."

324
00:15:19,430 --> 00:15:21,993
It's hard for me to imagine,

325
00:15:22,017 --> 00:15:23,845
you know, changing somebody's life,

326
00:15:23,869 --> 00:15:25,654
but that's the way he put it.

327
00:15:25,678 --> 00:15:31,767
He saw George Jefferson
write a check on "The Jeffersons,"

328
00:15:31,791 --> 00:15:35,401
and he never knew that a black man
could write a check.

329
00:15:36,788 --> 00:15:41,741
And he says it just
impacted his life so --

330
00:15:41,765 --> 00:15:43,450
it changed his life.

331
00:15:43,474 --> 00:15:46,948
And when I hear things like that --

332
00:15:46,972 --> 00:15:48,647
little things --

333
00:15:48,671 --> 00:15:51,853
because I know that there isn't
anybody in this audience

334
00:15:51,877 --> 00:15:58,380
that wasn't likely responsible today for
some little thing they did for somebody,

335
00:15:58,404 --> 00:16:03,746
whether it's as little as a smile
or an unexpected "Hello,"

336
00:16:03,770 --> 00:16:06,134
that's how little this thing was.

337
00:16:06,833 --> 00:16:11,104
It could have been the dresser of the set

338
00:16:11,128 --> 00:16:12,814
who put the checkbook on the thing

339
00:16:12,838 --> 00:16:16,527
and George had nothing to do
while he was speaking, so he wrote it,

340
00:16:16,551 --> 00:16:17,827
I don't know.

341
00:16:17,851 --> 00:16:19,001
But --

342
00:16:19,634 --> 00:16:22,572
EH: So in addition to the long list
I shared in the beginning,

343
00:16:22,596 --> 00:16:25,242
I should have also mentioned
that you invented hip-hop.

344
00:16:25,266 --> 00:16:26,367
(Laughter)

345
00:16:26,391 --> 00:16:27,834
NL: Well ...

346
00:16:28,755 --> 00:16:30,240
EH: I want to talk about --

347
00:16:30,264 --> 00:16:31,564
NL: Well, then do it.

348
00:16:31,588 --> 00:16:36,398
(Laughter)

349
00:16:37,706 --> 00:16:40,468
EH: You've lead a life of accomplishment,

350
00:16:40,492 --> 00:16:42,428
but you've also built a life of meaning.

351
00:16:42,809 --> 00:16:45,381
And all of us strive to do
both of those things --

352
00:16:45,405 --> 00:16:46,999
not all of us manage to.

353
00:16:47,984 --> 00:16:51,755
But even those of us who do manage
to accomplish both of those,

354
00:16:51,779 --> 00:16:54,349
very rarely do we figure out
how to do them together.

355
00:16:54,884 --> 00:16:59,764
You managed to push culture
forward through your art

356
00:16:59,788 --> 00:17:03,646
while also achieving world-beating
commercial success.

357
00:17:03,670 --> 00:17:04,860
How did you do both?

358
00:17:11,391 --> 00:17:17,207
NL: Here's where my mind goes when I hear
that recitation of all I accomplished.

359
00:17:19,304 --> 00:17:23,360
This planet is one of a billion,

360
00:17:23,384 --> 00:17:24,573
they tell us.

361
00:17:24,875 --> 00:17:30,693
In a universe
of which there are billions --

362
00:17:30,717 --> 00:17:32,285
billions of universes,

363
00:17:32,309 --> 00:17:35,916
billions of planets ...

364
00:17:35,940 --> 00:17:37,823
which we're trying to save

365
00:17:37,847 --> 00:17:39,631
and it requires saving.

366
00:17:41,549 --> 00:17:42,723
But --

367
00:17:43,699 --> 00:17:47,349
anything I may have accomplished is --

368
00:17:47,770 --> 00:17:51,809
my sister once asked me
what she does about something

369
00:17:51,833 --> 00:17:54,775
that was going on
in Newington, Connecticut.

370
00:17:54,799 --> 00:17:57,724
And I said, "Write your alderman
or your mayor or something."

371
00:17:57,748 --> 00:18:00,886
She said, "Well I'm not
Norman Lear, I'm Claire Lear."

372
00:18:01,819 --> 00:18:06,335
And that was the first time
I said what I'm saying,

373
00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:10,698
I said, "Claire. With everything
you think about what I may have done

374
00:18:10,722 --> 00:18:12,199
and everything you've done," --

375
00:18:12,223 --> 00:18:14,566
she never left Newington --

376
00:18:14,590 --> 00:18:16,400
"can you get your fingers close enough

377
00:18:16,424 --> 00:18:20,341
when you consider the size
of the planet and so forth,

378
00:18:20,365 --> 00:18:23,579
to measure anything I may have done
to anything you may have done?"

379
00:18:24,150 --> 00:18:25,380
So ...

380
00:18:26,486 --> 00:18:30,074
I am convinced we're all responsible

381
00:18:30,098 --> 00:18:33,319
for doing as much
as I may have accomplished.

382
00:18:35,269 --> 00:18:37,159
And I understand what you're saying --

383
00:18:37,183 --> 00:18:38,898
EH: It's an articulate deflection --

384
00:18:38,922 --> 00:18:42,880
NL: But you have to really buy into
the size and scope

385
00:18:42,904 --> 00:18:44,858
of the creator's enterprise, here.

386
00:18:44,882 --> 00:18:47,466
EH: But here on this planet
you have really mattered.

387
00:18:47,490 --> 00:18:48,640
NL: I'm a son of a gun.

388
00:18:48,981 --> 00:18:50,502
(Laughter)

389
00:18:50,526 --> 00:18:54,324
EH: So I have one more question for you.

390
00:18:54,348 --> 00:18:55,621
How old do you feel?

391
00:18:57,411 --> 00:19:01,823
NL: I am the peer
of whoever I'm talking to.

392
00:19:02,704 --> 00:19:04,076
EH: Well, I feel 93.

393
00:19:04,100 --> 00:19:10,660
(Applause)

394
00:19:10,684 --> 00:19:11,994
NL: We out of here?

395
00:19:12,018 --> 00:19:13,902
EH: Well, I feel 93 years old,

396
00:19:13,926 --> 00:19:17,715
but I hope to one day feel as young
as the person I'm sitting across from.

397
00:19:17,739 --> 00:19:18,889
Ladies and gentlemen,

398
00:19:18,913 --> 00:19:20,337
the incomparable Norman Lear.

399
00:19:20,361 --> 00:19:26,025
(Applause)

400
00:19:26,049 --> 00:19:27,200
NL: Thank you.

401
00:19:27,224 --> 00:19:29,716
(Applause)