-
Eric Hirshberg: So I assume that Norman
doesn't need much of an introduction,
-
but TED's audience is global,
-
it's diverse,
-
so I've been tasked
with starting with his bio,
-
which could easily take up
the entire 18 minutes,
-
so instead we're going to do
93 years in 93 seconds or less.
-
You were born in New Hampshire.
-
Norman Lear: New Haven, CT.
-
EH: New Haven, CT.
-
(Laughter)
-
NL: There goes [70] seconds.
-
EH: Nailed it.
-
(Laughter)
-
You were born in New Haven, CT.
-
Your father was a con man --
-
I got that right.
-
He was taken away to prison
when you were nine years old.
-
You flew 52 missions
as a fighter pilot in World War II.
-
You came back to --
-
NL: Radio operator.
-
EH: You came to LA
to break into Hollywood,
-
first in publicity, then in TV.
-
You had no training as a writer, formally,
-
but you hustled your way in.
-
Your breakthrough --
-
your debut --
-
was a little show
called "All in the Family".
-
You follow that up with a string of hits
-
that to this day is unmatched
in Hollywood:
-
"Sanford and Son",
-
"Maude",
-
"Good Times",
-
"The Jeffersons",
-
"One Day at a Time",
-
"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman",
-
to name literally a fraction of them.
-
Not only are they all commercially --
-
(Applause)
-
Not only are they all
commercially successful,
-
but many of them push our culture forward
-
by giving the underrepresented
members of society
-
their first prime-time voice.
-
You have seven shows
in the top 10 at one time.
-
At one point,
-
you aggregate an audience of 120
million people per week
-
watching your content.
-
That's more than the audience
for Super Bowl 50
-
which happens once a year.
-
NL: Holy shit.
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
EH: And we're not even
to the holy shit part.
-
(Laughter)
-
You land yourself
on Richard Nixon's enemies list --
-
he had one.
-
You're --
-
That's an applause line, too.
-
(Applause)
-
You're inducted into the TV Hall of Fame
on the first day that it exists.
-
Then came the movies.
-
"Fried Green Tomatoes",
-
"The Princess Bride",
-
"Stand By Me",
-
"This is Spinal Tap".
-
(Applause)
-
Again, just to name a fraction.
-
Then you wipe the slate clean --
-
start a third act as a political activist
focusing on protecting the First Amendment
-
and the separation of church and state.
-
You start People For The American Way.
-
You buy the Declaration of Independence
-
and give it back to the people.
-
You stay active in both
entertainment and politics
-
until the ripe old of age of 93,
-
when you write a book
-
and make a documentary
about your life story.
-
And after all that,
-
they finally think you're
ready for a TED Talk.
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
NL: I love being here.
-
And I love you for agreeing to do this.
-
EH: Thank you for asking.
-
It's my honor.
-
So here's my first question.
-
Was your mother proud of you?
-
(Laughter)
-
NL: My mother ...
-
what a place to start.
-
When I came back --
-
let me put it this way --
-
When I came back from the war,
-
she showed me the letters
that I had written her from overseas,
-
and they were absolute love letters.
-
This really sums up my mother.
-
They were love letters,
-
as if I had written them to --
-
they were love letters.
-
A year later I asked my mother
if I could have them
-
because I'd like to keep them
all the years of my life ...
-
she had thrown them away.
-
(Laughter)
-
That's my mother.
-
(Laughter)
-
The best way I can sum it up
in more recent times is --
-
this is also more recent times --
-
a number of years ago,
-
when they started the Hall of Fame
to which you referred,
-
it was a Sunday morning
-
when I got a call from the fellow who ran
the TV Academy of Arts and Sciences,
-
he was calling me to tell me
they had met all day yesterday
-
and he was confidentially telling me
they were going to start a hall of fame
-
and these were the inductees.
-
I started to say Richard Nixon
-
because Richard Nixon --
-
EH: I don't think he was on their list.
-
NL: William Paley who started CBS,
-
David Sarnoff who started NBC,
-
Edward R. Morrow,
-
the greatest of the foreign
correspondents,
-
Patty Chayefsky --
-
I think the best writer
that ever came out of television --
-
Milton Berle,
-
Lucille Ball
-
and me.
-
EH: Not bad.
-
NL: I call my mother
immediately in Hartford, CT.
-
"Mom, this is what's happened,
-
they're starting a hall of fame,"
-
I tell her the list of names and me,
-
and she says,
-
"Listen, if that's what they
want to do, who am I to say?"
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
NL: So that's ...
-
that's my Ma --
-
I think it earns that kind of a laugh
-
because everybody
has a piece of that mother.
-
(Laughter)
-
EH: And the sitcom Jewish mother
is born right there.
-
So your father also played
a large role in your life,
-
mostly by his absence.
-
Tell us what happened when
you were nine years old.
-
NL: He was ...
-
he was flying to Oklahoma
-
with three guys that my mother said,
-
"Don't --
-
I don't want you to have
anything to do with them,
-
I don't trust those men."
-
That's when I heard,
-
maybe not for the first time,
-
"Stifle yourself, Jeanette, I'm going."
-
And he went.
-
It turns out he was selling --
-
picking up some fake bonds,
-
which he was flying
across the country to sell.
-
But the fact that he was
going to Oklahoma in a plane,
-
and he was going to bring me
back a 10-gallon hat,
-
just like Ken Maynard,
my favorite cowboy wore.
-
You know this was a few years after
Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic--
-
planes were --
-
I mean it was exotic
that my father was going there.
-
But when he came back,
-
they arrested him as he got off the plane.
-
That night newspapers
were all over the house,
-
my father was with his hat
in front of his face,
-
manacled to a detector.
-
And my mother was selling the furniture
because we were leaving --
-
she couldn't afford --
-
she didn't want to stay
in that state of shame,
-
in Chelsea, MA.
-
And selling the furniture,
-
the house was loaded with people.
-
And in the middle of all of that,
-
some strange horse's ass
put his hand on my shoulder and said,
-
"Well, you're the man of the house now."
-
I'm crying and this asshole says
"You're the man of the house now."
-
And I think that was the moment
-
I began to understand the foolishness
of the human condition.
-
So ...
-
it took a lot of years to look back at it
and feel it was a benefit.
-
But --
-
EH: It's interesting
you call it a benefit.
-
Listening to you --
-
NL: Benefit in that it gave
me that springboard.
-
I mean that I could think
-
how foolish it was to say
to this crying nine-year-old boy,
-
"You're the man of the house now."
-
And then I was crying and then he said,
-
"And men of the house don't cry."
-
And I ...
-
(Laughter)
-
So ...
-
I look back and I think
-
that's when I learned the foolishness
of the human condition,
-
and it's been that gift that I've used.
-
EH: So you have a father who's absent,
-
you have a mother for whom
apparently nothing is good enough.
-
Do you think that starting out as a kid
who maybe never felt heard
-
started you down a journey
-
that ended with you being an adult
-
with a weekly audience
of 120 million people?
-
NL: I love the way you put that question,
-
because I guess I've
spent my life wanting --
-
if anything, wanting to be heard.
-
I think ...
-
it's a simple answer,
-
yes,
-
that was what sparked --
-
well, there's are other things, too.
-
When my father was away,
-
I was fooling with a crystal radio set
that we had made together,
-
and I caught a signal that turned
out to be Father Coughlin on --
-
Yeah, somebody laughed.
-
(Laughter)
-
But not funny,
-
this was a horse's--
-
not a horse's ass --
-
he was very vocal
about hating the New Deal
-
and Roosevelt and Jews.
-
The first time I ran into an understanding
-
that there were people
in this world that hated me
-
because I was born to Jewish parents.
-
And that had an enormous
effect on my life.
-
EH: So you had a childhood
-
with little in the way of strong
male role models,
-
except for your grandfather.
-
Tell us about him.
-
NL: Oh, my grandfather.
-
Well here's the way I always
talked about that grandfather.
-
There were parades,
-
lots of parades when I was a kid.
-
There were parades on Veteran's Day,
-
on President's --
-
there wasn't a President's Day.
-
There was for Abraham Lincoln's birthday,
-
George Washington's birthday
-
and Flag Day ...
-
and lots of little parades.
-
My grandfather used to take me
-
and we'd stand on the street corner,
-
he'd hold my hand
-
and I'd look up and I'd see a tear
running down his eye.
-
And he meant a great deal to me.
-
And he used to write Presidents
of the United States.
-
Every President --
-
every letter started,
-
"My dearest, darling Mr. President,"
-
and he'd tell him something
wonderful about what he did.
-
But when he disagreed
with the President he also wrote,
-
"My dearest, darling Mr. President,
-
didn't I tell you last week...?"
-
(Laughter)
-
And I would run down the stairs
every now and then
-
and pick up the mail.
-
We were three flights up,
-
74 York Street, New Haven, CT.
-
And I'd pick up a little white envelope
reading, "Shya C. called at this address."
-
And that's the story I have told
about my grandfather --
-
EH: They wrote him back
on the envelopes --
-
NL: They wrote back.
-
But I have shown them myself,
-
going way back to Phil Donahue
and others before him,
-
dozens --
-
literally --
-
of interviews in which I told that story.
-
This will be the second time I have said
the whole story was a lie.
-
The truth was my grandfather
took me to parades,
-
we had lots of those.
-
The truth is a tear came down his eye.
-
The truth is he would write
an occasional letter,
-
and I did pick up those little envelopes.
-
But, "My dearest darling Mr. President,"
-
all the rest of it,
-
is a story I borrowed from a good friend
-
whose grandfather was that grandfather
who wrote those letters.
-
And --
-
I mean, I stole Arthur
Marshall's grandfather
-
and made him my own.
-
Always.
-
When I started to write my memoir --
-
"Even this --"
-
How about that?
-
"Even This I Get To Experience".
-
When I started to write the memoir
-
and I started to think about it,
-
and then I ...
-
I ...
-
I did a reasonable amount of crying
-
and I realized how much
I needed the father.
-
So much so that I appropriated
Arthur Marshall's grandfather.
-
So much so,
-
the word "father" --
-
I have six kids by the way.
-
My favorite role in life.
-
And husband to my wife Lynn.
-
But I stole the man's identity
because I needed the father.
-
Now I've gone through a whole lot of shit
-
and come out on the other side,
-
and I actually give --
-
the best thing I --
-
the worst thing I --
-
the word I'd like to use about him
and think about him is --
-
he was a rascal.
-
The fact that he lied
and stole and cheated,
-
and went to prison ...
-
I submerge that in the word "rascal".
-
Not Synced
EH: Well there's a saying that amatuers
borrow and professionals steal.
-
Not Synced
NL: I'm a pro.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
EH: And that quote is widely
attributed to John Lennon,
-
Not Synced
but it turns out he
stole it from T.S. Eliot.
-
Not Synced
So you're in good company.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
EH: I want to talk about your work.
-
Not Synced
Obviously the impact of your work
has been written about
-
Not Synced
and I'm sure you've
heard about it all your life:
-
Not Synced
what it meant to people,
-
Not Synced
what it meant to your culture,
-
Not Synced
you heard the applause when I just
named the names of the shows,
-
Not Synced
you raised half the people
in the room through your work.
-
Not Synced
But have there ever been any stories
about the impact of your work
-
Not Synced
that surprised you?
-
Not Synced
NL: Oh, god --
-
Not Synced
surprised me and delighted me
from head to toe.
-
Not Synced
There was an evening wtih Norman Lear
within the last year
-
Not Synced
that a group of Hip-Hop
impressarios and performers,
-
Not Synced
and the Academy
-
Not Synced
put together.
-
Not Synced
The subtext of "An Evening With ..."
-
Not Synced
was "what do a 92-year-old Jew" --
-
Not Synced
then 92 --
-
Not Synced
"and the world of Hip-Hop
have in common?"
-
Not Synced
Russel Simmons was among seven on stage.
-
Not Synced
And when he talked about the shows,
-
Not Synced
he wasn't talking about the Hollywood
George Jeffereson in the Jeffersons
-
Not Synced
or the show that was
the "Number Five" show
-
Not Synced
or the --
-
Not Synced
he was talking about a simple thing
that made a big --
-
Not Synced
EH: Impact on him?
-
Not Synced
NL: An impact on him --
-
Not Synced
I was hesitating over the word, "change."
-
Not Synced
It's hard for me to imagine,
-
Not Synced
you know, changing somebody's life,
-
Not Synced
but that's how he put it.
-
Not Synced
He saw George Jefferson
write a check on The Jeffersons,
-
Not Synced
and he never knew that a Black man
could write a check.
-
Not Synced
And he says it just
impacted his life so --
-
Not Synced
it changed his life.
-
Not Synced
And when I hear things like that --
-
Not Synced
little things --
-
Not Synced
because I know that there isn't
anybody in this audience
-
Not Synced
that wasn't likely responsible today for
some little thing they did for somebody,
-
Not Synced
as little as a smile
or an unexpected "hello,"
-
Not Synced
that's how little this thing was.
-
Not Synced
It could have been the dresser of the set
-
Not Synced
who put the checkbook on the thing
-
Not Synced
and George had nothing to do while
he was speaking so he wrote it,
-
Not Synced
I don't know.
-
Not Synced
But --
-
Not Synced
EH: So in addition to the long list
I shared in the beginning,
-
Not Synced
I should have also mentioned
that you invented Hip-Hop.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
NL: Well --
-
Not Synced
EH: I want to talk about --
-
Not Synced
NL: Well, then do it.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
EH: You've lead a life of accomplishment,
-
Not Synced
but you've also built a life of meaning.
-
Not Synced
And all of us strive to do
both of those things --
-
Not Synced
not all of us manage to.
-
Not Synced
But even those of us who do
manage to do both of those,
-
Not Synced
very rarely do we figure out
how to do them together.
-
Not Synced
You managed to push culture
forward through your art
-
Not Synced
while also achieving [world ...]
commercial success.
-
Not Synced
How did you do both?
-
Not Synced
NL: When I hear that --
-
Not Synced
here's where my mind goes when I hear
that recitation of all I accomplished.
-
Not Synced
This planet is one of a billion ...
-
Not Synced
they tell us.
-
Not Synced
In a universe of which
there are billions --
-
Not Synced
billions of universes,
-
Not Synced
billions of planets
-
Not Synced
which we're trying to save
-
Not Synced
and it requires a --
-
Not Synced
but anything I may have accomplished is --
-
Not Synced
my sister once asked me
what she does about something
-
Not Synced
that was going on
in Newington, Connecticut
-
Not Synced
and I said, "Write your [alderman]
or your mayor or something,"
-
Not Synced
and she said, "Well I'm not
Norman Lear, I'm Claire Lear,"
-
Not Synced
and that is the first time
I said what I'm saying,
-
Not Synced
I said, "Claire. Everything you think
about what I may have done
-
Not Synced
and everything you've done" --
-
Not Synced
she never left Newington --
-
Not Synced
"Can you get your fingers close enough
-
Not Synced
when you consider the size
of the planet and so forth,
-
Not Synced
to measure anything I may have done
to anything you may have done?"
-
Not Synced
So ...
-
Not Synced
I am convinced we're all responsible
-
Not Synced
for doing as much
as I may have accomplished.
-
Not Synced
And I understand what you saying --
-
Not Synced
EH: It's an articulate deflection --
-
Not Synced
NL: But you have to think about the --
-
Not Synced
you have to really buy
into the size and scope
-
Not Synced
of the creator's enterprise, here.
-
Not Synced
EH: But here on this planet
you have really, really mattered.
-
Not Synced
NL: I'm a son of a gun.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
EH: So I have one more question for you.
-
Not Synced
How old do you feel?
-
Not Synced
NL: I am the peer
of whoever I'm talking to.
-
Not Synced
EH: Well I feel 93.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
NL: [We out of here?]
-
Not Synced
EH: Well I feel 93 years old,
-
Not Synced
but I hope to one day feel as young
as the person I'm sitting across from.
-
Not Synced
Ladies and gentleman,
-
Not Synced
the incomparable Norman Lear.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
NL: Thank you
-
Not Synced
(Applause)