According to Norman Lear, the creator and producer of *All in the Family*, working with Carroll O’Connor was both a blessing and a challenge.
It was a blessing because Lear knew right away that O’Connor was the perfect actor for the role of Archie Bunker when he first auditioned. However, it became a challenge because, as Lear claimed, O’Connor made the weekly script review process “impossible.”
One particular script drove O’Connor to tears and nearly led to the show’s cancellation.
The episode that troubled O’Connor
In his 2014 memoir, *Even This I Get to Experience*, Norman Lear described O’Connor as a joy to watch, effortlessly becoming Archie Bunker. Unfortunately, he invested equal passion in critiquing the show’s scripts, taking issue with nearly all of them, according to Lear.
The script that brought O’Connor to tears and led to lawyers getting involved was “The Elevator Story.”
In the fourteenth episode of the second season, which aired in 1972, Archie finds himself stuck in an elevator with a “working-class Latin couple.” The wife is “extremely pregnant and nervous.”
The elevator also contains a “classy Black man” and an “emotionally fragile woman.”
Soon, the elevator gets stuck, causing the pregnant woman to go into labor, and everyone is trapped until help arrives.
O’Connor demanded legal action
When O’Connor first read the script at the cast’s table reading, which Lear described as “agonizing for Carroll,” the actor declared he would not perform the episode.
From a logistical standpoint, the New York-born actor argued that filming in an elevator with five actors was impractical. The story itself, Lear quoted O’Connor as saying, was “a joke! You can’t do that! A baby born on the floor of a goddamn elevator! What’s that all about? I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”
Eventually, O’Connor called for an emergency meeting with CBS executive Robert Wood and his attorney. “Carroll stated flatly that he thought this week’s script was repulsive and unplayable and that he would not do it.”
Lear, of course, disagreed, and the heated debate continued.
The show nearly came to an end
Lear reported that O’Connor eventually broke down in tears from frustration. “Carroll fell to pieces and began to cry,” Lear recounted. “He couldn’t go on, hated the show, couldn’t stand me, and cried to a point that made me realize this behavior had to end here.”
Lear proceeded to schedule the episode for filming, but O’Connor did not show up. “CBS formally advised Mr. O’Connor and his advisors that *All in the Family* would be canceled,” Lear wrote.
After further negotiations between O’Connor’s and the network’s lawyers, the show continued. Lear described the scene that had offended O’Connor: The couple gives birth in the elevator, and “Archie’s expressions mirror everything going on – and then, cutting through the commotion, from the center of all life, comes that first cry and Archie melts, simply melts at the wonder, the mystery and beauty of it all.”
“It was a watershed performance.”
