Sally Struthers is best known for playing Gloria Stivic on the 1970s sitcom All in the Family, but it almost didn’t happen. The actress who starred on the CBS comedy series alongside Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, and Rob Reiner from 1971 until 1978, revealed that she was nearly tied up with another show at the time, but was fired from it.
“I was hired onto The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and from that, I went onto The Tim Conway Comedy Hour,” Struthers, 78, told People magazine in an October 2025 interview.
“I was let go off of that because the producers in New York, the executives, said that I made the show look cheap,” she explained. “That was the writer’s desire because they wanted to make the show look like it had no budget. Instead of 12 June Taylor dancers, there was just me doing patterns on the floor with my arms and legs. I looked really stupid, intentionally. But they said, ‘No, you’ve got to let her go.’ Well, because I was let go, I was free to read for this show called All in the Family.”
Struthers appeared in seven episodes of The Tim Conway Comedy Hour in 1970, per IMDb, before being let go from the sketch variety series. The show marked her first national TV exposure as a regular cast member.
“I should have been on all 13 weeks of it, but after the fifth show, the executives said, ‘Get rid of that dancer girl. She makes the show look cheap!’” Struthers told Closer Weekly in 2021. “So I was let go.”
The actress admitted she was devastated because she was such a fan of the comedy legend. “I was distraught! I adored Tim Conway and wondered what would happen to me next,” she said. “But I went to read for this man nobody knew, [All in the Family creator] Norman Lear.”
