While Norman Lear is often heralded as the great mind behind All in the Family, and while that’s mostly true, it’s important to remember that the true lasting merit of All in the Family was a culmination of the efforts of both cast and crew. From the set dressers to producers to background actors, it may seem strange to say that All in the Family was a labor of love. But it was certainly a labor of care and dedication.
Lear was the first to recognize those efforts, especially from the cast members. In a Hollywood Reporter article, Lear celebrated Jean Stapleton’s portrayal of Edith Bunker and even credited Stapleton with an integral piece of her character: Her voice.
“Edith’s voice was something she came up with entirely on her own,” Lear wrote in the Hollywood Reporter. Lear also explained that Stapleton and Edith were similar in the most important ways.
“Jean Stapleton was the Edith of All in the Family in the sense that she was clearly pure and good,” he wrote. “You could count on Jean to be in the role every split second she was working. When we were doing the show, she was amenable to trying anything and everything.”
It was an appreciation that Lear was more than willing to extend to the entire cast of All in the Family.
“All those characters were a combination of the script and the actors,” he wrote. “I’ll take pride in having cast the show, but what was written grew better by what they put into it. In whatever way they interacted — either Archie with Edith or Archie with Mike — in every direction there was magic.”
