Norman Lear - Even This I Got To Experience

 

Thank you. When I was a little kid, I wondered if I could get my fingers in my father's head and twist a little screw a 16th of an inch in one direction or another, he might tell right from wrong, because he never did. I was nine-years-old, and there was a-- It was summer. I was going to summer camp for the first time. I couldn't have been more excited. There was a little roll of tape cloth that said Norman M. Lear, Norman M. Lear, Norman M. Lear that my mother was going to sew into the clothes I would be taking to camp. It just couldn't have been the more exciting moment. 

 

And also, my father was going off to Oklahoma. He was flying to Oklahoma with some men that my mother said, “I don't like those men, Herman. I don't want you messing with those men.” But Herman knew everything. He used to tell me, “I've been everywhere where the grass grows green, Norman, and I know everything.” Man, he actually said that. [audience laughter] And he was off. 

 

He was arrested when he came back. It turned out he had been trying to sell or these men my mother didn't care for had caused them to try to sell some fake bonds from a Boston brokerage company. He was arrested when he got off the plane. That night or the next night, the morning paper had a picture of my father holding a hat in front of his face manacled to a detective coming out of the courthouse. The paper was lying around that night all over the place. 

 

My mother had a house full of people, because she had decided she couldn't live in-- This was Chelsea, Massachusetts. She couldn't live there in that kind of shame. So, she was leaving. As it turned out, I didn't know that she was going to take my sister. I had one three years younger sister. She was going to take my sister and disappear. I was going to go to one uncle, and another uncle, and another uncle and wind up eventually with my grandparents in New Haven, Connecticut. 

 

It was an awful scene. The house was crowded. My mother was selling the furniture. And especially when she started to sell my father's red leather chair-- My father had a red leather chair that he used to control the Atwater Kent radio. It was why we needed a floor model radio, I'll never know, [audience laughter] but we had a floor model radio. He used to sit in his red leather chair, control that dial when we listened to Jack Benny and Fred Allen and all the radio shows at the time. This, of course, was before television. 

 

As my mother was selling this red leather chair, the guy who seemed to be purchasing it put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Well, you're the man of the house now.” I think that was the moment that I learned the foolishness of the human condition. This [beep] [audience laughter] is looking at a nine-year-old kid under these circumstances puts his hand on his shoulder and says, “Well, you're the man of the house now.” I know that that was the moment I began to absorb the foolishness of the human condition. It never left me. 

 

I saw it when I went to this uncle and that uncle, and they had no understanding at all of what I was going through. What I was going through was a piece of what I've used all my life in my work, that aloneness. I believe we are all alone in this world, whatever our situations are, whatever our families are, we are still each of us alone in the world. And that served me well in the writing of everything I did from that point on. 

 

Along the way before All in the family, I made a film in Greenfield, Iowa called Cold Turkey. It was about a city that was committed where the minister got the city to agree all of the smokers to stop smoking for 30 days. So, they all took a pledge to stop smoking for 30 days. And the film was about what the media around the country made of a town that said they were going to get give up smoking. I couldn't be more proud of anything I've ever done than that film, which had a lot to say about media and America. 

 

In the course of the film, I had a little girl in a montage where she was perhaps on the screen for three seconds. She was crossing the street, and a mother-- Traffic monitor was screaming at her. It was an illustration of bad behavior of the city, of all the smokers who had given up smoking the morning following their pledge. The little girl's name was Amy. She was on the screen for two and a half, three seconds. 

 

25 years later, the town of Greenfield, Iowa invited me to come back with as many of the players as I could bring. They wanted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Cold Turkey in Greenfield, Iowa. Dick Van Dyke starred in the film, he came back with me. Pippa Scott came back with me. Tom Poston, for those who remember, Tom Poston. Bob Newhart was in the film. And Edith Bunker, Jean Stapleton was in the film. As I said before, All in the Family, they all came back, and we had the most incredible weekend in Greenfield, Iowa. 

 

I knew that those people would be telling time by the year that the summer of the film was made there. “Oh, Gert, she got married in. No, no, that was two years before Greenfield. No, no, that was before Cold Turkey,” when Cold Turkey she had already-- And indeed, that's the way it was in that community. We had a whale of a time. In the course of that, the little girl that was on the screen, her name was Amy, for about three seconds, got a hold of me and threw her arms around me and told me that my decision to use her in that little role was just the most important thing in her life. She spent a couple of minutes talking to me about how important that was to her. I appreciated it as much as I could and hugged her and we kissed. 

 

And now, take a long dissolve. I've done All in the Family and all the shows, The Jeffersons and Good Times, all the shows that followed from there. It's a great many years later. I've written a book. This was just last year. Even this I get to experience, which is true of this moment for me. Even this with all of you, I get to experience. Took me 93 years to get here to this moment. [audience applause] 

 

But in the course of running around the country talking about the book, I get a call. Greenfield, Iowa would like me to come back. They want to celebrate. I agreed to go back there, because I'm selling the book. I'm thrilled to be going back to Iowa. Nobody else was available to go back with me. A lot of them had passed on. I went back alone. It was a great evening. The governor introduced me. There must have been 300 people at dinner in this big ballroom. They had named theater the Marquis. Next door to the ballroom was the Norman Lear Theater. 

 

The moment of moments was Amy, who was now 51, threw her arms around me and said, “You know, Mr. Lear, I was 31, 20 years ago, when you came back to Greenfield. I told you what that meant to me. You were very nice about it. We hugged and you kissed me.” And she said, “But you didn't get it and you're going to get it now.” [audience laughter] I couldn't imagine where the hell she was going with this. [audience laughter] 

 

 She said, “I read your book.” She said, “When you were in your 10th summer, you were in Woodstock, Connecticut. Your father was in prison. Your mother and your sister had disappeared. You were in the only cottage the whole family, all the relatives could afford, and it was crowded with families and kids, but you were altogether alone and nobody understood the pain you were in. You couldn't describe the pain in your book, it was so strong.” 

 

She said, “But you had a gray and blue sweatshirt, and you used to put that on in the late afternoon. And in that sweatshirt, you felt stronger, and taller, and tougher, and wiser, smarter. You used to walk down Savin Rock to a place called Sloppy Joes. And among strangers at Sloppy Joes, in your gray and blue sweatshirt, you were more comfortable, more at home, more yourself. You felt better than you did with your family back in the cottage.” She said, “Well, you wear my blue and gray sweatshirt.” I wept and she wept. When I walked away from Amy now, as I said 51, I walked away feeling like I was still wearing my blue and gray sweatshirt. Thank you.