Norman Lear, seen above in documentary NORMAN LEAR: ANOTHER VERSION OF YOU, will be at the Greene Space on December 17 to discuss his life and career
Who: Norman Lear, Susan Fales-Hill, Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
What: Conversation with Norman Lear
When: Saturday, December 17, $25, 6:00
Where: The Greene Space at WNYC, 44 Charlton St. at Varick St.
Why: “In my ninety-plus years I’ve lived a multitude of lives,” Norman Lear writes in his new memoir, Even This I Get to Experience. “I had a front-row seat at the birth of television; wrote, produced, created, or developed more than a hundred shows; had nine on the air at the same time; finished one season with three of the top four and another with five of the top nine; hosted Saturday Night Live; wrote, directed, produced, executive-produced, or financed more than a dozen major films; before normalization, led an entourage of Hollywood writers and producers on a three-week tour of China; founded several cause-oriented national organizations, including the 300,000-member liberal advocacy group People for the American Way; was told by the New York Times that I changed the face of television; was labeled the ‘No. 1 enemy of the American family’ by Jerry Falwell; was warned by Pat Robertson that my arms were ‘too short to box with God’; made it onto Richard Nixon’s ‘Enemies List’; was presented with the National Medal of the Arts by President Clinton; purchased an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and toured it for ten years in all fifty states; was ranked by Entertainment Weekly fortieth among the ‘100 Greatest Entertainers of the Century’ (twenty-nine places ahead of the Sex Pistols); ran the Olympic torch in the 2002 Winter Olympics; blew a fortune in a series of bad investments in failing businesses; and reached a point where I was informed we might even have to sell our home.” That’s quite a legacy for the ninety-four-year-old New Haven native, built around such innovative television programs as All in the Family, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, Maude, Fernwood 2Night, One Day at a Time, and Marry Hartman, Mary Hartman but one that goes much further than that. On December 17, Lear will sit down with author and television writer Susan Fales-Hill (Always Wear Joy, A Different World) for the next installment of her “Icons & Innovators” series at the Greene Space for a conversation exploring Lear’s extensive life and career. They will be joined by filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, 12th & Delaware), directors of the recently released documentary Norman Lear: Another Version of You, which opened the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. It should be a fascinating, wide-ranging talk, especially given the political situation in the country today.