TV Outside The
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS 209 Lear notes that “It’s taken me a lifetime to repeat this, but I think Paddy Chayefsky had it right when he said of me”: ‘Norman Lear took the television away from dopey wives and dumb fathers, from the 1 pimps, hookers, hustlers, private eyes, junkies, cowboys and rustlers that constituted television chaos and, in their place, put the American people. He took the audience and put them on the set.’ “My view is that we made comedy safeTHE for reality. FALL That reality included black people.” So how did a white, wealthy, Jewish, college drop-out, Air Force vet, writer/producer originally from Connecticut manage to captureon the voicesNetflix of people of color so well? Lear gives full credit to Good Times’ African-American co-creators Eric Monte and Mike Evans, along with other writers and cast members. But heAllan also sums Cubitt: up his understanding of people, regardless of color, by pointing to the bumper sticker on the back of his car. It reads, “Just another versionCreator/Executive of you.” Producer/Writer/Director/Showrunner BritishI interviewedwriter Allan Norman Cubitt Lear has in long his spacious been writingoffce in compellingBeverly Hills. Thedrama. lobby There is decorated was Prime with Suspect II, whichearly Americanwas BAFTA crafts, Nominated in a red, white, for and Best blue colorDrama scheme, Serial along and with won a framed the copyEmmy of the Award for Declaration of Independence. Inside his private offce are framed photos of Lear with Outstanding Mini Series (1993). He went on to write The Hanging Gale, which was also BAFTA dignitaries, celebrities, friends and family.
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