Sally Struthers blasts All in the Family creator Norman Lear: Wasnt a huge fan of his

Not a loving family.Sally Struthers wanted to quit “All in the Family” — and blames its creator, the late Norman Lear.The actress, 77, opened up about being on the sitcom from 1971 to 1979 and working with the showrunner, who died in 2023 at age 101. Struthers said on the Monday episode of the “Let’s Talk About That! With Larry Saperstein and Jacob Bellotti” podcast that she finally felt comfortable opening up about him because “he’s gone.” As she put it: “I wasn’t a huge fan of his.” “All those years on the show, Norman and his wife would have dinner parties,” recalled Struthers.The couple would invite the other stars of the show, including Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton and Rob Reiner, and their spouses over.

Struther, however, revealed, “I wasn’t, in eight years, invited to his home.It didn’t feel good.”Struthers also shared a conversation she had with Lear during the series’ first season.“He was on the sound stage watching us rehearse, and we were on a break,” she told the hosts.

“I said, ‘I can’t believe that we’re doing this and we’re about to hit No.1 on the air.’”After noting how Lear “saw so many young ladies” for her role of Gloria, including Reiner’s then-wife Penny Marshall, Struthers asked Lear, “’Was I really the funniest one?'” to which he replied, ‘No.’” Lear admitted that when casting the show, the team thought it made sense to have Gloria be a daddy’s girl because O’Connor’s Archie Bunker “was a lot to swallow for American audiences with his bigotry and his social sluts.” The way to “soften him up” was to give him a“soft spot in his heart for his daughter.”“So we hired you because just like Carroll O’Connor, you have blue eyes and a fat face,” Struthers recalled Lear telling her.

The comedic star said she didn’t know how to respond so she walked away.Despite winning two Emmys for the series, Struthers described herself as the “fourth b...