>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose."

>> carlos ghosn is here, chairman and ceo of the renault-nissan alliance represented one in 10 new cars sold worldwide. he's the only ceo to run two global fortune five hundred companies simultaneously. in 2013, he became chairman of the largest automaker and russia. he has led the charge into electric cars with the nissan leaf. i am pleased to have him back at the table almost five years to the day since he's previously been here. welcome back. let's talk about electric cars and the leaf. how much of a hold up is it in buyer except instead there are not enough predictable charging stations for people thinking about an electric car? >> the fact that there are not enough charging stations is the principle obstacle -- not the only one, but for people moving to buying a car. we have a lot of surveys in all

of the countries, not only the united states, that that's the main obstacle today. we are lobbying in every country to try to support the development of the charging infrastructure. it's the most sold electric car in the world and the alliance has sold 200,000 electric cars, but still a small quantity when you compare that to the 84 million sold every year. this is a very important step because we still see a big future for the electric cars. >> it is profitable, though. the leaf is a profitable car for you. >> it starts to be profitable. with the quantity we are now producing and after all the cost reduction we've been through the last few years, we have started to be profitable. that's why we think it's time to push. because when you start to be profitable, you are very

motivated to sell the car. >> how long do think it will take for there to be a wide acceptance of electric cars? >> it will be steady but not very quick. regulation will help a lot. as you probably know, the chinese are now putting very strict regulations on emissions. and they are moving towards emissions standards that are very strict, nearly as strict as the united states, and this will force car manufacturers to transform part of their offer to electric cars. today in china you cannot expand your plants because everything has to be authorized without proposing a new technology, a r the new electric car or plug-in hybrid. >> you cannot expand unless you agree to invest in new technology that has a positive impact on climate change. >> electric or plug-in hybrid. >> china is your biggest market.

>> it is our largest market. it is going to grow fantastically, is it not, if there is the continued rise of the middle class in china. >> it has grown fantastically. 20 million cars per year, the largest market in the world coming out from 2 million cars per year 10 years ago. it's been a fantastic ride and it still growing 7% for year. seven or 8% seems reasonable. that's 1.5 million additional cars per year every year. >> what's the best selling car in china? >> the bestsellers are a sedan, that looks like the altima, i'll say, but cars like the altima in the united states. >> when you look ahead, your goal is to become one of the big three carmakers. toyota, general motors, volkswagen. you want to replace one of them

and become third? >> we are number four today and we have a growth plan for the next few years that should position us, and function, everything we are forcing in the market. who are we going to replace? frankly, it is too early to say. we are not targeting any car manufacturer in general but just the growth taking place should position us. >> how do you do it? you are the chief executive officer for three different companies and they are in three different places -- moscow, paris, tokyo. how do you stay alive? [laughter] >> yeah, well i do. i spent most of my time between paris and tokyo. and from time to time i go to the southern part of russia. but i say obviously, it takes a lot of organization.

personal organization, team organization. i'm fortunate to be surrounded by very professional people who things easier for me to prepare. when you're traveling, every month i'm in paris and tokyo, people don't care if you are jetlagged or coming out of a plane. they see the ceo and they want him to be fresh and ready to make decisions. >> they want his ear, time with him. >> there is a lot of self organization. you plan ahead it for 15 months? >> i have a schedule that is planned. >> do you have a secret to jetlagged? >> no, i don't. the only secret is don't try to take anything. nature has to do its job. you can help nature by being , again, very frugal during your trips and trying to adapt to the new country where you will be staying the next one week or so. >> you are not a car guy by

training. you had michelin is where you spent 18 years or so and then came to renault. >> yes. >> alan mulally was not a car guy. he came to ford. everyone agrees he did a good job. mary, on the other hand, grew up at gm. some of the people at ford have been classic car guys, and gm as well. is all of this needed to be a good manager to run a car company? >> it depends on the situation in which the car company is. in some cases, people who have grown in the car industry would probably be better prepared to face the challenges at a certain point in time and from time to time, you need outsiders depending on the timing. you know, in the case of -- i think my case, in 1999, i arrived in japan and i had to face the turnaround of nissan.

the fact that i was not japanese, the fact that i was a recent convert to the car industry, helped me a lot. because i had no paradigms in line. people knew that i was not involved in the past of the industry so i engage in a lot of transformation without the prior baggage. >> you were doing things that went against the culture and the traditions in japan. you were firing people. you were shutting down nonproductive plants. >> i challenge the seniority system. but i always explained why i needed to do it. i was not doing it just with negligence. i was just saying we need to do that. >> or the company will not be profitable and we will shut everything down. >> exactly. and we explained why we were going to do it. we were very cautious every time to say we were not in the business of transformation. we are in the business of turning around the company.

and for this, we will make the minimum changes necessary, but we have to make them. >> it's a global business in every way. do you use the same kind of assembly lines for all the cars? >> we do. and, you know, we are introducing a lot of flexibility in our system. which means in the same plant you can do many cars and you can do cars totally different design and different sizes. this is due to the fact that the new manufacturing systems that we have in our own plants are very flexible. >> when you look at the future, how do you see the future of the automobile industry? what are the forces that are changing it? at first, itat, will continue to grow for the very simple reason that emerging markets are very low in terms of modernization. just to give you an idea, i will not give you a lot of numbers, in the united states, you have

practically one car per person and in europe, you have one car for two people and in most of the emerging markets you have one car for 10 people. so, this is not going to stay like this. we are moving to one car for every two or three people which means a lot of cars will be produced, particularly in the emerging markets. now, these cars are going to change because the main trend today are low in missions or -- low emissions or zero emissions. the second one is connected car. people do not accept being in a car and not having the same facilities as at office and at home. >> you want to have instant information. all the information you get through your computer. >> exactly. and autonomous car not meaning driver less but you decide to switch on or off. if you don't want to have your eyes on the road and you want to do something else, you switch to a system that will take control from you.

this is something extremely important in a lot of technology being put to find this. -- put behind this. i think the three trends low emission or zero emission, connected car, autonomous car, you can predict what's coming for the next five to 10 years. >> the connected car is easy to do with respect to lower emissions. there has to be a demand and therefore you have to do that. the third thing, though. the autonomous versus driverless, autonomous is easy to reach? >> it is. i think you will have a lot of autonomous cars by the year 2020. it will be building by bricks. togoing to have what amounts the first semi autonomous car in 2016, 28 teen, 2020. -- 2018, 2020. what do we mean? self parking. that is part of the autonomous car.

the fact the you were on the highway, the system allowing you to driving in relation to the car in front of you, keeping a certain distance. the car is going to keep in the same lane. all of those, we call them a technology will -- technological bricks. when you put them one after the other, you end up being able to completely detach your eyes and the road completely safely and do something else. a videoconference, something very useful while you are driving the car. >> that would be an operative by 2020. >> yeah. it will be an cars by 2020. by 2020.s >> why not driverless? >> you use a car to drive yourself. that's why people use a car. you transport your body and you want to do it in the most efficient way possible. driverless, you are not in the

car, so what's the point? if the purpose is to transport goods, it's not the car anymore. it's something different. for me, what is very important in the definition of autonomous transportation is the transportation of people in the most secure, efficient, pleasant way possible. >> so what do you say to people at google trying to create driverless cars? >> you are testing the technology, which is great, and we are working with them. but you are testing the technology in order to make the autonomous car as efficient as possible. there is a big question, charlie, and that is who's responsible when the car is without a driver. where's the liability? manufacturers will never take the risk to take the liability for a driverless car unless there is a legislative scenario that would protect them from any abuse. >> there's always the talk about disruptive technologies or disruptive forces. what could be disruptive in terms of the automobile future that you see?

>> well, i think you're going to see a lot of disruptive zero emission technology. today, electric car is the most popular, marketable. costs are going down and we are in a phase of making it more efficient but you have fuel cells coming, hydrogen, and that's another big technology. >> we are doing prototypes -- >> toyota is doing that. >> we are working on hydrogen as well as daimler. they have to develop the technology at the same time. you cannot just squeeze yourself in an electric car or only fuel cells because you don't know what are going to be the regulations in the countries where you are competing. i will give you an example. today in europe, 60% of the cars sold our diesel -- are

diesels. in the united states, less than 1%. same carmakers, same technology. the reasons you are 60% diesel in europe is legislation, driving people to buy this type of technology. and that is why you cannot just develop one or two technologies because it is not only based on consumer demand, it's also based on the legislator and what the government wants. >> you must also be doing something in attracting the talent you are because some of them are leaving you. to take jobs at other important places. somebody went -- one of your executives went to aston martin, a job i'd love to have. and other places to run their own show. so how do you deal with secession and how do you deal with executives who have trained under your bed are ready to do but are ready to do their own thing? is there a way you can find to keep them or is it inevitable

that they are good that they will be hired away? >> the car industry is very competitive and there is a war for talent. talent is not something only academic, it is also based on what you've done. when you do something that is remarkable in any field, competitors know about it. you become a little bit of an asset not only for your own company but you become an asset for your competitors particularly if they need at -- a specific skills to solve a problem or go after an opportunity. we hire people from competition. it's normal that competition from time to time hires people from our own executives. we tried to protect ourselves. -- we try to protect ourselves. there is no absolute bulletproof kind of system, so we have to admit the only way you can do it is to have a very solid succession plan by which every job, particularly the top jobs, you have a list of people who can replace the person who is leaving and move quickly. it does not mean you are trying to be a soft target, but at the same time, we are being

realistic that we will lose some of our talent as much as we will hire some of the existing talent from competitors. >> how hard is it to deal with different cultures in each of these countries? >> is difficult and complex, but at the same time, it's unavoidable. particularly car makers today are established on 50, 60, 70 countries where they have plants, technical centers, a big number of employees and you want all of them to be completely engaged in what they are doing. they cannot see that as being a second-tier citizen. they need to feel like they are part of the whole company and be able, depending on what they are bringing to the table, but we -- bringing to the table, to go to the top. that is what we are trying to bring to the culture. we deal with diversity because it is complicated to manage but

when you do it well you have much better engagement. >> when you took over, renault and then nissan came together because they both wanted your talent. it's not a merger. >> no. >> but more than a partnership? >> it's an alliance. a partnership. >> how does it work? >> we have two executive companies, two different boards, two different headquarters, one in paris and tokyo. >> one ceo. >> that was not always the case. we had a ceo for renault and nissan. it happened to the circumstances, that the because i was the ceo of nissan and the shareholders voted. i don't not think it something mandatory for the future. you can imagine a system where the two companies work together each one of them having their ceo. >> do they compete in the same market? >> yes. europe, for example.

>> here you are setting the direction for two companies who compete with each other. >> the opportunity comes from the fact that there is not a lot of cross shopping between the two brands. if someone wants to go buy a europe, he has citroen, fiat. rarely nissan, toyota, honda. from the other side, someone who has in mind nissan you have toyota, honda, hyundai. so the cross shopping is not there. so i do not think that any one of the two companies have felt obstruction coming from the other. >> as i mentioned, gm is having lots of problems with the recalls. how do you assess that? i mean, is it now that there is a notion that car companies not wanting a lot of problems so as soon as they see a small

problem -- and some of these have not been small problems because people have been killed, but they are quick to recall because they understand the bad publicity and secondly the danger if someone is risking their life. >> you are right on, charlie. that is the reason for which you will see more and more recalls and voluntary recalls. we will not wait for that because you just don't want to take the risk that any of these recalls back fire on your brand. it's too costly to have that problem. any alert, ceos are getting involved in asking very quickly and you will see more of that. >> what do you think of tesla? >> it's a great competitor. >> they've made the best effort to create a new company in a while. >> it is very courageous to try to do a car company these days when you have to compete against the titans but the most important thing is trying to develop with us the notion that zero emission cars can be fun,

can be exciting, can be attractive. that is why i do not consider him a competitor. he is more into the premium cars and we are much more into the mass market of electronic cars. we are pushing in the same direction making electric car normal, something attractive to people. >> what does the leaf sell for? what is the sticker price for the leaf? >> it depends on what state you are buying it. because every state has a different policy in terms of supporting the purchase. but i would say you can find the leaf as low as $28,000. >> the dealership community is very upset with elon because he wants people to buy cars online so they don't need a dealership. what are your thoughts on that? >> in our system, we need dealers, we need entrepreneurs

to relay they car manufacturers. obviously, we sell 8.3 million cars on a yearly basis. so i do not think we can do it directly to consumers. it's too complicated. >> is a complicated russian mark >> -- is it complicated? >> obviously. you're selling a .3 million cars on the board directly to a consumer is something in which no car manufacturer is ready and nobody's doing it. >> what happens when someone like amazon or alibaba says they will get into the car business? >> well, you know, welcome to the car business. >> it is hard to put together something online with you. they are simply a transactional purchase. >> buying a car at the same time a rational adventure and a very emotional one. i don't think you buy a car like you by something which is strictly useful. there is a kind of ceremony going on. >> and romance. >> people come with the family

and it's something which is very important. as long as you have this emotional buy, and rational, you'll need show rooms, dealers, you're going to need this connection, this continuous relationship. >> but hasn't the transaction changes? because people now, because of the internet they can walk in and they know a lot more about your cost structure than they've ever known before. and so you think you are bargaining their capacity to , bargain, if there is a possibility, is much better because they have so much more information at hand. >> it is very true that the consumer today is much better informed. because of the web and our own sites about the car. he has already made a decision. >> how much they can spend and why he can buy a nissan or renault. >> yeah. and what kind of car, engine, specifications, why he wants them. all of this is done.

but he needs to come to the show room first because nothing replaces the real object in front of you. nothing can replace a driving test. nothing replaces making sure you are going to have this relationship of trust with the dealer. at the end of the day, if something wrong happens with the car, it is the dealer that is going to be taking care of it. you need to feel comfortable with this relationship. yes, consumers today are much better informed, much more mature, but still they need touching the object, driving, and establishing this very important contact with the dealer. >> what's the fear? what's the great threat that worries you the most that you have to manage to avoid? >> i think we need to solve a -- of the concern which are a lot of the concern which are today around the car industry. the first one is a missions and -- is in emissions and that is

why we are introducing tech technologies that are a zero emissions, to cut down on that concern. you do not want the car industry to go at the same speed as which you're developing infrastructure. that is why the connected car is important because they will be able to talk to each other. it will have as an advantage you will be able to avoid traffic jams and congested roads because at a certain point in time the fastest way to get your destination. avoiding congestions through connectivity of the cars and emissions are the main concern. the car industry has been an industry that everyone considered as one of the top of the world. it fell a little bit from its distal because of emissions problems. so we need to establish it to its pedestals through low

emissions, connectivity. >> you provide the engines now for red bull. >> with renault. yeah. >> why don't you have a formula one nissan car? mercedes does. >> we used to have. when you have your own team and you are developing an engine you are selling to other people, it puts you in an awkward position we felt uncomfortable with it. we have our own team or we just position ourselves to be an engine provider for many teams. so we decided to go for the second option and today we are supplying the engines for many teams. weibo bull has been, for the the five years, -- read bowl has been, for the last five years, world champion and we are very proud to contribute. it's a competition. you cannot guarantee you will be champion forever. >> didn't you like the ego value of having your own team? [laughter] >> you overcome that. >> thank you, carlos.

great to have you again. >> thank you. ♪ >> norman lear is here. he was called the original pugnacious show runner. he is responsible for groundbreaking sitcoms like "all in the family," "the jeffersons," and "mod." -- maude." his new book is called "even this i get to experience." i'm pleased to have norman lear back at the table. welcome. >> he is pleased to be here. >> i hope so. why did it take you so long to write this? >> it only took me 87 years. [laughter] i had nothing else to do. i wanted to write it 20 years before i actually wrote it, made notes, have people saving scripts and going through correspondence. and i had a pile of stuff when i finally started five years ago.

it took me about four and a half years. >> you said the reflection on your life for this book made you realize how hard it had been to be a human being. >> i bet you've noticed. the circumstances of birth can vary and some have it so hard. i don't mean to compare myself to people across the globe, but just being a human being is no matter the circumstance. >> you had it hard because your dad went to prison and your mom turned you over to relatives. >> my father went to prison for three years when i was nine years old. i lived with one uncle then another. i lived with my grandparents. i saw my mother very infrequently in the years that my father was away. >> why was that? >> i used to say to her through the years as a grown man, "where were you?"

"why didn't i see you? " she said i was here. what do you mean i wasn't? mother, i have no memory of you. "please." that was the end of the discussion. >> did she lived to see you successful as you were? with the enormous success that you had? >> she did but she never really acknowledged that i had gotten past 11 or 12 years of age. she never addressed my mature years. she did not talk about them. she didn't -- i was just the best son that ever was but every anecdote she had to tell was about norman falling down the stairs to get a laugh when he was a kid. >> being an outsider makes you want to get a laugh, doesn't it? >> i was living with an uncle i thought i had to perform for and another i thought i had to perform four and take care of his kids and getting a laugh was the best way to feel

comfortable. >> why show business? >> why show business? >> yeah. >> i had one uncle -- i was a kid during the depression. an uncle jack used to flick me a quarter. he was a press agent. i wanted to be an uncle who could flick a quarter. >> how did you get started? >> i went to california -- i was a press agent in new york. want to know how i got fired? >> yes. >> i got fired because i was making $35 per week and we had a show called "are you with it?" which was a review. one of the acts in that review was buster shaver and his midgets. the lead midget was named olive. and a columnist by the illgallen in "the

new york journal american" that buster shaver and olive were seen shopping fifth avenue, he on foot and she on a saint bernard. someone must have said, dorothy, what on earth are you doing with items like this? she called my boss and i was canned. >> she got you fired. >> i came to california to become a press agent again and i ran into ed simmons. who wanted to become a comedy writer. we both had babies. we went to the movies and he was writing a parody to a song. called "the sheik of arabi." we wrote it together. when the girls came home from the movies, we went out and sold it for $35 and that was half of what i made selling door to door. >> there was a film you had just done that was a success when you first got the opportunity to create a sitcom at cbs.

what was that? >> that was interesting. i was being divorced. i was writing with ed simmons "the martha ray show." and a fellow by the name of phil came to visit us and he was being divorced. he had four children and i had one. i asked him how things were going. i was having a difficult time. all she wants are my joan davis reruns. he was settling for the reruns of a show he had created and i -- created, "the jones-drew the an davis show," and i said i had to do a sitcom. because it was owning something. >> everybody knows this because of the publicist he bill cosby got for it, jerry seinfeld got for it. you create a television show that you own, the network broadcasts it. they pay for it but the real

payoff becomes when it goes off the network and you can syndicate. >> i was just smart enough to know i needed a business partner. and so bud and i found a guy fellow by the name of jerry who was a great, great man. he became my business partner and he made it a business. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 shows on the air. i would not know how to make it a business. he did that. of theou have any sense dollar value of revenue for all of those shows you created? in syndication? >> we sold those shows to coca-cola company a great many years ago. and the title of this book derives from the fact that despite taking down a whole bunch of money, i went into

business for myself without that business partner and made the mistake of doing things the wrong way because i was not a businessman. almost went broke. i got a phone call when we learned about this from my son in law who asked me how i was feeling. i feel terrible. what are you talking about? i feel awful. but you know, john, something keeps running through my head . even this i get to experience. that's where the title of the book comes from. >> the fact that it came out of something not very happy. >> "even this i get to experience." >> there is a wonderful line you have about happiness. it is pursued along the lines of excellence. what is that? >> it is aristotle's definition of happiness. happiness is the exercise of your vital abilities along lines

of excellence and a life that affords it scope. >> have you had that? are you a happy man according to aristotle? >> according to aristotle and according to norman lear. >> so "all in the family." you and carol connors had an interesting relationship. >> we did. >> were you writing about -- who were you writing about? who did you have in mind when you created the character of archie bunker? >> an amalgam of people i had known and heard about and the people we lived with and a piece of my father. my father called me the laziest white kid he ever met. became famous in "all in the family." >> i used to scold him for putting down a race of people. he said, "you are also the dumbest white kid i've ever met." that part was homegrown but the rest of it is just what i felt,

red, saw among family and neighbors and so forth. >> you said carol connor helped he -- gave ithat a lot, that he helped enhance archie bunker in any measurable way. >> i cannot begin to tell you the personality i had in mind because it depended so on the character who would perform it. carol o'connor walked into the room, sat down and read five sentences and that's the guy. i wrote the words and he inhabited the character. >> take a look there. here's a clip from "all in the archie asked sammy davis junior in question. >> they always tell me i'm prejudiced. listen. you're a guy who's been around a lot. you've seen a lot of people. you look at me. do you figure me for a prejudiced guy? >> don't tell me you are really paying attention to those young kids. what do they know? i mean, you prejudiced?

if you are prejudiced, if i commend your house you would have called me a [bleep]. you didn't say that. i urge you, clear as a bell, right straight out you said "colored." >> that's what i done, all right. >> if you were prejudiced, you would, like some people close , your eyes to what's going on in this great country we live in. but not you. your eyes are wide open. you can tell the difference between black and white. and i have a deep-rooted feeling that you will always be able to tell the difference between black and white. and if you are prejudiced you would walk around feeling that you're better than anyone else in the world. but i can honestly say, having a spent these marvelous moments with you, i can tell you you ain't better than anybody. [applause] >> can i have your hand on that, sir? and i hope you's all heard that over there. that came from sammy davis

junior, mr. wonderful himself. that should prove to you once and for all that i'm not prejudiced. on♪ his truth goes marching ♪ >> you see that? you can't learn them nothing. i let them ride in. >> i'm sorry it took so long. but i bumped into buddy and naturally had to go back and get my -- mr. davis, an unexpected pleasure. can i get a picture? >> no pictures. >> this one is for me. would you stand over here. i want one photo taken with my friend archie bunker and me. on three. 1, 2, 3. [laughter] >> you still love it, don't you? it is the lines and the delivery.

>> i saw something here that i had not really seen before. if i did, i totally forgotten it. and it's the way the man said "colored" has as much weight as [bleep] if archie just said it. and does racism exist in america in 2015 to the extent that piece mattered? yes. >> what was it about you in terms of you wanted to do? you wanted to use comedy to have an impact on big social issues that were part of the american conversation. >> well, comedy is -- this is all reflection. it sounds like i knew what the hell i was doing at the time. i didn't. i was just, you know, working from the viscera. but looking back on it, comedy is intravenous.

can' flip all kinds of thinking while people are laughing. it's like an intravenous. i denied for years that we had a message. we were about making an audience laugh. and i say today, too, that was the first rule. >> jerry seinfeld used to say that seinfeld was about nothing, but you were about something. >> they were about something, too, human behaviors. but we were about those happening in our culture that was happening in our culture that affected us. our relationships, our politics. it was hard. if it was hard to be a single human being and was hard to be five of them. -- it was hard to be five of them.

>> did you fight? >> carroll o'connor and i disagreed about a great many things. >> like what? because he became so identified with that role. >> yes, and he was carrying a heavy burden. that was a big burden to be carrying. i think it started there. and he has a fear i'd seen a lot of actors about stepping out in front of an audience and representing something, anything, whatever that happens to be for millions of people. that's heavy stuff. -- heady stuff. and he was an irish intellectual. i mean seriously intellectual. he thought things had to go a certain way. i don't think he understood the way we did. we, meaning the writers, understood comedy the way we did. so we would have arguments. >> i want to talk about sherman helmsley. take a look at this link between carol o'connor and george

jefferson. between archie bunker and george jefferson. >> hello, mr. jefferson. >> hey, jefferson. listen. the formal invitation you sent, by your wife i think it was very , white of you. [laughter] >> that's exactly the way i felt when i did it, too. >> george, why don't you take archie over to the bar and offer a drink? >> hey, jefferson. i saw you hosing down her porch yesterday. >> when am i going to see you hosing down yours? [laughter] >> get the manager eight. >> what will it be? >> any particular brand? >> the expensive brand. [laughter] >> what about you? >> scotch and soda. >> hey, hey, jefferson, here is a switch for you. this guy giving you the big "yes sir."

i'm used to having it the other way around. >> oh yeah? how many servants do you have in that mansion you are living in? >> what you mean by that? >> let me tell you something about people. the bartenders willing to work for me because if you have enough green in your pocket, then black becomes his favorite color. >> sherman helmsley. >> i did not have george jefferson for, i don't know, months and in order to have a male adult next door introduced the character of a brother in law or an uncle, an actor who came down from san francisco to play the role, until i or my casting director, we remembered his performance in the show and "pearly," and as soon as

i remembered sherman helmsley, he was george jefferson. the fact that he was smaller than archie, that he was a little bantam of a guy, that was miraculous chemistry. >> take a look at this. this is another scene from "maude," another spinoff from "all in the family." "all in the family" was the mother -- don't say it. -- >> don't say it. >> here it is. >> you know, i've been thinking of. there is no earthly reason for you to go through with this at your age. you know it. i know it. walter knows it. >> i did not say anything, but now that you mention it, it's legal in new york. >> of course it is, walter. mother i don't understand your , hesitancy. when they made it a law, you were for it. >> of course. i wasn't pregnant then. >> it's ridiculous. my saying is to you we are free. we finally have the right to decide what mccann do with our

-- what to do with our own body. >> all right. will you please get yours into the kitchen? >> you are just scared. you are. it's as simple as going to the dentist. >> now i'm scared. [laughter] >> mother, listen to me. it's a simple operation now. but when you're growing up it was illegal. and it was dangerous and it was sinister. and you've never gotten over that. now you tell me that's not true. >> it's not true. and you are right. i've never gotten over it. >> it's not your fault. >> when you were young, abortion was a dirty word. it's not anymore. now you think about that. >> you have said -- what? >> just that you let it run for so long. it is so tender and so right. it's just, thank you for letting

it run. >> you have said you see more of yourself in maude than any other character. she was a reflexive liberal. i am a reflexive liberal. you know, i don't know as much as i wish i did. i don't know certainly as much at this age as much as some people think i know. at 88, even 89, once i hit 90, i could get applause crossing a room. and i'm thought to be so wise at 92. and i'm the same guy i was at 75. i am reflexively full of emotion, i know a great deal about a lot of ends, but i am -- lot of things, but i am not anybody's wise man or expert. >> but because you are norman lear they put that into their perception of you.

>> yes. >> and because he created people for the american way and he was a voice for liberals. best for liberalism. -- for liberalism. >> and he turned 90. something happens then with other people. >> what would you change about the life that norman lear has lived so far? >> now this is going to sound -- you are not concerned about diabetes or anything because this could be very treacle-y. >> no. [laughter] >> i would not change a thing because i believe if this moment is right, and i love this moment , then everything that led up to it just had to be. it just had to be. >> i agree with that. you had to go through all the things you went through in order to be where you are today. so to say i wish i had not been that way would be to deny who you are. >> absolutely.

>> you created a show called "aka pablo." we thought you had the golden touch, that you could do no wrong. but you created a show about a hispanic man that did not work. >> i told the network that we were living the american immigrant experience. when the jews came year, when the irish came here, when the italians came here. they lived up the street, down the street. from each other. they were gathered in the place. at that time, the only fresh immigrant experience worthy latinos who are living at the street. i told them there were going to be 17 characters and it was going to take time to get used to them. there were some wonderful actors. if they had let more than six shows go -- we only needed six shows.

if they had let 16 shows or 32 shows, that's what's happening with all the shows that are succeeding in the non-networks today. >> they have time to develop it. >> they have time to develop it. >> same is true with "60 minutes." they had time to develop it putting it on sunday evening at the time it did. there was time to develop and build an audience. it is like movies. if you don't make it on friday night, you don't make it. >> and the networks are the same way. they don't get it. i've been trying for three years to get a show about your maybetion and mine, and one below yours. people in retirement, a lovely retirement village where they run from 60-105. >> and that age group has huge spending power. don't they? >> they have the most expendable income and they are the largest growing demographic.

and it is still 18-39. ask me the title of the show. >> what's the title of the show? >> "guess who died?" [laughter] >> there is also this. you are a groundbreaker in terms of the television you created one time after another. i mean is that because there was , something in you or simply because that is where you found the humor? in cutting-edge social issues? >> i really think it's because that's where i found the humor. my father goes to prison and i'm about to go live with people who are practically strangers. and somebody puts their hand on my shoulder and says, you are the man of the house now -- let me word that. if you know that's funny, then there is something to work with. >> hard to write this? >> extremely. >> why? .

because i wanted to get close to it. i say in the dedication i wanted to open my veins. i wanted to tell the truth as i saw it. some of it i had to find and dig for. >> bill martin said many have known the man behind the stories. now all of us can know the stories behind the man. archie, gloria, and meathead could not have told them better. your friend, carl reiner. norman lear could not have written a more funny and telling role of his life than he did here. and even this i get to experience. president clinton said norman lear can find humans's darkest moments, no surprise. it's the reason he's been so successful in his more than nine decades on earth and why americans have relied on his wit and wisdom for more than six of these decades and why "even this i get to experience" is such a great deal. thank you, norman. >> i can listen to your read that all day. thank you, charlie. >> i should mention your son-in-law, john, is a colleague

of ours at cbs. >> one of the great things, he's the guy that called me and is responsible for that title. he called me to find out and the next morning he called me and he said you have to promise me. you said you wanted to be cremated. you have to promise we can bury you because i want to take your children someday, your grandchildren, my children, to a stone that says "even this i get to experience." >> thank you, norman. ♪

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