good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with a true broadcast legend, norman here. it is only a handful of folk who can be said to have fundamentally changed television. and in doing so influenced american culture. norman here certainly one of that handful. his groundbreaking series, "all in the family," "maude," "good time times," "the jeffersons," "mary hartman, mary hartman," addressed issues social and political in a way that hasd never been done. he's here, a conversation with norman here coming up right now. ♪

♪ and boy contributiy contribr pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ at their peak, some 120 million people viewed norman he here's' series such as "all in the family," "maude," and "the jeffersons." he ms. written a text called, "even this i get to experience,"

focusing on his upbringing during the depression, experiences in world war ii, and dedication to so many progressive causes. how else could we start without looking at something you've done, so much of it brilliant. a clip from, say, "all in the family." >> mr. davis, this is an unexpected place -- >> thank you very much. >> can i get a picture -- >> come on, no pictures! >> no, this is for me. mr. munsen, would you stand over there? i want one taken with my friend, archie bunker, and me. on three, okay? one, two, three -- [ laughter ] >> you just whispered that was sammy's idea? >> the kiss was sammy's idea. the kiss -- i want to point out one thing. >> uh-huh? >> only with a live audience can

that happen because you saw o'connor as stock still as could be riding the emotions of 250 live people laughing at that moment. >> uh-huh. >> i can't get over it every time i see it. >> yeah. i assume that there must be in your head whenever you think about these series with all that you've done clips, moments that kind of stand out for you. >> yes -- >> is that one on your mental -- >> absolutely. >> yeah? >> absolutely. >> yeah? every time i see -- and i've been blessed to see you here and there over the years -- >> i feel the same way. >> thank you. every time i see you, i always ask, where's the book? where's the book? >> for a long time. >> for a long time i've been asking the question. you finally got it done. >> i finally got the it done. it's about six weeks ago. on the 14th, it hit the -- >> "new york times" best sellers -- >> not yet. we hope. >> it's on the way. i'm declaring that already. >> okay. how about guaranteeinging it?

>> yeah. i can guarantee it. i think after this show, done. [ laughter ] >> does the fact that it took a while just speak to the fact that you were so busy as you always are, or was there some reluctance, some hesitancy about doing this that made it take so long? i don't know. if there was some reluctance, it was denial. if you're denying, you don't know so i don't know. but -- >> what could you be in denial about, you? >> i wanted to -- i say in the dedication, open my veins. i really wanted to be truthful about my life. there a lot we don't know about ourselves. >> uh-huh. >> and the first thing i learned was if i really worked at it is how hard it is to be a human being. whatever the circumstance of one's birth. and some people obviously have it a great deal harder than i

had it. but i had it hard. i think this one way or another most human beings do. and it ae's getting there that hard. >> since i'm here thankfully and talking blessedly to norman h e lear, what made it so hard for you to be a human being? >> the circumstances of my childhood. you know, if you had the opportunity to crack the book, my father went to prison when i was 9 years old. my mother took off with my sister. i was left to this uncle, that uncle. i wound up blessedly with my grandparents. but it was a rough three years. i lived with that and the results of that. you know, all my life. and i -- i am enjoying my success and my age, and whatever

passes from my influence and so forth. if i'm not enjoying it for the first time in my life, i'm certainly enjoying it -- and i may be. i'm enjoying it as i could not have imagined. >> uh-huh. >> you know, i love coming here. i love knowing you're going ask me questions about the book. i'm having the best -- the best time -- i always enjoyed working. i loved the shows i was doing. and i loved the people i was working with. but somehow going through it, i didn't have it in context. and i was little 9-year-old boy who father went to prison, some of the time i was pretending to be an adult. some of the times i was an adult and didn't realize it. >> i'm wondering how you just

th -- juxtaposed these moments. in your career, at one particular point, you made bad investments. you're on the verge of losing everything including your house. >> yeah. >> thankfully you survived that moment. >> it resulted in the title of the book. precisely. "even this i get to experience," hence the title. but had that gone the other way, had you lost everything and just, you know -- how would you have juxtaposed starting with nothing, getting everything, and losing everythinging? >> well, in my case -- i used to say when the network threatened, you know, that it was over if i didn't accept their decision to cut this, that, or the other thing, i used to say to my attorney -- i said, can they take my children? can they take my wife? they can't take your children, they can't take -- i said, back

up the truck. there was -- >> i love that, back up the truck. >> back up the truck. and it wasn't so brave because i really felt i -- hand me a pencil, i'll write it down. and at the very beginning of it all with "all in the family, "i had made a film. united artists loved it. i had a three-picture deal that i had to turn down in order to take a clan with "all in -- take a chance with "all in the family." i led a lucky, blessed life. blessed life. >> yeah. so if at the that moment you had lost everything, you would have just picked up a pen skpcil ande back to doing what you do? >> i think so -- i don't know. let's try it. >> no. not at 92. i don't want you to -- i don't want you starting all over again. but if there's anybody i would not bet again starting over at 92, it would be you. i would not bet again you. >> thank you.

>> what's fascinating for me -- and there's so much about your life that i didn't know, i'm glad you did this. what's fascinating is that this isn't even what you wanted to do. you're -- i thought of this reading your book. sometime in life, the universe, god, depending what one believes in, has more in store for us than we even have in store for ourselves, in mind for ourselves. you just wanted to be a press agent. i mean, think about that. i just wanted to be somebody's press agent. and all of this happens. >> all of that happen -- i'm struck by something you said. i think you used the word conspires or something, and i use it in another context. swoedle said it -- somebody else said it, i don't remember who. at the moment of commitment, the entire universe conspires to assure your success. >> that's right. >> love that. love that. sometimes we fool ourselves. we think we're committed, and we're not. when we're committed, we bump

into somebody, read something in the paper or the next morning, at the moment of commitment, universe conspires to assure your success. absolutely a fact. >> what made you so committed so early on to being -- >> what i was committed to? i was a kid of the depression. and the elderly jews, my grandmother's generation, used to talk about -- because there were so few -- so and so is a good provider. he had a family. everybody else of out of work. people were in deep trouble. he was a good provider -- the accent. he was a good provider. all i cared about of being a good provider. i had an uncle jack who was a publicist, used to flick me a quarter when he'd see me. nobody else did that.

everybody else went belly up. that was my role model. i wanted to be able to flick a quarter to a nephew -- you could only do that if you're a good provider. that's all i cared about being. >> is that where the idea of being a press agent comes from? >> yes, yeah. that was my role model. i came to california to did that. >> yeah. where does the commitment and the bravery -- my word, not yours -- bravery come in to be part of the curve and talking about race and class and gender and -- what did that commitment from from? >> i swear to you and the -- god -- i do not think of it as brave. didn't feel brave. i did what i -- i wanted to make people love. i guess i understood from my own life that the more people cared, the more they would love.

as a grown-up with kids -- his another child -- i'm a sawyer man. so i dealt with the subject we were all dealing with. it didn't seem that -- not bravery at all. these are the -- this is the life we were living, you know. four or five years into the shows, i taught fthought for th first time, wait a second, they don't want me delivering a message. if you got a message, that's -- i thought for the first time, wait a minute, we had "beverly hillbilly" and "green acres," and they were fine. the biggest problem anybody had in those shows was some being the boss coming to dinner and the roast is ruined. they were saying america doesn't have racial problems. america doesn't have economic problems. there's no such thing as cancer or abortion or any of the subjects we dealt with.

of that not a message? wall to wall, floor to ceiling. what i we -- what we did i thought of as dealing with problems. this of a giant collaboration. i did none of this alone. >> sure, sure. >> we all brought our problems to the table. >> sometimes, norman lear, i love your modesty. sometimes the truth ain't so easy to tell. sometime the truth is too subversive. and if your shows did nothing else, they found a way to make us laugh around truth. that's not easy even today, 2014. that's not easy to do. >> no. i mean, that's -- this a gift of seeing the world through the telescope, through the end of the -- the len of the telescope that find the foolish not in the human condition -- finds the foolishness in the human condition. every moment there is humor.

and treading that line, you know, between humor and -- and sadness. >> what gave you the confidence to believe that you and your team could make that serious stuff funny? >> the american people gave us the confidence because within weeks, there they were. right away, the first show when cbs on "all in the familiy " " "expected a great reaction and hired telephone operators around the country. there were a relative handful of calls. you know, but -- somebody once said nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the american people. i think they had it all wrong. we may not be the best educated. this citizenry is wise of heart. and that's all it took to accept what we were doing. >> uh-huh.

>> i mentioned at the top of this conversation your commitment -- that's who you are, i think that's your essence. your commitment to so many progressive causes. so it's one thing to put your neck out and, you know, have to threaten to back the truck up because of your artistic genius. it's another thing, though, to put yourself out politically for real world issues that might cost you work in a particular sector. why do that? >> you know, again, it's simple. >> it ain't that -- i keep laughing, you're making me laugh. it ain't that simple. if it were that simple, everybody would be doing it. >> i want to state -- it's not -- >> yeah? >> i'm going to insist it's simple if one sees it this way. >> uh-huh. >> fairness to me is a simple matter. what is fair? i think i was about thata as a

kid. it wasn't fair for me to find out from father coughlin, a priest broadcasting out of new jersey, hatred for jewish people, racial epithets, hated fdr, hated the new deal and so forth. wasn't easy -- it wasn't hard to understand by the time i was 11 that this of unfair. you can't say to a child that happened to be born a certain way, you know, whether the kid is black or jewish or an indian, you know, trapped in -- you know, in the country that was his, fair is fair. it seems so simple. and that's the way i viewed it. the same thing with the arguments with the network. it seems like a giant war, but each time it was over some simple thing which if we gave in -- and often we didn't give in but it got bitter as a result of the confrontation -- but if we

gave in on some small matter, we'd be giving it constantly, and we wouldn't have the show we wanted. so i don't know -- it seems like a lot of skirmishes that takes on the send of such a giant -- that's the way i feel about fairness. people for the american way basically -- i like the title again, the american way, is -- >> i take that part about it's simple if you see the world through the lens. so many people don't. i take your point. you write about many of these, but to my read, i didn't know -- i didn't note at least that there was one that stood out from all the others. let me ask whether or not there is even to this day one of those skirmishes, as you put it, one of those fights that you had to have that still gets your goat all these years later, that you even had to argue about that? that you had to have that fight. is there one that -- a particular one that just to this day just still --

>> well, there was on "one day at a time," which of the first show about a woman who had been divorced and had two kids. there were no divorcees before "one day at a time." and the very first show, mackenzie phillips talked about mooning somebody. now she just used the expression. had to come out. it was the first show, she was a teenager. couldn't say to her mother she was mooning. we could live without that. that wouldn't have been a difficulty. but i know you lose this, norman, you're going to lose 1,000 little battles following. and it's silly. it's just silly. so we had by then, we had "all in the family," "good times," "the jeffersons," "maude," they were all on the air. i didn't have to worry about this being picked up. i was going to hawaii with my family the next day, as it

happen, after this pilot. the networks didn't want me to make the show with the line in it. and i said, i am making the show with the line in it, and if you take it out -- and they said they would -- the next day i left for hawaii and took the tapes home with me that night. i left them in my garage. three days later they wanted to the show. the tapes were in my garage. i said, "if you pay for it, it's your show. otherwise it's my jm9w÷show. " they paid for it. i made so much more in the retelling than it was, but to me it was a simple little battle. i of in good shape. i didn't -- i was in good shamp i didn't have to worry. >> what did you learn, what have you taken away from the battles that you've had to fight and how you go about choosinging the -- choosing the one that are worth fighting for? what's advice about choosing your battles carefully?

my grandfather would say, there's some fights this ain't worth fighting even if you win. there are other fights that you have to fight even if you lose. that was his advice to me. what have you learned from the battles in your own life that you've had to -- >> i guess i've learned that it's a lot easier to go with one's conviction. whatever the sbatd at the moment, go with your conviction. there are fewer regrets. fewer disappointments that way. in every direction, in every direction. >> yeah. >> shakespeare said it, to thine own self be true. >> i see so many folk that come through over the years who have become so proficient and are so gifted in a particular arena or area. i sometimes wonder if there are

other areas that they wish they had more time to get really good at the. anybody, all kinds of people, do you -- are there any regrets that you have about spending so much time in the lane of television and film that you never got around as yet in these 92 years to working on something else? doing something les? >> no. and for this reason -- only for this reason -- i believe if i'm happy at the this moment, things are going well, and i'm happy at the this moment, it took everything i've been through to get here. and there's no point in regret at all. i think people can live with regret if they're miserable. why did this happen, that happen. but if you have a -- whatever living moments you're feeling good, it did take everything in the world to bend through to get to that. that's the way i feel about my life. there were a lot of thing that

went wrong and didn't work out right and everything else, but i'm here. >> yeah. i said in the introduction to this conversation, norman lear, that there are so few people, so few people who the following can be said of, that he or she changed television as we know it. you are one of the few people that that can be said about. is that a compliment, or did i just dis you? norman lear, you pushed the envelope so much that now everything know it practically. is there a compliment, or did i just insult you? >> i choose to take it as a compliment. >> uh-huh. >> i wouldn't hear that any other way. >> there's a lot of stuff on tv now. >> yeah. we all walk in our career on their shoulders of other people. >> right. >> so which doesn't mean this person's career is -- didn't

take it in a direction i wouldn't have taken it. we all got here on somebody will's shoulders. >> yeah. it's impossible for me to sit here at this moment on the occasion of it book finally being publish -- of this book finally being published, "even this i get to experience," and ask what you hope your legacy is or will be. >> since this book and all of the interviews, i find myself talking about, you know, scraping the barrel of my own experience and when i came to -- it all amounts to i think helping people understand whoever they are, they matter. that we all matter. if there's somebody who matters

to one person, one child, to one cause, to -- given the size of the creators' enterprise, this being among the billion in the universe among billions, you can't get your fingers close enough between how much any two humans that ever existed between how much they matter. take your smile to the next person. take your hug to the next person. take your doctorate the to the next world of people. and you can't get your finger close enough to measure the difference in how much good you're doing. >> i love norman lear. now like many of you, i suspect, i'm delighted he's gotten around -- >> i love you,b1 also. let me be on record with that. >> yeah. i appreciate that. it feels good to be loved by you, norman lear. >> good. >> the book is called "even this i get to experience," from norman lear. he's one of a kind.

one of a kind. i adore him and am so proud to have him on this program. congratulations, my friend. i apologize to the audience, there's so much in this book -- he's led such a full life. there's so much i couldn't get to. you have to read it for your. a lot of great photos in the book. one of my favorite is first white hat. he was wearing hats a long time. the first in the book. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching. as always, keep the faith. ♪ for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with prolific biographer and writer david rich, about his home and respect the life of aretha franklin. that's next time. see you then. ♪

and by characteristontributr pbs station by viewers like you. thank you.

>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with a conversation with amy poehler. >> my approach to the book was really less that is my life and more this is how i'm feeling and thinking. >> rose: this is my experience. >> this is my experience so far, yes. and it's kind of a compendium of essays and stories and personal stories and lists and lots of jokes hopefully. and my goal really was to be funny and truthful. >> we have atul gawande on his book being mortal, medicine and what matters in the end. >> i'm writing about things that confuse me like why are the healthcare costs the way they are. what is itching or in this case why even in my own limitations are we miss managing them towards the end and what coud