Sally Struthers BlastsAll in the Family's Norman Lear, Says She Spent $40K Trying to Leave the Beloved Show

Mar. 15, 2025

Sally Struthers in 2018 (left); Norman Lear in 2019 (right).Photo:Maury Phillips/Getty; Amanda Edwards/Getty

Maury Phillips/Getty; Amanda Edwards/Getty

Sally Struthers is getting honest about her time on the seriesAll in the Familyandshowrunner Norman Lear. On the Jan. 13 episode ofLet’s Talk About That! With Larry Saperstein and Jacob Bellotti, the actress, 77, opened up about working with the acclaimed producer,who died in 2023 at age 101.

Struthers told the podcast hosts that she felt comfortable opening up about him now because “he’s gone.” She noted, “I wasn’t a huge fan of his.”

“All those years on the show, Norman and his wife would have dinner parties,” she said. They would invite the other stars of the show — Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton andRob Reiner— and their spouses often. Struthers revealed, “I wasn’t, in eight years, invited to his home. It didn’t feel good.”

From left: Norman Lear, Jean Stapleton and Sally Struthers in 1978.CBS via Getty

CBS via Getty

Struthers also shared an upsetting exchange she said she had with Lear during the show’s first season, when the series was first finding success. “He was on the sound stage watching us rehearse, and we were on a break,” she said.

“I said, ‘I can’t believe that we’re doing this and we’re about to hit number one on the air,’ ” she remembered. After noting how he “saw so many young ladies” for her role of Gloria — including Reiner’s then-wifePenny Marshall— she asked Lear, “Was I really the funniest one? And he said, ‘No.’ ”

Lear said that when they were casting the show, they thought it made more 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.” They could “soften him up” if he had a “soft spot in his heart for his daughter.”

She remembered that Lear told her, “So we hired you because just like Carroll O’Connor, you have blue eyes and a fat face.” Struthers said she didn’t know how to respond to that and walked away.

From left: Rob Reiner, Jean Stapleton, Carroll O’Connor and Sally Struthers in ‘All in the Family’ in 1976.CBS via Getty

Later in the episode, Struthers said that even though she won two Emmys for the series, she was “fourth banana” on the show after the other three leads. She said the show’s “older, brilliant Jewish faith writers” knew how to write for the other characters, but not for “a young lady.”

“I usually had about three lines per show that said, ‘I’ll help you set the table, Ma,' ‘Michael, where are you going?’ and ‘Oh, Daddy, stop it.’ And then the next week I’d have the three same lines in a different order. And if they literally didn’t know what to do with me in a scene, they’d have me go upstairs to take a bath or wash my hair. It was very frustrating.”

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Sally Struthers at the 2024 Emmy Awards.Monica Schipper/WireImage

Monica Schipper/WireImage

Despite her mixed feelings about the series, Struthers said that part of her longevity as an actress is because she was “lucky enough to be on a groundbreaking national television series.”She reunited with Reinerin early 2024 for a tribute to Lear and the series at the delayed 2023 Emmy Awards.

She joked, “Maybe because they love you or like you, but just as much because ‘Wait a minute, is she still alive? Let’s go see what she looks like now.’ ”

source: people.com