When Caroll O’Conor started on All in the Family, he was only 49 years old. A coworker told me that, and I didn’t believe it until I googled it. It shows how different middle aged people looked 50 years ago then they do now. The way he and Edith dressed were not at all anything like how a 49 year old would dress now. They really looked like old people. Edith did a pretty good New York accent. When I was little, I used to imitate her “Archie, Archie” and the teens in the neighborhood used to think it was very funny when I’d do that.
Archie Bunker was so much of a primitive type of thinker, it was a description of someone, “Archie Bunker-ish.” Times were changing and Archie’s way of thinking was the old way, and his son in law Mike was the new way of thinking (although I think now with Trump, many are showing they embrace the Archie Bunker attitudes toward race and other things).
On the news today, (NYC news), the anchor people were saying they didn’t realize that All in the Family took place in Queens (part of N YC). They showed the house at the beginning of the show. Many parts of Queens still look the same way today.
When I was little, I went with my mother to tour Universal Studios, California. (this was probably 1975). We saw Redd Foxx’s car, a red convertible hot rod. I have a photo of it somewhere. We saw Demond Wilson (who played Fred Sanford’s son) in the hallway at Universal, and he winked at my mother. My mom was about 32 at the time. Demond Wilson was good looking.
Another little fact, George Jefferson’s neighbor, played by Roxy Roker, was (is) Lenny Kravitz’ mother.
Really, Norman Lear’s shows were so much a part of my early life.