Norman Lear, who revolutionized American comedy with such daring, immensely popular early-‘70s sitcoms as “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son,” died on Tuesday. He was 101.
Lear’s publicist confirmed to Variety that he died at his home in Los Angeles of natural causes. A private service for immediate family will be held in the coming days. 
“Thank you for the moving outpouring of love and support in honor of our wonderful husband, father, and grandfather,” Lear’s family said in a statement. “Norman lived a life of creativity, tenacity, and empathy. He deeply loved our country and spent a lifetime helping to preserve its founding ideals of justice and equality for all. Knowing and loving him has been the greatest of gifts. We ask for your understanding as we mourn privately in celebration of this remarkable human being.”
"Those shows took on issues that couldn't be resolved," Hunt says. "They were issues that were at the heart of inequality and struggle in American society. He tackled everything from homophobia, sexism, racism, you name it."
Archie Bunker is reminiscent of Lear's own father, Edith was based on his mother, Jeanette, and America knew Lear's ex-wife Frances as the character Maude.
Lear grew up in a Jewish family in Connecticut. "I was a kid of the Depression," Lear told NPR in 2012. "I saw my father's brothers go belly up. My father was always belly up. It's very difficult for me to call my father what he was, so I use 'rascal.' He served time. He was in trouble a lot with the law. ... But I can't overstate how much I loved him. You hear me talk about him lightly because I cannot make him a villain. I loved him."
Lear made over TV in his own image. What appealed to him about Til Death, and what he replicated in All in the Family’s battles between Archie and Meathead, was the similarity to Lear’s arguments with his own father. Sanford and Son had a similar father-son dynamic. In Maude, the main character embodies both the blowhard parent and the liberal child. In The Jeffersons and Good Times, the families happen to be black, but the angry father is still there.
Declare Yourself, a nonpartisan non-profit organization to encourage the youth vote.
He is survived by his third wife Lyn Davis, six children and four grandchildren.
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