Man who served Greenfield’s ‘Cold Turkey’ dies at 101

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Norman Lear, the writer, director and producer who revolutionized prime time television with “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” “Maude” and a movie filmed in Adair County, propelling political and social turmoil into the once-insulated world of TV sitcoms, has died. He was 101.

Lear died Tuesday night in his sleep, surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said Lara Bergthold, a spokesperson for his family.

A liberal activist with an eye for mainstream entertainment, Lear fashioned bold and controversial comedies that were embraced by viewers who had to watch the evening news to find out what was going on in the world. His shows helped define prime time comedy in the 1970s, launched the careers of Rob Reiner and Valerie Bertinelli and made middle-aged superstars of Carroll O’Connor, Bea Arthur and Redd Foxx.

In 1969, Lear brought “Cold Turkey” to Adair County for filming. The film turned Greenfield into the fictitious Eagle Rock, Iowa, which was offered $25 million by the fictitious Valiant Tobacco Company if its residents could stop smoking for one month. The movie starred Dick Van Dyke as the Rev. Clayton Brooks who encouraged his congregation and town residents to take up the challenge. Brooks also had to fight his challenges to stop smoking, too.

Many Adair County residents were used as extras throughout the film.

“I wasn’t close to Lear as such. I was in the neighborhood,” said Jaye Howe, 83, of Greenfield about his involvement in the movie.

“I had a speaking part, just one day, got paid $120. The reason is if you had a speaking part you got union scale pay. If not, you got $15 like everyone else.” Howe portrayed a TV news reporter working in Eagle Rock.

Howe said Greenfield was chosen by the film crews for its appearance on screen.

“They flew over the Midwest looking for a good backdrop,” Howe said. “We had the opera house and courthouse. Lear and his assistants who picked Greenfield quintessential-like small town.” Both buildings are seen in the movie.

Howe said he was under the impression Greenfield and its residents were just thrilled to be chosen as the set.

“I think we enjoyed the spotlight. We look forward to the assets of our community shown to the world. We were all thinking with Lear and his fame it would be a fairly good mainstream movie. It wasn’t like the ‘10 Commandments’ or anything like that. It was a decent portrayal of Iowa in a way,” Howe said.

Greenfield relived those moments with an 30th anniversary reunion Sept. 25, 1999. A committee of Greenfield-area residents organized a daylong event that included appearances by Lear, Van Dyke and others in the movie like Tom Poston, Graham Jarvis, and Jean Stapleton. Bob Newhart, who also had a part in “Cold Turkey,” did not attend.

The church used for Van Dyke’s character was the former Orient United Methodist building. It burned in December 1981.

Creston’s Carla Jensen graduated high school in 1969 and was part of the church’s actual choir that was in the movie. She said the church was chosen because its sanctuary was ideal for showing people in a church witho

ut having an obstructed view for the cameras.

“We met Lear and he was very personable,” she said. “He made me feel at ease. We shot the scene and the next day I came back with different looking hair. He said we have to shoot the choir scene again, but I came back later with the hair I had the first time.” Jensen said she remembered all the filming at the church took about a week.

“Orient was very excited for the experience,” she said.

She also met Van Dyke.

Jensen said a cousin of her’s who was stationed in California in the military showed the rest of his troops “Cold Turkey” emphasizing the Orient church and choir. The movie was released in 1971.

“It still comes up every so often,” Jensen said about the movie. “A few years ago my niece said she and her boyfriend watched it.”

Portions of “Cold Turkey” were also filmed in Winterset.

Lear “took television away from dopey wives and dumb fathers, from the pimps, hookers, hustlers, private eyes, junkies, cowboys and rustlers that constituted television chaos, and in their place he put the American people,” the late Paddy Chayefsky, a leading writer of television’s early “golden age,” once said.

Tributes poured in after his death: “I loved Norman Lear with all my heart. He was my second father. Sending my love to Lyn and the whole Lear family,” Reiner wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “More than anyone before him, Norman used situation comedy to shine a light on prejudice, intolerance, and inequality. He created families that mirrored ours,” Jimmy Kimmel said.

“All in the Family” was immersed in the headlines of the day, while also drawing upon Lear’s childhood memories of his tempestuous father. Racism, feminism, and the Vietnam War were flashpoints as blue collar conservative Archie Bunker, played by O’Connor, clashed with liberal son-in-law Mike Stivic (Reiner). Jean Stapleton co-starred as Archie’s befuddled but good-hearted wife, Edith, and Sally Struthers played the Bunkers’ daughter, Gloria, who defended her husband in arguments with Archie.

Lear’s work transformed television at a time when old-fashioned programs such as “Here’s Lucy,” “Ironside” and “Gunsmoke” still dominated. CBS, Lear’s primary network, would soon enact its “rural purge” and cancel such standbys as “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Green Acres.” The groundbreaking sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” about a single career woman in Minneapolis, debuted on CBS in September 1970, just months before “All in the Family” started.

But ABC passed on “All in the Family” twice and CBS ran a disclaimer when it finally aired the show: “The program you are about to see is ‘All in the Family.’ It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show, in a mature fashion, just how absurd they are.”

By the end of 1971, “All In the Family” was No. 1 in the ratings and Archie Bunker was a pop culture fixture, with President Richard Nixon among his fans. Some of his putdowns became catchphrases. He called his son-in-law “Meathead” and his wife “Dingbat,” and would snap at anyone who dared occupy his faded orange-yellow wing chair. It was the centerpiece of the Bunkers’ rowhouse in Queens, and eventually went on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Even the show’s opening segment was innovative: Instead of an off-screen theme song, Archie and Edith are seated at the piano in their living room, belting out a nostalgic number, “Those Were the Days,” with Edith screeching off-key and Archie crooning such lines as “Didn’t need no welfare state” and “Girls were girls and men were men.”

“All in the Family,” based on the British sitcom, “Til Death Us Do Part,” was the No. 1-rated series for an unprecedented five years in a row and earned four Emmy Awards as best comedy series, finally eclipsed by five-time winner “Frasier” in 1998.

In 1984, he was lauded as the “innovative writer who brought realism to television” when he became one of the first seven people inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame. He later received a National Medal of Arts and was honored at the Kennedy Center. In 2020, he won an Emmy as executive producer of " Live In Front of a Studio Audience: ‘All In the Family’ and ‘Good Times’.’”

Lear beat the tough TV odds to an astounding degree: At least one of his shows placed in prime-time’s top 10 for 11 consecutive years (1971-82).

Creston News Advertiser contributed to this story