Hollywood Legend Norman Lear to be honoured with an Oscar Wilde Award

The US-Ireland Alliance will be naming Norman Lear as an honourary Irishman and present him the Oscar Wilde Award at the 15th annual pre-Academy Awards celebration next month.

Norman Lear is the television producer of such groundbreaking sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Maude. He has received five Emmy awards, the Peabody, Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts, and was a 2017 Kennedy Center Honoree.

At 97, Norman Lear has no plans to retire. His production banner, Act III, has a first look deal with Sony Pictures Television. He serves as executive producer to the critically acclaimed reimagining of One Day At A Time, recently resurrected for a fourth season by PopTV and CBS after a three season run on Netflix. He also executive produces and co-hosts with Jimmy Kimmel, LIVE In Front of a Studio Audience..., which set record ratings for ABC and won an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special, as well as a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Comedy Special.

Trina Vargo, founder and president of the US-Ireland Alliance noted that, “as our non-profit organization is all about shedding old stereotypes and being inclusive, I was particularly struck by Mr. Lear’s refusal to make his most famous character, Archie Bunker, Irish. Bunker was portrayed by Irish-American actor, Carroll O’Connor. In his autobiography, Mr. Lear writes that he was advised by many to go with O’Carroll’s look, and to make Archie Irish and Catholic. But Mr. Lear wrote that he, ‘refused to pin the bigot in Archie on any specific ethnicity or religion, so we never went there.’ Mr. Lear was ahead of his time then, and worth heeding today.”

Previously honoured as “honourary Irish” were James L. Brooks, Paul Rudd, James Corden, Michelle Williams, Zachary Quinto and Glenn Close.