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MH II is pop tragicomedy, Lear's real forte, in which one man's yuk can be another's yecch. In one recent episode, he decided to hold a funeral service in Mary's kitchen for a sports coach who had drowned in a bowl of chicken soup. "I just thought it was off-the-wall funny," says Lear. "When I told my wife Frances about the idea, she said, 'Norman, this time you've gone too far—even for you.' But it worked. It was funny." So funny that the New York Times's critic called it "ten minutes of the most hilarious TV that is likely to be seen this year." The scripts may be uneven, but the show boasts an infectiously loopy cast headed by the irresistibly dolorous Louise Lasser, whose Mary is a birdbrain worthy of Audubon, and Greg Mullavey as her flaccid husband Tom.
Stifled Wife. Lear's casting is always impeccable, but what makes the shows run—and run and run—is close-to-the-bone conflict that is stolen shamelessly from his own life. "I've always used material right out of my own life," he boasts. "Nowadays, if we're stuck in a scene, I just reach into my gut and extract something." Archie is based on Lear's Russian-Jewish father Herman, who really did tell his wife to "stifle." When Mary Hartman went to a psychiatrist, says the writer, "she told the same story I told my shrink." His daughter Maggie, 16, had problems with her boy friend; so they became an episode of One Day at a Time. Even Walter's 50th birthday on Maude was all in Lear's family. "My father had a thing," he recalls. "He'd pinch the skin on top of his hand, and when he'd let go and you could still see the impression, he'd say it was a sign of growing old. I did that on my 50th birthday, and so did Walter."
At 53, Lear is not about to quit, but he may ease his frenetic pace a bit. He certainly does not need his income from residuals. At the end of its 26-week run, MHII will go on vacation for 13 weeks before returning for a full 39-week season in the fall. Though the break goes against soap opera's nonstop tradition, Lear says simply that "we need rest time."
Besides, he has those two new shows to develop. One will star the redoubtable Nancy Walker as a Hollywood agent who suddenly has to face living full time with her husband of 29 years, a sailor who until now has been away from home for all but two months a year. The other, All's Fair, is about the May-December marriage of a 50-year-old newsman whose views are to the right of William Buckley and a 23-year-old professional sport photographer on the fringes of Jane Fonda; their spats will raise decibel levels on CBS in September.
Gut Guffaw. Both shows will probably roil anew the ulcers of network censors who still fight a Learguard action against TV fare that throws even a risible semblance of reality back at the viewer. That is what Lear's art is about, the guts of the guffaw. Nor will it change. As he puts it: "I consider myself a writer who loves to show real people in real conflict with all their fears, doubts, hopes and ambitions rubbing against their love for one another. I want my shows to be funny, outrageous and alive. So far, so good." And farther, and better.