Norman Lear may have passed away in December 2023 at 101 years old, but his legacy lives on through the shows the Emmy-winning icon created, like All in the Family, Maude and The Jeffersons.
Over the weekend, a group of celebrities gathered in Los Angeles to stage live readings of episodes from two of his most famous shows.
Hollywood, Health & Society, a program from USC Annenberg's Norman Lear Center, gathered King of the Hill and Better Things veteran Pamela Adlon, Law & Order: SVU's Danny Pino, Psyche's Dulé Hill and more to bring the episodes of Lear's groundbreaking Maude and Good Times from the small screen to the live stage.
Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal joined Adlon and Pino — along with Entourage alumna Constance Zimmer and Timeless' Abigail Spencer — for the reading of the heralded Maude episode "Maude's Dilemma," which centered on abortion.
Hill joined Hello, Tomorrow's Haneefah Wood; Chicago Fire's Daniel Kyri; Clean Slate's D.K. Uzoukwu; The Good Doctor veteran Bria Samoné Henderson; and Ms. Marvel's Travina Springer for Good Times' season 2 episode "The I.Q. Test."
The performances were followed by panel discussions about the shows' "still-timely themes of abortion access and systemic racism, and the impact of Lear's brave TV storytelling," according to the organization.
Incidentally, Lear's words also took center stage onstage on ABC starting in 2019, with a trio of Jimmy Kimmel-produced Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials. The three shows saw celebs including Woody Harrelson, Jamie Foxx, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart and Jennifer Aniston in a series of live performances of All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life.