Jean Stapleton, known to a generation of Americans as Edith Bunker (from All in the Family) has passed away. Norman Lear, the creator of the show, wrote the following tribute to her in the Huffington Post...
This will be short and sweet. Never as sweet as I'd wish it to be if I took a month to write it. I only just learned that Jean Stapleton, our beloved Edith -- or Edith, our beloved Jean Stapleton -- has passed.
Back in 1971, possibly the first time I was asked by a journalist "What is Jean Stapleton like?", my reflexive response was: "She's always where she is." I was surprised by my answer; I'd never had the thought before and never knew it resided within me. Can I reach deeply enough inside me now to express how much that, the idea and Jean Stapleton herself, has meant to me?
I was at my computer when her glorious children, John and Pam, phoned me, and I told them I was working on my memoir, and reflecting on the time I was a gone-to-work father to my personal family on Mooncrest Drive while also fathering Archie and Edith and three other families on CBS. And I added -- so, at 90, here still is Jean Stapleton, "always where she is," helping me to see my own frailties and humanity yet again. No one gave more profound "How to be a Human Being" lessons than Jean Stapleton. Goodbye, Edith darling.
My family never missed an episode of "All in the Family" and my mom laughed every single time Edith butchered the high note in the theme song...
