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Archie Bunker
Bunker holding his grandson, Joey Stivic, 1975
First appearance	"Meet the Bunkers" (All in the Family)
Last appearance	"I'm Torn Here" (Archie Bunker's Place)
Created by	Norman Lear Based on a character created by Johnny Speight
Portrayed by	Carroll O'Connor
Information
Occupation	Blue-collar worker (loading dock foreman, janitor, and taxi driver) Bar Owner (1977-)
Family	David Bunker (father) Sarah Bunker, née Longstreet (mother) Michael Stivic (son-in-law) Joey Stivic (grandson) Alfred "Fred" Bunker (brother) Philip Bunker (brother) Alma Bunker (sister) Linda Bunker (niece) Barbara Lee "Billie" Bunker (niece) Katherine Bunker (sister-in-law) Oscar (cousin) Maude Findlay {Cousin-in-law}
Spouse(s)	Edith Baines Bunker (1948-1980, her death[1])
Children	Gloria Bunker Stivic (daughter)

Archibald "Archie" Bunker is a fictional New Yorker in the 1970s top-rated American television sitcom All in the Family and its spin-off Archie Bunker's Place, played to acclaim by Carroll O'Connor. Bunker is a veteran of World War II, reactionary, conservative, blue-collar worker, and family man. The Bunker character was first seen by the American public when All in the Family premiered on January 12, 1971. In 1979, the show was retooled and renamed Archie Bunker’s Place, finally going off the air in 1983. Bunker lived at the fictional address of 704 Hauser Street in the borough of Queens in New York City. TV Guide named Archie the greatest television character of all time.

When first introduced on All in the Family in 1971, Archie was the head of a family consisting of his wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), his adult daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers), and his liberal son-in-law, college student Michael "Mike" Stivic (Rob Reiner), (with whom Archie disagreed on virtually everything; he frequently characterized Mike as a "dumb Polack", and usually addressed him as "Meathead" because, in Archie's words, he was "dead from the neck up"). During the show's first five seasons, Mike and Gloria were living with Archie and Edith, so that Mike could put himself through college. (They later moved to their own home, though it turned out to be next door, allowing Archie and Mike to interact nearly as much as they had when they were living in the same house.)

All in the Family got many of its laughs by playing on Archie's bigotry, although the dynamic tension between Archie and liberal Mike provided an ongoing political and social sounding board for a variety of topics.

The inspiration for Archie Bunker was Alf Garnett, the character from the BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part, on which All in the Family was based. Archie, in turn, was an inspiration for Eric Cartman^[2] of South Park.

In 1999 TV Guide ranked him number 5 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list.^[3]

In 2005, Archie Bunker was listed as number 1 on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters,^[4] defeating runners-up such as Ralph Kramden, Lucy Ricardo, Arthur Fonzarelli, and Homer Simpson.

Archie Bunker's own ethnicity is never explicitly stated, other than the fact that he is a WASP. (Archie's character voice was created by a mix of accents Carroll O'Connor heard while studying acting in New York City.^{[citation needed]}) Although an Anglo-Saxon ancestry might suggest he is of English origin, Archie mocks the British and refers to England as a "fag country," because of their English accents. He also refers to Germans as "Krauts", the Irish as "Micks", the Japanese as "Japs", the Italians as "Dagos", the Chinese as "Chinks", Polish persons as "Polacks" and Hispanics or Latinos as "Spics." He often uses the word "colored" in reference to African-Americans.

Archie appears in all but seven episodes of the series (three were missed because of a contractual dispute between Carroll O'Connor and Norman Lear in Season 5).

Character traits[link]

Archie was born on May 20, 1924^[5] and he celebrated his 50th birthday in 1974. He could not face that fact; he escaped the celebration to go to a movie theater, which was showing Last Tango in Paris.^[6] He was still alive on April 4, 1983.^[7]

Archie was a complex character. Along with his overt bigotry and ignorance - he has a paranoid fear of Black Power, Communists, and the Mafia - he was also portrayed as hardworking, a loving father and husband, basically decent and, rather than being motivated by genuine malice, was merely a product of the era and working-class environment in which he had been raised. In the episode "Archie and the KKK," for example, Archie is invited to join a secret club - the Kweens Kouncil of Krusaders - which turns out to be a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. In spite of his inherent discomfort around ethnic minorities and his non-politically correct views, Archie responds with strong revulsion at the group's methods, and attempts to thwart a cross burning. As the years went on Archie mellowed somewhat, growing more accepting of people different from himself, albeit partially out of necessity. For example, in 1978, the character became the guardian of Edith's step-cousin Floyds nine-year old daughter, Stephanie (Danielle Brisebois), and when it was revealed that Stephanie was Jewish (episode 197), Archie accepted her faith, even buying her a Star of David necklace. When his friend Stretch Cunningham died, Archie was surprised to learn - when asked to speak at the funeral - that his friend was Jewish. Archie overcame his initial discomfort and delivered a moving eulogy, closing with a heartfelt "Shalom." He was also highly critical of Gloria in a late episode when she revealed that she was carrying on an adulterous affair with a neighbor.

Archie was bad-tempered and frequently told Edith to "Stifle" and "Dummy up". Series creator Norman Lear admitted that this is how his father treated Lear's mother.^[8]

During the series' run, it would be revealed by Edith (to Gloria) that, while Archie disagreed with his son-in-law's political views, his resentment of Michael Stivic stemmed primarily from the fact that Mike was attending college and had many opportunities to chart his own successful future, while Archie had been forced to drop out of high school during the Great Depression to help support his family. {Archie doesn't take advantage of the GI Bill to finish his education-although he does attend Night school to get a High School diploma in 1973.} Archie is also revealed to have been an outstanding baseball player in his youth; his dream was to pitch for the New York Yankees. He had to give up this dream when he left high school to enter the workforce-his uncle got him a job on a loading dock after World War II-by the 1970s he was a foreman. The episode "Everybody Tells the Truth" showed clearly that neither Archie nor Mike was above twisting the truth to make minorities into stereotypes. Edith exposes both Archie's and Mike's prejudices – yet neither Archie nor Mike will admit the truth.

While locked in the storeroom of Archie's Place with Mike in the episode "Two's a Crowd", Archie confides (after getting drunk) that as a child, his family was desperately poor and that he was teased in school for coming to class wearing one shoe and one boot, since his family could not afford to buy him proper footwear. ("They called me Shoe-Bootie.") In the same episode, Mike learns that Archie was mentally abused by, and also learned his bigoted views from, his father. Yet Archie then goes on to vehemently defend his father, who he claims loved him and taught him "right from wrong."

Archie was a World War II veteran who had been based in Foggia, Italy for twenty-two months. During a visit with a doctor it is stated that he had an undistinguished military record for his non-combat ground role in the Air Corps, which at the time was a branch subordinate to the Army Air Forces. Archie often insisted that he was a member of the Air Corps. He received the Good Conduct Medal^[9] and in the episode "Archie's Civil Rights" it is disclosed he also received the Purple Heart for being hit in his buttocks by shrapnel.

Despite claiming to have strong Christian views, he very seldom went to church. The original pilot mentions that in the 22 years Archie and Edith were married, Archie had only attended church seven times (including their wedding day), and that Archie had walked out of the sermon the most recent time, disgusted with the preacher's message. In one episode, Archie decides to become a regular worshiper at his church, only to try to back out of a volunteering assignment when it conflicts with an NFL football game he has tickets for. (He faked an injury, but by episode's end, he legitimately hurt himself.) Edith also revealed that Archie once had a terrible gambling addiction, once coming home after gambling his entire paycheck and their car. Edith threatened to leave him and take Gloria over it, which led Archie to apologize to Edith and — for the most part — quit gambling. He also thinks of himself as a pool shark hustler until he traps himself into playing a game with pool champion Irene Lorenzo.

Despite having an adversarial relationship with his black neighbors, the Jeffersons, especially patriarch George Jefferson and his brother Henry, he formed an unlikely friendship with George's young son, Lionel, who picked up and dropped off the Bunkers' dry-cleaning, and fixed various electronics for them. Archie's intentions were good, viewing it as "taking him under his wing", but he would usually end up unintentionally insulting Lionel by patronizing him. Lionel, in turn, would mockingly humor Archie by acting on outdated stereotypes of his race (most of which Archie did not recognize as mockery). However, Archie still was fond of Lionel, even happy to attend his engagement party.

Archie was a Republican.^[10]

Viewer reactions[link]

Such was the name recognition and societal influence of the Bunker character that by 1972 commentators were discussing the "Archie Bunker vote" (i.e., the voting bloc comprising urban, white, working-class men) in that year's presidential election; in the same year, there was a parody election campaign, complete with T-shirts, campaign buttons, and bumper stickers, advocating "Archie Bunker for President." In the show, Archie strongly supported Pres. Richard M. Nixon, of whom he often spoke very highly, incorrectly calling him "Richard E. Nixon." However, Archie was not a consistent voter. A poll worker, unable to find Archie's name on the voter register, asks when he last voted. Archie replies he last voted for Nixon. However, Edith reminds him that was when Nixon ran against Kennedy in 1960. He was also an early supporter of Ronald Reagan, writing him in on the ballot for the 1976 election, and threatening Mike that "he'll have Reagan in '80," predicting his win in 1980. The character's imprint on American culture is such that Archie Bunker's name was still being used in the media in 2008, to describe a certain group of voters who voted in that year's U.S. presidential election.^[11][12]

The term "Archie Bunker-ism," or just "Archie-ism," was also coined during the show's run to refer to the many malapropisms, such as "groin-acologist" for "gynecologist," that Bunker used on the series.

Norman Lear originally intended that Bunker be strongly disliked by audiences. Lear was shocked when Bunker quietly became a beloved figure to much of middle America. Lear thought that Bunker's opinions on race, sex, marriage, and religion were so wrong as to represent a parody of right wing bigotry. Sammy Davis, Jr., who was both black and Jewish, genuinely liked the character. He felt that Bunker's "bigotry" was based on his rough, working-class life experiences, and that Bunker was honest and forthright in his opinions, showing an openness to changing his views if an individual treated him right. Davis in fact appeared on All in the Family to tell the Bunker character this.

Archie's racism had strongly subsided by the time Archie Bunker's Place began in 1979. During that program's second season, he hired a black nanny, Ellen Canby, for Stephanie and became fond of her. In one episode, Archie punched a man for making a remark about her and was thrown out for good from the lodge (the Kings of Queens) he had attended since the early days of All in the Family.

See also[link]

	United States portal
	Television portal
	Fictional characters portal

• All in the Family
• Archie Bunker's Place
• Edith Bunker
• Alf Garnett
• Anti-hero
• List of All in the Family episodes

References[link]

External links[link]

• Archie Bunker information at tvland.com
• The Bunkers' chairs at the National Museum of American History

George Jefferson is a fictional character played by Sherman Hemsley on the American television sitcoms All in the Family (from 1973 until 1975) and its spin-off The Jeffersons (1975–1985). The character appears in all 253 episodes of The Jeffersons.

Character overview[link]

George Jefferson was born in Harlem in 1929, an ambitious African-American entrepreneur who started and managed a successful chain of seven dry cleaning stores in New York City. The only background on the Jefferson family is that they were Alabama sharecroppers. In a very early episode, George's wife Louise makes mention of a conversation she had with George's father after she and George were married about the Jeffersons family roots. However, the show's writers later applied a retroactive change in the continuity of George's father, such that he had died when George was 10 years old. This left George to take care of his mother; therefore, George was unable to complete high school. He was a cook in the US Navy during the Korean War. He began dating Louise when they were teenagers and married her upon his discharge from the navy.

Before the Jeffersons' store opening, the family lived in a derelict section of Harlem. George had worked as a janitor, and Louise as a housekeeper. In one episode Louise says that the building's white janitor was properly referred to as a "custodian". George says: "Well, whenever a man of our race has that job, he is a janitor!"

George's brother Henry appeared in All in the Family during the lead-up to the spin-off of The Jeffersons. That character was created only because Sherman Hemsley was starring in the Broadway musical Purlie and not yet available to take on the part of George. Once Hemsley became available and joined the cast, the character of his brother became extraneous, and a result, Henry Jefferson never appeared on The Jeffersons. Henry's absence was attributed to his family's move to Chicago, but was mentioned one time when he had a son named Raymond (played by Gary Coleman), who came to visit his aunt Louise and uncle George in one episode of The Jeffersons.

During All in the Family, Jefferson lived in a working-class neighborhood in the borough of Queens, next door to the Bunker family, with his wife Louise (Isabel Sanford) and son Lionel (Mike Evans). During the period, between 1971 and 1973, George's perpetual absence was explained as being a result of his refusal to set foot in his bigoted neighbor Archie Bunker's home, although in later episodes relationships between Jefferson and Bunker thawed somewhat. When the spin-off series The Jeffersons began in January 1975, George and his family had moved "to a deluxe apartment in the sky" on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Like his neighbor Archie Bunker, George Jefferson was frequently opinionated, rude, bigoted, prone to scheming and not particularly intelligent in a scholastic sense. Unlike Archie, however, George was more quick-thinking, and usually more clever. Frequently, plots in The Jeffersons revolved around George's usually dishonest schemes, which always ended in comedic failure. In one 3rd season farcical episode {A Case of Black and White}, George schemes to obtain a new client (a mixed-race couple) by inviting them and the Willises (also a mixed-race couple) to dinner. When the Willises realize that George is using them, they leave before the new client shows up. This makes George bribe Florence the maid and Ralph the doorman into pretending to be the Willises. Eventually the Willises return, and by pretending to be Florence and Ralph, they help George land the client, while trapping George into throwing them an extravagant anniversary party.

Like Archie Bunker, George Jefferson's personality softened somewhat as years passed. By The Jeffersons series finale in 1985, the frequent racism and interracial marriage plotlines of early seasons were replaced with plots involving the Jeffersons' family life, as well as interactions with maid Florence (played by Marla Gibbs) and neighbors. George would form a grudging friendship with Tom Willis.

George made a visit on the short lived series E/R to his niece, Julie Williams (played by Lynne Moody) who was a nurse in Chicago.

Helmsley appeared as George twice on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", appearing along with Isabel Sanford as Louise, debating whether or not to buy the house Will Smith's character had lived in for the last several years from his aunt and uncle in the later episode.

Jefferson Cleaners[link]

The third episode of All in the Family explained how George Jefferson started his dry-cleaning business. George Jefferson's son Lionel explains that the family used a $3,200 (approximately $18,200 in 2012^[1]) insurance settlement from a car accident to start Jefferson’s Cleaners. A Christmas flashback episode, which featured Sherman Hemsley playing his character's father, explained how he got the idea to open a dry cleaning business as a child after his father told him that dry cleaning was expensive. This episode also showed how George had been involved in money-making schemes since childhood, with him working as a shoe-shine boy and paying a schoolmate to push people into mud puddles, forcing them to get their shoes shined.

George Jefferson’s chief business rival was Gil Cunningham, with whom George had a considerably antagonistic relationship. Later in the series, after Gil Cunningham died, the Jeffersons discovered that Gil never desired to be enemies with George. It was revealed that Gil's wife (played by future L.A. Law star Susan Ruttan), had been the motivator behind this competition all along. In his will, Gil left George the bowling trophy he won vs. Jefferson Cleaners, with a letter inside warning George to never trust her because “she put the ‘cunning’ in Cunningham.” Gil was later proven right as Mrs. Cunningham, under the guise of still grieving over his passing, stole the idea from an ad campaign George was devising for Jefferson Cleaners, which stated that for every pound of laundry a customer would send in to be cleaned, they would be reimbursed one dollar. But in the end, George turned the tables on Mrs. Cunningham by bringing her all of the laundry from all seven of his cleaning stores and thereby forcing her to pay him a dollar for every pound, which amounted to $10,000.^[2]

A later season "flashback" episode of The Jeffersons depicted the day the very first Jefferson Cleaners store opened for business, which happened to be the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in April 1968; however, this contradicts the previous history established during All in the Family 's first season (in early 1971), where Lionel announced that his parents had just started their own dry cleaning business with money his father had received in a disability settlement.

[edit] All in the Family Appearances

The following is a list of All in the Family episodes featuring George Jefferson before and during The Jeffersons.

Season Four[link]

• Episode 6: "Henry's Farewell"
• Episode 14: "Archie Is Cursed"
• Episode 20: "Lionel's Engagement"
• Episode 23: "Pay the Twenty Dollars"

Season Five[link]

• Episode 1: "The Bunkers and Inflation" (Part 1)
• Episode 3: "The Bunkers and Inflation" (Part 3)
• Episode 4: "The Bunkers and Inflation" (Part 4)
• Episode 5: "Lionel the Live-In"
• Episode 9: "Where's Archie?" (Part 2)
• Episode 10: "The Longest Kiss"
• Episode 12: "George and Archie Make a Deal"
• Episode 13: "Archie's Contract"
• Episode 18: "The Jeffersons Move on Up"
• Episode 25: "Mike Makes His Move"

Season Eight[link]

• Episode 22: "Mike's New Job"

Cultural impact[link]

The lingering cultural impact of the George Jefferson character is such that Michelle Obama, the wife of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, referenced George Jefferson in a June 2008 interview with the New York Times. Referring to an unfounded rumor discussed by a blogger that she had once used the word "whitey" in a speech, Michelle Obama told the Times: "You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be . . . I mean, ‘whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn’t know me. They don’t know the life I’ve lived. They don’t know anything about me."^[3]

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
2. ^ Facebook
3. ^ Michael Powell and Jodi Kantor (2008-06-18). "Michelle Obama Looks for a New Introduction". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/us/politics/18michelle.html. Retrieved 2008-06-18. 

Sherman Hemsley
Hemsley in December 1999
Born	Sherman Alexander Hemsley (1938-02-01) February 1, 1938 (age 74) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1968–present
Signature

Sherman Alexander Hemsley (born February 1, 1938) is an American actor, most famous for his role as George Jefferson on the CBS television series All in the Family and The Jeffersons, and as Deacon Ernest Frye on the NBC series Amen. He also played Earl Sinclair's horrifying boss, a Triceratops named B.P. Richfield, on the Jim Henson sitcom Dinosaurs.

Career[link]

Early life[link]

Hemsley was born and raised in South Philadelphia by his mother, who was a factory worker. He dropped out of school and joined the Air Force, where he served for four years. On leaving the Air Force, he returned to Philadelphia where he worked for the Post Office during the day while attending acting school at night. He then moved to New York, continuing to work for the Post Office during the day while working as an actor at night. He starred as the character Gitlow in the early 1970s Broadway play Purlie.^[1][2]

Work with Norman Lear[link]

Sherman Hemsley performed with local groups in Philadelphia before moving to New York to study with Lloyd Richards at the Negro Ensemble Company. Shortly after, he joined Vinnette Carroll's Urban Arts Company appearing in these productions; "But Never Jam Today", "The Lottery", "Old Judge Mose is Dead", "Moon On A Rainbow Shawl", "Step Lively Boys", "Croesus" and "The Witch". He made his Broadway debut in Purlie and toured with the show for a year. In the summer of 1972 he joined the Vinnette Carroll musical "Sorry, I Cant Cope" ensemble in Toronto, followed a month later in the American Conservatory Theatre production at the Geary Theatre. In this production with arrangement with Edward Padula & Arch Lusterg with music and lyrics by Micki Grant had Hemsley in Act I performing the solo "Lookin' Over From Your Side" and in Act II "Sermon."

While Hemsley was on Broadway with Purlie, Norman Lear called him in 1971 to play the role of George Jefferson on his burgeoning new sitcom, All in the Family. Hemsley was reluctant to leave his theatre role, but Lear told him that he would hold the role open for him. Hemsley joined the cast two years later. The characters of Hemsley and co-star Isabel Sanford were secondary on All in the Family, but were given their own spin-off series, The Jeffersons, less than two years after Hemsley made his debut on the show. Such was Hemsley's and Sanford's compatibility and credibility as a married couple that no one seemed to notice or care that in real life Sanford was twenty years older than Hemsley. The Jeffersons proved to be one of Lear's most successful shows, enjoying a run of 11 seasons through 1985.

1980s and 1990s[link]

Though Hemsley was largely typecast as George Jefferson, he continued to work steadily after the show's cancellation. He teamed up with the show's original cast members when The Jeffersons moved to Broadway for a brief period.

Hemsley joined the cast of NBC's Amen in 1986 as Ernest Frye, an unscrupulous church deacon much like his George Jefferson character. The show enjoyed a run of five seasons, ending in 1991. Hemsley then was a voice actor in the ABC live-action puppet series Dinosaurs, where he played Bradley P. Richfield, main character Earl's sadistic boss. The show ran for five seasons, ending in 1994.

Hemsley has largely retired from television acting, although he and Isabel Sanford appeared together in the late '90s and in the early 2000s, reprising their roles in guest spots on television programs such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, commercials for The Gap, Old Navy and Denny's, and dry cleaning conventions. He and Sanford also made a cameo appearance in the film Sprung. They continued to work together on occasion until Sanford began having health problems leading to her death in 2004.

Personal life[link]

Hemsley is a self-proclaimed fan of 1970s progressive rock bands^[3] including Yes,^[3] Gentle Giant and Nektar. On his appearance on Dinah!, Hemsley performed a dance to the Gentle Giant song "Proclamation" from The Power and the Glory. After his dance, Shore was laughing and asked what kind of music that was. Sherman then proceeded to give a 5-minute speech on Gentle Giant.^[4] Hemsley can also been seen wearing a Nektar T-shirt during his interview with Norman Lear when Lear hosted Saturday Night Live from Season 2 Episode 26. In 1999, he collaborated with Yes founder Jon Anderson on an album titled Festival of Dreams which was not released.^[5]

He currently resides in El Paso, Texas.^[3]

Filmography[link]

• Love at First Bite (1979)
• Stewardess School (1986)
• Ghost Fever (1987)
• Club Fed (1990)
• Mr. Nanny (1993)
• Home of Angels (1994)
• The Misery Brothers (1995)
• Sprung (1997)
• Senseless (1998)
• Jane Austen's Mafia! (1998)
• Up, Up, and Away (2000)
• Screwed (2000)
• For the Love of a Dog (2007)
• Hanging in Hedo (2008)
• American Pie Presents: The Book of Love (2009)

Discography[link]

• Dance (1992)

Television work[link]

• All in the Family (1973–1975)
• The Jeffersons (1975–1985)
• The Incredible Hulk (season 2 episode 18 "No Escape")
• Pink Lady (1980) (Guest starred as himself)
• Purlie (1981)^[6]
• E/R (1984–1985) (guest spots as Nurse Julie Williams' uncle George Jefferson)
• The Twilight Zone (1985) as Sam ("I of Newton")
• Alice in Wonderland (1985)
• Candid Camera (1986) as Dick Sherman
• Amen (1986–1991)
• Combat High (1986)
• Camp Cucamonga (1990)
• Martin (guest starred)
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (guest starred as Judge Carl Robertson, and George Jefferson)
• Dinosaurs (1991–1994)
• Townsend Television (1993) (canceled after 4 months)
• The Magic School Bus (1995) (guest starred as Mr. Junkit, in "Revved Up")
• Goode Behavior (1996–1997)
• All That (1997) guest starred in two episodes
• Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (Portrayed Winslow Schott a.k.a. Toyman in the 1994 Episode "Seasons Greatings")
• Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997)
• Sister, Sister (guest spots as Tia and Tamera's grandfather)
• Senseless (Smythe-Bates Doorman)
• Clips' Place (1998) (unsold pilot)
• The Hughleys (played Yvonne Hughley's father)
• Figure It Out (1999) (Guest Panelist)
• Up, Up, and Away (2000)
• Mister Ed (2004) (unsold pilot)
• The Surreal Life (cast member in 2006)
• Family Matters (Captain Marion Savage - Carl's superior)
• All That (Good Burger food critic)
• Family Guy, himself in a voice cameo ("The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz")
• Tyler Perry's House of Payne (guest starred as George Jefferson)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Sherman Hemsley at the Internet Movie Database
• Archive of American Television interview
• Sherman Hemsley at the Internet Broadway Database