Playboy Interview: Carroll O'connor

As a television series, the idea was improbable. Impossible, some said. A similar program had been a hit in England, but who in America would want to watch a weekly situation comedy starring a middle-aged, blue-collar bigot who not only called a spade a spade but indiscriminately maligned members of other minority groups as "spicks," "Hebes," "dumb Polacks," "Chinks" and "tamale eaters," liberal politicians as "pinkos," welfare recipients as "bums on relief" and anyone whose sexual mores differed from his own as a "prevent"? His dutiful wife, the outline continued, would be a well-meaning but simple-minded and slightly addled home-maker whose ministrations to her potbellied spouse would evoke both sympathy and--from militant feminists--rage. Also occupying their lower-middle-class suburban home would be a buxom blonde daughter who didn't believe in God and her Polish-American husband--a college student whose droopy mustache and shaggy hair clashed almost audibly with his father-in-law's reactionary life style. The black family living across the street would provide a handy target for the bigot's rantings, and various episodes would tackle such topics as menopause, impotence and homosexuality.

"Ozzie and Harriet" it wasn't. And in the domain of American television comedy, where witless programs starring talking cars, pampered chimpanzees and nouveau riche hillbillies have prospered in prime time, "All in the Family"--as the project was christened--seemed the remotest of prospects. Actually, four years elapsed from the time producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin hit upon the idea of adapting the BBC series "Till Death Us Do Part" until the moment its American version found a spot on the CBS network schedule, as a January 1971 midseason replacement. By year's end, solidly entrenched atop the Nielsen ratings, it was the most talked-about television show of the new decade.

This month marks the second anniversary of "All in the Family's" television debut, and the phenomenon it sparked is, if anything, gathering steam. The show has inspired one direct spin-off-- "Maude," featuring characters first introduced on "A. I. T. F."--and a second British-American transplant, "Sanford and Son," and is credited with having paved the way for such shows as "M*A*S*H" and "Bridget Loves Bernie," the themes and language of which once would have been considered too daring for the tube.

"All in the Family" also launched a late-rising star: 48-year-old Carroll O'Connor, whose deft impersonation of the malaproping Archie Bunker has made him white America's favorite workingman--and earned him an Emmy award. For O'Connor, becoming the breadwinner of TV's first family was as unexpected as the success of the show itself. One of three sons born to an American lawyer and an Irish schoolteacher, he had grown up in New York City and served with the merchant marine in the North Atlantic during World War Two. At the National University in Dublin, he established a substantial reputation in classical drama at the esteemed Gate Theater. After successes in Shakespeare at the Edinburgh Festival and in live contemporary teleplays on the BBC, he decided in 1954 to return to New York City and try his luck on the Broadway stage--but his luck was all bad. When nobody would hire him, he gave up on the theater and became a substitute high school teacher. It wasn't until three years later that he resumed acting, in summer stock. Subsequent parts in several TV dramas, a couple of flop plays and a well-reviewed performance in a Broadway revival of Clifford Odets' "The Big Knife" led to his 1961 motion-picture debut as a political opportunist in "A Fever in the Blood."

Before long, he settled into a remunerative, if unspectacular, career as a supporting player in 26 films, among them "Kelly's Heroes," "Waterhole #3," "Doctors' Wives" and "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?"--in which his blowhard performance as an outrageous general inspired Lear and Yorkin to cast him as Archie Bunker. The impact of his association with "All in the Family" was made abundantly clear not long ago in theaters exhibiting revivals of "Cleopatra," the epic 1963 film starring the Burtons. When O'Connor first appeared onscreen as Casca, concealing a dagger beneath his toga, audiences laughed and shouted, "Hey, there's Archie!"

Despite many other roles since Casca (most recently as the Presidential candidate in "Of Thee I Sing," CBS' rousing revival of the 1931 stage lampoon of national politics), the Archie image may well dog O'Connor through the remainder of his career--a fact that he tacitly acknowledges in his recently launched night-club act by wondering aloud whether O'Connor is Archie's master or vice versa. To ascertain the similarities and differences between the actor and the character he so credibly plays, Contributing Editor Richard Warren Lewis visited O'Connor at his home in Brentwood, California. Lewis writes:

"O'Connor's house, an 11-room Italian Mediterranean mansion, is worlds removed from the tattily furnished bungatow of the Bunkers. Everything, from 18th Century French tables to hand-painted Dutch screens, a sofa upholstered in hand-woven Indian raw silk, a modern glass-and-chrome coffee table and the Oriental carpeting, testifies to the elegant and eclectic taste of O'Connor and Nancy, his wife of 21 years. Mrs. O'Connor, an accomplished portrait artist who stands six feet tall, took me on a tour of the premises, which have been lauded in several architectural periodicals.

"On a table in the living room were volumes of biography, art and short stories, beside a copy of 'The Great Robinson,' a film script O'Connor has written about an upper-middle-class black lawyer who is exiled by his own people--a property scheduled to go before the cameras this year, starring Sammy Davis Jr. O'Connor, who was on the far side of the room tinkering with a four-speaker audio system, waved a cigar and motioned me toward an illuminated armoire well stocked with expensively filled Waterford crystal decanters. He wore a short-sleeved sport shirt flapping outside his wash-and-wear trousers--a camouflage that barely concealed his ample waist--and a pair of fashionable suede Gucci loafers. When he spoke, his A's were the broad tones of a classically trained actor; they sounded incongruous coming from the jowly face of Archie Bunker.

"Scotch in hand, he led the way through double French doors to a poolside terrace and sat down in a canvas-backed director's chair with his eight-year-old boxer, Fred, nestled at his feet. Sitting in the shadows of olive and cypress trees, we could hear the murmur of traffic on a nearby freeway, the calls of blue jays and the shrieks from a softball game in the street, in which O'Connor's ten-year-old adopted son, Hugh, was playing center field. After the standard pleasantries, we got down to serious conversation."

[Q]Playboy: Why do you think so many Americans have responded to Archie Bunker and what he stands for?

[A]O'connor: Because he's recognizably real. Everybody can relate to him in some way because they know him. Blacks have encountered him. So have whites. He's been their neighbor. He's been in their families. Most of the fathers you've ever seen in television comedies are emasculated comic-strip characters that nobody has ever really touched or talked to. They're larger or smaller than life; if they're flawed, they're sweetly flawed. But Archie is different. His flaws--racism and bigotry--involve him in the real world, not the make-believe. This is a monumental character in American literature, not just a stick figure on television. He's got more balls than anyone who preceded him on the tube, and so does the idea of the show itself.

[Q]Playboy: Archie has been called a working-class hero. Do you think that's true?

[A]O'connor: No, I don't. By definition, a hero is a champion of the underdog, a defender of principles, a man of nobility. Archie embraces none of these virtues. In fact, some critics have charged that we're presenting the wrong kind of example to the working class. An editorial in the Teamsters Union publication condemned us for caricaturing the workingman as a potbellied, simple-minded, beer-swilling racist and bigot.

[Q]Playboy: Is Archie an antihero, then?

[A]O'connor: Archie is neither hero nor antihero. He's a reactor--one of that big group in the middle upon which both heroes and antiheroes feed. Not that he represents any particular class. This is one of the reasons for his popularity. There's something of Archie in all people and on all levels. I know some very rich people who have never been blue collar in their whole lives who are more like Archie than any workingman I've ever known.

[Q]Playboy: You say he's no hero. Is he at least basically moral?

[A]O'connor: He thinks he is. But his morality is mainly centered on sexual matters.

[Q]Playboy: How?

[A]O'connor: Anything that embarrasses Archie is immoral. That's why sexual discussions in the home are forbidden. And subjects like menopause, impotence, miscarriage and homosexuality, all of which we've done shows about. Archie's daughter said to him one night, "You can't even bear the mention of the word sex," and Archie replied, "I don't allow no four-letter words in this house."

[Q]Playboy: What about outside the house; would he go to an X-rated movie?

[A]O'connor: He did go one night. The kids dragged him off to see one and he was very upset by it. But if he were down at Kelsey's bar and the boys suggested going to a great stag movie, he'd go--and enjoy himself. In one episode, he told Mike that when he was in the Army Air Corps in Italy, the boys went off to a whorehouse and he accompanied them. He was a single guy indulging himself. If he had been married at the time, he probably still would have done it. But he needed the impetus of the boys' saying "Let's all go out and get laid" before he could go along with it.

[Q]Playboy: Was he just having some fun or do you think he was trying to prove his manhood with the rest of the guys?

[A]O'connor: A lot of sex is undertaken to prove something to others or to yourself. I suppose some of it is undertaken out of purely sexual desire. But I suspect that some of it--at least among those of Archie's generation and background--is undertaken out of guilt.

[Q]Playboy: Feeling as uptight as he does about it, how is Archie's sex life with Edith?

[A]O'connor: Except for a menopausal interlude she underwent on one of last year's shows, Edith seems to me rather content. I suppose if she were sexually deprived, it would show up in some way contrary to the happy appearance she gives. I think they have a fairly active sexual life, limited only by the diminishing interest and abilities of advancing age. The writers suggest that there's something wrong with Archie in a sexual way, what with the little jokes they give to Edith that have reference to his sexual inertia. But I don't believe that and I've complained about it. The funny line has to take precedence, though, and I can't get much support to change these things.

[Q]Playboy: Is Archie faithful to Edith?

[A]O'connor: If cheating was ever on his mind, he's forgotten about it, because the opportunities just aren't there for Archie. He seems to beat a path between work and home, and his recreation is mostly in the neighborhood saloons where he wouldn't be likely to run into ladies who can be picked up. But even if he did run into a lady on the make, I don't think he'd know what to do with it anymore.

[Q]Playboy: Do you feel that his sexual attitudes influence any of his other views?

[A]O'connor: Well, Archie regards his son-in-law--who has no hang-ups about sex, or not as many as Archie--as a semi-pervert, and he demonstrates it in every way. If Mike brought up the subject of contraceptives or birth control, he'd be told to get his mind out of the gutter.

[Q]Playboy: Since Archie and Edith have only one child--probably for economic reasons--isn't it likely that they practice birth control themselves?

[A]O'connor: Sure, but birth control also gives freedom to ladies to enjoy themselves sexually without fear of consequences, so in that sense he feels it's a bad thing. In the sense that it prevents more blacks and Puerto Ricans and indigents from being born, birth control is a good thing, because all those welfare children will cost him money.

[Q]Playboy: What does Archie have against nonwhites?

[A]O'connor: The fact that they're different from him, and therefore unequal. The most admirable black guy in the world is still just a black guy to Archie. He can never get over that to make genuine contact with the black man or let the black man make contact with him. He may have civil conversations with Lionel Jefferson, his black neighbor's kid, but they always stop at the barrier he has within him, implanted by his parents at a very early age. It's not really all his fault. They told him when he was six or seven that it was bad business to play with black kids, and he was told to be wary of the Jews and he was probably told that no Catholics were to be trusted, either. Unless experience teaches him otherwise, he will carry these misconceptions with him all his life.

[Q]Playboy: Have Archie's racial attitudes changed in any way since the show began?

[A]O'connor: It would take a miracle for Archie to change his attitudes. Christ would have to come down personally and speak to him.

[Q]Playboy: Is he religious?

[A]O'connor: Not very. He goes to church only unwillingly. Maybe once a year, with Edith, he goes to one of the Protestant services, around Easter time or maybe at Christmas. He feels very strongly that God is there, but organized religion, deriving from a system of belief and worship, is not only beyond him but very annoying to him. Ministers are selling a kind of morality that he doesn't accept. They're telling him what he should do for his fellow man, and his concept is that he should do nothing for his fellow man, because there's no man that's doing anything for him. If he's getting along under his own steam, then everybody else should do the same. He thinks ministers who preach that dogma are raving socialists, as contemptible a lot as the raving socialists who make up that Communist front organization known as the Democratic Party.

[Q]Playboy: How does Archie feel about the Republicans?

[A]O'connor: As a conservative, he finds the Republican Party more appealing. more truly American. He somehow has the notion that the G. O. P. stands for direct no-nonsense action, especially when it comes to foreign affairs. If a country is at odds with the United States, he thinks we ought to tell that nation how it should behave and to warn them that they'd better start shaping up or suffer the consequences. For those reasons, Barry Goldwater is the kind of Republican Archie likes.

[Q]Playboy: How does he feel about Richard Nixon?

[A]O'connor: I don't think he likes Nixon all that well, other than because he's the Commander in Chief. We've had Archie criticize Nixon on the show once or twice, implicitly if not directly. He didn't approve of the Nixon trip to China, for example. And the President's $3500 floor under incomes was a move that no New Dealer ever seemed to have contemplated, and I don't think Archie liked that. He doesn't approve of giving any money away to anybody.

If he were unemployed. of course, he'd be the first to pick up his unemployment check. And he's looking forward to his Social Security. But he thinks that welfare programs are squeezing his bucks. He's wrong; the war is squeezing his bucks, but he doesn't know how to disapprove of the war. Archie goes along with the Government line that we must interfere abroad for our own security. He doesn't trouble to analyze it, but then how many people do? We accept what the President tells us in this country. We're contemptuous of foreign nations that go along with their dictators; yet in this country, we go along uuquestioningly. The President sends troops into Cambodia and you take a poll the next day and find that 70 percent or 80 percent think he did the right thing.

I feel that the paramount issue in the world today is the American President's power to start wars. He can precipitate a war more quickly than the presidium in Moscow. I don't know anybody in history--except for Hitler--who could start a war as easily or unilaterally as an American President. Except in a war of self-defense, as in World War Two. where an immediate response is required without asking anybody any questions, one man has no right to make that decision for us. War is a matter for the conscience and the moral judgment of the people in the democracy.

[Q]Playboy: How would Archie feel about the view that war is a matter for individual conscience and moral judgment? Specifically, what would he think about proposals of amnesty for draft dodgers, who claim that our Vietnam involvement is immoral?

[A]O'connor: As far as Archie's concerned, amnesty would be tantamount to letting traitors off the hook. All those kids who ran away are traitors of the worst kind. Archie wouldn't let them back in, except to jail them.

[Q]Playboy: What about another youthoriented proposal--that of reducing penalties for those convicted of using marijuana?

[A]O'connor: Archie has heard that the kids like marijuana, so it must be bad. And he's heard that it leads to things like communal living and sexual freedom and abandonment of responsibility and, finally, to crime, so it's a national menace, and the Communists may well be pushing it.

[Q]Playboy: How do you feel about marijuana?

[A]O'connor: My experience with it is slight. I first smoked marijuana 30 years ago aboard ship when I was in the merchant marine. One cigarette gave me the same feeling that several generous drinks would give me. In later years. I smoked it at a friend's apartment and felt the same as I'd felt before, but I noticed when I was driving home that my depth perception had been affected in a startling way. Objects that were close to me seemed to be far away. Needless to say, that's not very helpful for driving. It scared me. So I don't think I'd ever use it except maybe at home, with the knowledge that I wasn't going anywhere for the rest of the evening. And as soon as it becomes legal, I'll keep it in the house for friends who might want it, just as I keep liquor in the cabinet.

[Q]Playboy: Do you favor legalizing marijuana, then?

[A]O'connor: Oh, yes. I think it ought to be voted on. We have free use of alcohol; marijuana to me should be the same. They say it leads to this, it leads to that. But the illegality of the drug is probably what makes it lead to a lot of things. In any event, heavy punishment for mere possession should be eliminated immediately.

[Q]Playboy: What are Archie's views on capital punishment?

[A]O'connor: He's 100 percent in favor of it, because he thinks it's a deterrent to crime. Speaking for myself, I'm convinced that it's no deterrent whatsoever and never has been. In fact, recent psychological studies indicate that it might even be a stimulus: Certain people want to be punished, so they commit capital crimes in order to get the ultimate punishment.

[Q]Playboy: How does Archie feel about the upsurge of violent crime in the nation?

[A]O'connor: I don't think he under stands the nature of crime--what drives people to crime and what makes people into criminals. Crime comes from the terrible frustration of those at the bottom of society who feel that they're never going to make it any other way. They might be caught, shot, thrown into the pen, but what the hell, the pen's not a lot worse than where they've been living. Archie's solution to crime would be more powerful suppression: tougher cops, tougher prisons, tougher laws. That'll eliminate the crime, all of which he says is coming from blacks and Puerto Ricans.

[Q]Playboy: Is he equally righteous about white-collar crime--such as income-tax cheating?

[A]O'connor: Archie thinks that certain kinds of corruption and thievery aren't really wrong. In one show, he upbraided Edith for leaving her name and address on an automobile that she damaged. That kind of dishonesty isn't corruption in Archie's book, because he thinks everybody does it, so by consensus it's OK. He would expect politicians to steal a little if they could.

[Q]Playboy: In another episode, Archie found himself the victim of Government surveillance. How does his view of privacy invasion compare with yours?

[A]O'connor: At no time did Archie object to Government surveillance. He just doesn't want it to be directed against him. When it was, he chastised his friends rather than the Government for bringing it upon him. As far as Archie's concerned, the Government can do no wrong. As far as I'm concerned, searches and seizures are outlawed under the Constitution, and the Government is no more privileged than any citizen.

Speaking pragmatically, I know very well that our Government and every government is going to do it, no matter what restrictions we place upon them. If information gathered in an illegal way can't be introduced in court, that's the best we can do. A lot depends on who the Attorney General is. The guy who's the head of the Federal police will have his own policies and he'll bend the regulations to suit himself while he's in control. Ramsey Clark went one way; John Mitchell went another.

[Q]Playboy: What did you think of Mitchell's record as Attorney General?

[A]O'connor: The greatest error that marred his time in office was the Government's prosecution of the Chicago Seven. I understand that many lawyers in the Department of Justice strongly advised against prosecuting that case, indicating that it would never hold up. But the Federal attorney in Chicago went ahead, anyhow. I think there were two reasons the Government won the case and got convictions against those kids. One was Judge Hoffman, who from all reports shouldn't be sitting on the bench; the other was William Kunstler, who from all reports shouldn't be practicing law. Between those two, the case became a shambles and the Government won.

[Q]Playboy: There are those who contend that the Government was equally unwise in deciding to prosecute Angela Davis. Do you agree?

[A]O'connor: There again, I thought from the very beginning that they had absolutely no case and that a serious judge and jury would release that girl. It was ridiculous to charge her with conspiracy, and even more ridiculous that she was jailed without bond for over a year. The Government should pass legislation to compensate not only Angela Davis for the time and anguish she has endured behind bars but also the thousands of others who are held and then found innocent.

[Q]Playboy: How would Archie feel about that?

[A]O'connor: He'd probably think the jury was rigged and ought to have joined Angela in her cell.

[Q]Playboy: Do you have any problem playing a character whose views are so antithetical to your own?

[A]O'connor: I don't have to share the feelings of my characters to play them. I don't have to have known anguish in order to play a death scene on the stage. I wouldn't have to delve into myself to play Macduff's grief at the news of the murder of his children. I'm a kind of reporter of Archie's emotions. And I do a damn good job of reporting.

[Q]Playboy: But you seem to have a great deal of affection for him.

[A]O'connor: I have a great deal of sympathy for him. As James Baldwin wrote, the white man here is trapped by his own history, a history that he himself cannot comprehend, and therefore what can I do but love him? As I said before, Archie is not altogether to blame for his weaknesses.

[Q]Playboy: Wouldn't you say that one of those weaknesses is the lack of a sense of humor about himself?

[A]O'connor: Yes, I certainly would. Come to think of it, I don't believe we've done a show in which Archie has a real laugh about anything. least of all himself. He sneers. He harrumphs. But he has never erupted in honest gales of laughter.

[Q]Playboy: Why not?

[A]O'connor: Because he's rendered himself incapable of it. Things just ain't funny to people like him. And that's sad. He's unhappy because he feels threatened and thwarted. The world is rushing past him into a future that he can't even see, and as it rushes by, it ignores him. That drives him wild. There are millions like him. He's a working stiff who doesn't make much money and finds himself terribly pinched. The world not only refuses to act as Archie wishes it to; it seems to be jeering at him.

[Q]Playboy: Archie may feel he's too much of a little guy to be heard. But you're a celebrity and what you say makes news. Why is it that you haven't spoken out against what you think is wrong with society?

[A]O'connor: I haven't spoken out, or joined organizations concerned with things like eliminating pollution or cleaning up the ghettos, simply because I haven't got the time. Sure, I think helping save the nation from pollution is a hell of a lot more important than appearing on a night-club stage or making record albums. But sometimes you must do things that don't appear to be of much value to anybody else. I have to do whatever jobs I've contracted to do as a performer.

[Q]Playboy: Still, don't you feel guilty about not finding time for some kind of public-service work?

[A]O'connor: Sure, I feel guilty. I worry about it. But, like most guilts, it's palliated by pleasures. Let me give you an example. During my most recent appearance in Las Vegas, while shooting craps, I lost a couple of Gs. When my wife saw the markers I had signed on our hotel bill, she said to me in a very patronizing manner: "Think of the unfortunate children you could have put through school with that money." And she was right. I felt guilty. Going to church the next day, I gave an extra-large donation.

[Q]Playboy: If you have time to gamble, why can't you find the time for more constructive activities?

[A]O'connor: Christ, don't you think I'm entitled to a little entertainment--even if it costs me a couple of grand? You have no idea how I've overcommitted myself professionally in the past year. I guess that's my big ego trip--trying to cover all of this new territory, doing night clubs, recordings, television specials, my own show, promoting written material of mine that's been lying around for years and that people are suddenly showing an interest in. Instead of going at these opportunities conservatively, I've rushed at them like a child who's always had things doled out to him in small amounts and suddenly finds the gate open and a pile of goodies in front of him. I should be mature enough at the age of 48 to know that I can't encompass it all. That kind of avaricious attitude is more appropriate to the character of Archie than to my own.

[Q]Playboy: On whom have you based his character, if not on yourself?

[A]O'connor: I'm using as my model a composite of people like Archie that I've known or met. I've taken his physical movements from a couple of acquaintances--his cocky swagger around the house, the way he smokes and handles a cigar. If I'm imitating anybody's speech pattern, it's that of a New York State supreme-court judge who once said in my hearing that he used to enjoy a certain restaurant out in Queens but that he hadn't gone there in recent years because it had become "a regulah rendevooze fa bums." He talked exactly like Archie. His accent was pure Canarsie. And this was a man who had been to law school. If you were to put that judge in Archie's job and put Archie on the judge's bench, you wouldn't be aware of the switch.

So in the speech and in certain physical characteristics, I haven't called upon the workingman at all. Archie's bigotry also cuts across all classes. I've heard some of the most privileged people saying the same dumb things about race and religion and philosophy that Archie says all the time. The only difference is that they don't mispronounce the words.

[Q]Playboy: How do blacks in the audience react to Archie's racism?

[A]O'connor: Usually in a positive manner. One black letter writer told me the reason he liked the show was that for the first time he felt that the racist was being portrayed plainly for everyone to see. He said he could sit back and look at this racist and say, what the hell have I got to be afraid of? This guy is more frightened, more threatened than I am.

[Q]Playboy: The June 1972 issue of Ebony contended that such an attitude is lulling blacks into a false sense of security. Do you think that may be true?

[A]O'connor: Their argument is highly theoretical. They don't bring forth any blacks who give evidence of being lulled into a false sense of security. If they could somehow show me and Norman Lear that blacks are being misled by our program, that they're lying down and beginning to accept stereotyping all over again, we'd quit.

[Q]Playboy: You once said you'd never met a black person who didn't like the show. Would you still say that?

[A]O'connor: No, I wouldn't. I've since learned that Bill Cosby doesn't like our show, from what I hear of statements he's made on various talk shows. And I've found out that Whitney Young took a dim view of it. Maybe there are more black people than I think who don't like the show. But any black who's ever come to me in person, and there have been scores of them, has always had only the best to say.

[Q]Playboy: Again according to Ebony, the show's use of racial epithets such as "coon" and "jungle bunny" has caused several ugly incidents and a great deal of tension at a once-placid integrated New York high school. Does that concern you?

[A]O'connor: Well. some people see tension where others don't. I remember I was having dinner in Rome and I ran into the American writer Max Lerner. It was at a time when an Italian flier who was flying a mercy cargo into the Congo had been butchered. Lerner said to me that he felt tension all over Rome that night. I felt nothing. I said, "Where do you find it?" He said, "I feel it in the people, everywhere I go." To me, Rome seemed to be Rome as always. At various times during 1955, 1956 and 1957, I taught in public schools in New York. According to the papers, the school in which I taught was a hotbed of juvenile crime; the tension was at a high pitch day in and day out. I didn't feel that. We had juvenile problems, but every school has them. I guess the answer to this is if you're looking for tension, you're sure to find it.

[Q]Playboy: Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a black psychiatrist at Harvard, feels that All in the Family is deplorable "not only in terms of how it might be influencing white attitudes but also because it does have many blacks laughing at the kind of bigotry and racism Archie expresses." How would you answer that?

[A]O'connor: Well, he must feel personally in danger. Evidently. the black people who have come to me don't feel the same danger as Dr. Poussaint.

[Q]Playboy: Just what is the extent of your contact with blacks?

[A]O'connor: I meet them in stores, on the street. One time, a black guy rigging a telephone line called to me from 30 feet in the air. He said, "Hey, Archie, right on, baby." That's kinda going out of your way, isn't it? The working people I run across endorse the show. So do a number of blacks in the medical, dental and legal professions that I've known for 20 to 25 years on a very close basis. Maybe they're kidding me, their old pal, but I don't think they would. One of them has been my attorney for a long time. and I don't think he'd lie. He's a criminal lawyer who comes across people on every level, and he tells me all the blacks he knows love the show.

[Q]Playboy: Why?

[A]O'connor: Because the ofay is being portrayed truthfully for the first time on any screen, large or small, and blacks react favorably to the truth of the portrayal. They are also seeing this man in his true condition, which is the condition of a loser. Archie's a loser because of his basic errors in judgment--his racism and his bigotry. These things are poisoning his life. He is in his own way oppressing the black man, but the black man sees in Archie the gradual loss of power of the man who has oppressed him; Archie is almost in the last stage of powerlessness. That fact emerged very clearly during the show in which his insurance is canceled. He's living in a high-risk area, on the fringe of a black neighborhood, and he can't do a damn thing about it.

In the same show, we showed Archie trying to deal with the problem of which of three subordinates to fire. There are too many black guys and too many white guys working at his factory, and only one Puerto Rican. So he fires the Puerto Rican and there's no static. Ironically, he did this at the same time his insurance was being canceled; so he was discriminating unfairly at the same time he was being discriminated against unfairly. His powerlessness is shown in the circumstances that forced him to make the decision he made. On the job. white power and black power dictated that the Puerto Rican be the victim. Archie couldn't make an independent decision, even though the white worker he spared was useless to him. Someone who can't make an independent decision is a powerless guy.

[Q]Playboy: According to a New York Times article by Laura Z. Hobson--the author of Gentleman's Agreement, a novel dealing with prejudice--Archie's far from powerless. In fact, she thinks his power to make people look at bigotry lightheartedly is insidious in that it trivializes racism, making it seem less dangerous and detestable than it actually is.

[A]O'connor: I thought her article was nonsensical. The pivotal point of her argument was that we ought to use worse epithets than we do on the show and thus prevent the character of Archie from being in any way lovable. What we've done, and what I've done, is make Archie not the head of a lynch mob but a human being who is also a bigot. He has love in his heart for his wife, for his daughter, even for the son-in-law he's fighting with all the time. He has human concerns, fears, weaknesses, moments of affection that make him a total person. Laura Hobson didn't want us to do that. She wanted us to make him a one-dimensional lower-class monster.

[Q]Playboy: How do you account for the fact that the Times readership supported her view by nearly four to one?

[A]O'connor: Well, let's say the letter writers supported her four to one. I think there were a lot of people who didn't write. Negative letters are always more numerous than positive letters. And, in this case, a lot of them were written by Jews of the old school, the kind who feel that the only way to ameliorate anti-Semitism or any other kind of racism is to smother it in silence.

[Q]Playboy: Do you receive a lot of hate mail?

[A]O'connor: Probably no more than anybody else. The really obnoxious hate mail is exemplified by letters that Sally Struthers, who plays my daughter, received after a show in which she'd thrown her arms around the black kid, Mike Evans--who plays Lionel--in a burst of enthusiasm. One guy wrote in and said, "It was nice to see you two niggers hugging on television." Another guy wrote, "Don't think you're pulling any wool over anybody's eyes. We know All in the Family is a very insidious, pro-Communist show."

But most of the mail I get is reasonably literate. And 95 percent of it is from people who feel the show has done something to or for them. One 17-year-old kid wrote and said our show had kept his family from permanently breaking apart. He hadn't talked to his father in a year, except when his mother forced him to say good morning and good evening. One night he was coming through the living room while his father was watching the show and his father said, "Hey, sit down and watch this." Suddenly they were both laughing together and when the show was over, they began to discuss it. The kid said, "Hey, we're talking again." A woman wrote in to say that her husband was getting off some bursts of racism at the table one night and her 11-year-old daughter, when he paused in the one-way conversation, interjected: "Have you finished, Archie?" A lot of people write that we're making them understand their own feelings and their own prejudices.

[Q]Playboy: Do you feel that's what you're accomplishing?

[A]O'connor: Absolutely. If there were any doubt in my mind, I wouldn't do the show. If I felt for one moment that this show was doing any harm, I'd drop it like a hot coal. I can make a goddamn good living without All in the Family.

[Q]Playboy: Did you anticipate the amount of controversy the show would generate when you agreed to do it?

[A]O'connor: To a certain extent, I did. I was living in Rome at the time; I had an apartment there, which I kept at a high rent for four months after I returned to the United States, so sure was I that the American public would explode in indignation about this show and force CBS to take it off the air. In my contract, I insisted on round-trip air transportation from Rome for myself and my family. I just didn't think the American people could stand to listen to a character who talked about coons and Hebes and spicks, even though the public knows damn well that most people talk this way in their homes. I thought they wouldn't want to be reminded of it, or that the guilt feelings they would feel from this would surface and inspire a protest. I would have bet you any money, I was so sure that we were going to fail. Furthermore, the show was already a two-time loser. ABC had paid for two previous pilots and buried both of them. Then--wham--we went to number one on CBS and we've been there almost ever since.

[Q]Playboy: And with that success, you've spawned a number of spin-offs--notably Sanford and Son and Maude, also produced by Lear and Yorkin, plus a half-dozen other, newly controversial shows. What do you think of them?

[A]O'connor: First of all, I haven't seen any of them. I'm familiar with Maude, of course, because that setup got its start from one of our episodes. But in general, I'm contemptuous of the phenomenon. Hollywood's contingent of plagiarists has dipped into our store of goods to pluck out a little bit here and there. I'd be surprised if they hadn't. This "creative" town was started by buttonhole makers, penny-arcade owners and thieves of zipper patents. That mentality still exists. I react to those who lift ideas from our show the same way I react to the dishonesty of humankind that has always existed. It pisses me off, but there's nothing I can do about it.

[Q]Playboy: Isn't it really a case of imitation's being the sincerest form of flattery--a kind of backhanded tribute to your success?

[A]O'connor: Well, I suppose so--but it still pisses me off.

[Q]Playboy: Were you surprised, after a dozen years as a character actor in the movies, to find yourself a star?

[A]O'connor: Frankly, yes. It was just a thing that seemed unattainable. I was quite content being one of the highestpaid supporting actors in the business and being well respected in it. Of course, I had other aspirations. I wanted to write plays, movies, perhaps a novel, and poetry or song lyrics. I always felt that as a successful supporting actor, I could make a very good living and find the time somehow to do these other things. I wasn't looking for stardom at all.

[Q]Playboy: Are you glad you found it--or do you feel overextended or disoriented?

[A]O'connor: I feel just fine about it. In recent years, I've had billing equal to the star of any picture I made; but producers could have made those pictures without me. Now there are people who, if I'll do the picture, can raise the money to finance it on my name alone. Now they want me not just for work but because I can create other work. What a tremendous thing for the ego. The greatest satisfaction to an actor is to be needed. If you're a vacuum-cleaner salesman, you don't have to become too personally involved with the product you represent. If people aren't buying it, you start selling another one. But an actor isn't selling somebody else's product; he's selling himself. When you're not getting work, it's a serious personal reproach. But there's nothing like the satisfaction you feel when they're buying what you've got to sell--and paying a great deal for it. To be offered a quarter of a million dollars up front to do a picture, with a large percentage of the world gross, is incredible to me.

[Q]Playboy: It has become fashionable among the wealthy--even in Hollywood--not to flaunt their affluence quite as conspicuously as they used to, or at least to feel guilty about it. How do you feel about having all that money?

[A]O'connor: Many years ago, I told Father Powers, who is a friend of mine in Rome, "Father, I've fought the fight against materialism for years, but I'm afraid I've lost it." There's no sense in pretending that I don't enjoy the luxuries. Thoreau said, "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" He was talking about getting away from the acquisition and ownership of things that clutter up your life, lest your soul be no longer open to the spiritual things the world has to offer. But I find no difficulty at all in experiencing soul stimulation and at the same time owning a Maserati, which I did until a few months ago.

[Q]Playboy: What does owning a Maserati do for the soul?

[A]O'connor: There's something uplifting about owning the best-looking, best performing car of its type in the world, about the way it runs effortlessly up through the gears to 140 miles an hour.

[Q]Playboy: Did you often drive it that fast?

[A]O'connor: I never had the guts to take it any faster than 120, but I drove it over 100 as often as I could. I had to test whether this high-priced, highpowered machine was all men said it was. And it always was. I got the same exhilaration out of renewing that knowledge every time I did it.

[Q]Playboy: Apart from acquiring a Maserati, has stardom brought any changes in your life style?

[A]O'connor: Well, it's cost me a lot--and not just in money. The highest price you have to pay for becoming a celebrity is that you become a fugitive. Because every place I go I'm recognized, I now consciously find myself avoiding looking at people, which is a loss. I can't move without being stopped by people for autographs or conversation. Even at the better restaurants, people come up to my table and just stare at me while I'm eating my scaloppine. And I can't go to a ball game, or any other kind of sporting event, or I'll be forced to sign autographs for everybody in my section of the stands. I even get stopped at supermarket check-out counters. People take snapshots of me in the street. One guy followed me down Westwood Boulevard the other night, taking pictures with a movie camera. And sunglasses don't help; they recognize me in the biggest pair of shades you ever saw. At the beginning, that kind of adulation was a novelty. It's still enjoyable, but it can get to be a pain in the ass. Being the observed all the time is unsettling. I can almost feel eyes on the back of my neck.

[Q]Playboy: Do those who approach you in public greet you as Carroll O'Connor or as Archie Bunker?

[A]O'connor: More than half the time, they call me Archie--kind of in fun, you know--but an awful lot of strangers call me Mr. O'Connor. I don't think most people mix me up with the character. A couple of actors did, though. They never knew me before, and they thought I had to be exactly like Archie. I look different offcamera, and I certainly sound different offcamera, but it was inconceivable to them that I was just playing a role. I had to be that guy. The public never had any problem with it.

[Q]Playboy: You don't think there's any danger that you'll be stereotyped and stuck with Archie the way Sean Connery has been with James Bond?

[A]O'connor: I don't think so. I've had a number of movie scripts submitted to me that have nothing to do with Archie. I've completed a TV musical special that has nothing to do with Archie. There's also a dramatic special I'm going to do later in the year, tentatively titled It's a Man's World, or Is It?, in which I'll do three one-act plays, one of them my own, that have nothing to do with the Archie character.

[Q]Playboy: Do you and Archie have anything in common as far as life styles are concerned?

[A]O'connor: Not much. Archie and I both like beer, but he has his own concept of the finer things. Occasionally, he'll have a stiff shot of rye or bourbon, but he has no taste for other booze, let alone the kind of wines I drink. For recreation, I like to read and travel; Archie's idea of a perfect evening would be to take in a night game at Shea Stadium--or just sit at home watching pro football on television.

[Q]Playboy: Would he watch All in the Family?

[A]O'connor: I think so. Maybe he'd get some laughs out of it. But he might recognize himself on the screen and resent the reflection.

[Q]Playboy: What are his tastes in food?

[A]O'connor: Archie is a lover of good, solid, well-cooked American dishes: steak, chops, stews. If you took him into a French restaurant, though, and surprised him with some of the French veal dishes or the marvelous way they do potatoes and other vegetables, I think he'd love it. But he's never been exposed to it. He has to get by with the Twinkies Edith puts in his lunch box. If it were possible--and we'll have to fantasize about this for a moment--I'd like to take Archie to an osteria up in the Italian Apennines, a country inn situated in a little town north of Parma where I once spent some time, where everything the owners served was absolutely fresh, where they hand-cut the pasta and pressed their own red wine, hung their own sausage in a subterranean room, and the herbs to flavor the ragout were all available in the garden.

We would start the meal with an antipasto of salami, fresh olives from the countryside, fresh onions eaten raw, with white wine to wash it all down. Then we would have a dish of spaghetti alla carbonara--that's with egg and bacon and cheese mixed up in the pasta. An unmentionable number of calories. Next there would be veal chops. Now, that sounds like very plain cooking, but as the Italians do it in the country with those ancient recipes, veal chops can be unbelievably beautiful. The vegetables would be fresh zucchini or melanzane, which we call eggplant, cooked alla sicilina, with cheese and tomato. Also a serving of fagiolini--large cold string beans in a vinegar-and-oil dressing. All this would be served with homemade chianti. At the end, there would be some pungent cheese and then pears stewed in sugary syrup with a mixture of other fruit and doused with maraschino brandy. We'd also have zuppa inglese, an Italian variety of English trifle--a soft, creamy sort of thing. And, finally, all the espresso and brandy we could drink.

A meal of this kind once took my wife and me from one o'clock until after five to consume. And then we went to a farmhouse belonging to my host and napped until nine o'clock that night. Non credo que ch'abbiamo mangiato tutta la questa cosa! "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" You'll have to forgive me for all that; I got carried away. It must be getting close to dinnertime. Anyhow, I think Archie would love that kind of meal--although he might leave Edith after eating it.

[Q]Playboy: You and your wife have stayed together for 21 years. Why has your marriage worked while so many other show-business unions fail?

[A]O'connor: We need each other. When people who are married stop needing each other, they begin to discover mutual faults and then find reasons they shouldn't be living together.

[Q]Playboy: What do you need from each other?

[A]O'connor: What I need from my wife, and I suppose the same goes for her, is human closeness and warmth, her counsel, her criticism, her spiritual support for what I do artistically. She's the check and balance on me that every human being needs. She provides the physical love and spiritual love that we all need. I hope she derives the same from me.

[Q]Playboy: Why do you think the divorce rate--in and out of Hollywood--is so high?

[A]O'connor: I don't know. I can only think of friends that have been married for a number of years and then split up. The fella usually says, "What do I need this broad for anymore? She's nothing but headaches." Maybe she's giving him physical love, but he isn't getting any spiritual satisfaction. Or vice versa. So he begins to balance the debits against the credits and says, "What do I need her for?" And she does the same. My wife and I often find each other wanting, but you see, the need is always there between the two of us. I guess we were just a lucky combination. We shared the same interests, the same friends from the beginning. We were both very much interested in not only the theater but the whole profession of entertainment. And we always had a lot to talk about. These are very important things--a similarity of interests, a similarity of artistic and professional drives, a sharing of friendships The whole social and professional enclave was the same for her as it was for me.

[Q]Playboy: In the course of your relationship, have you developed any rules of behavior for yourself to keep things running smoothly?

[A]O'connor: Only one: I try to control my temper. I succeed now more than I did years ago. My advice to anybody is to try to get control early on. It's like a hole in a dike, that temper thing. If you don't patch it up when it happens, it gets bigger and bigger and all kinds of other troubles come flooding in. So you have to stifle yourself.

[Q]Playboy: Can you recall an occasion when you couldn't control your temper?

[A]O'connor: Yes, I can. But it didn't have anything to do with my wife. It was prompted by the way my career was going back in 1954 and 1955, after we returned from Ireland, when I couldn't understand why people wouldn't give me any work. I would tell producers what I had done; they knew the men I'd worked for. They knew all the people--like James Mason and Geraldine Fitzgerald--who had come from the Gate Theater in Dublin. It was a good credential to have. But in spite of that, I wasn't getting any work. I couldn't even get arrested. I wasn't depressed, though; I was sore as hell. I felt that everybody I met was stupid, a bunch of ignoramuses. How dare they not hire me!

While I was looking for work, we were existing only on what Nancy made as a teacher; her take-home pay was about $325 a month. So with me at the rather advanced age of 30 and married three years, my wife and I were obliged to live with my mother in Forest Hills--in the house where I grew up. That didn't do much for my ego. I couldn't even support the two of us. Besides that, my mother had one kind of life and we had another. We wanted privacy and our own place. In order to do that, I had to do something to bring in some extra loot. Finally, I went over to the board of education in Brooklyn and took the first exam that came up--which was for an English teacher, though history had been my major in college. I passed the English exam and got a substitute-teacher's license and then I started to make about $325 a month, too. So after a while, we had plenty of money and we got our own apartment, in Rockaway, Queens--not far from the neighborhood where the Bunkers live. We had a new car and nice furnishings. We lived very well.

[Q]Playboy: Did you like teaching?

[A]O'connor: Well, it was a challenge. I taught first at a junior high school on the West Side of Manhattan, then at Textile High on 17th Street, and finally at the High School of Performing Arts, all as a substitute teacher. Textile was kind of a tough school, though I never ran into a Blackboard Jungle situation. I had a class of 45 boys from the ages of 14 to 19 who were the most troublesome in all the other classes at the school. The administration's remedy was to take these misfits out of the other classes and put them all into one hellhole of a class. And to whom did they give that assignment? To the most inexperienced teacher in the whole goddamn school--Carroll O'Connor, who had been kidded about his girl's name since he was ten.

My task was mainly to keep them in line, because they'd been given up on as far as learning was concerned. At first, the kids all thought I was a cop who had been planted in the school to investigate drug pushing. They questioned me about it all the time, but I would never admit that I was or I wasn't. I must tell you frankly, I controlled my class by intimidating them and getting physical in one or two instances. The very first day, I found one of the boys, who was a senior, sitting in my chair with his feet on the desk. I later learned that this class had, in the previous term, set a whole row of desks on fire and ejected the teacher, keeping the doors locked against the principal and the assistant principal, who were trying to get in to put out the fire. This boy, who was now sitting at my desk, had finally let everybody in to put the fire out with extinguishers. He was an Italian kid. There was some competition between him and a black kid as to who was the real boss of the class.

Anyway, when I came into the room, the classroom was utter pandemonium. A game of tag was going on--using only the tops of the desks, not the floor--and the object was to avoid being tagged. There was another game going on that involved throwing blackboard erasers at one another; if you were hit, you were out. Chalk was being fired around. Cards were being played. The most respectable students were playing blackjack; they were the quiet ones. And the Italian kid was in my chair with his feet up on my desk. I got attention by slamming the door behind me with such force that I was afraid I'd break all the glass in it. I didn't say anything, because I just had a feeling that words wouldn't do at the moment.

They all stopped and everything got quiet as they looked me over. My first move was to walk over to the desk, half kick and half push the boss kid out of the chair. I got him in the ass. The chair went over and he went over, landing on the floor. As he started to get up. mad, I grabbed hold of him and told him I was going to punch his teeth down his throat. He said, "Don't!" "OK," I said, "then get into this seat here." He sat down. I looked up and told the rest of them, with a baleful glare that Archie would have been proud of, "All a yah. siddown!" And it worked. I've kept a variation of that look in my repertoire, playing it for humor rather than for menace. I use it, in fact, in the night-club act I do four weeks of the year in Reno and Vegas.

[Q]Playboy: What kind of act do you do?

[A]O'connor: Well, I start with a mono-log as Archie, and then I sing some songs of the Thirties from my first album, Remembering You. That's it; no frills like tap dancing or chorus girls. It's sort of a cross between live theater and after-dinner speaking.

[Q]Playboy: What are some of the highlights of your Archie segment?

[A]O'connor: I do about 25 minutes complaining about the state of the world, using my familiar Archie dialect. For my night-club debut in Tahoe, I did some stuff that was topical then. Like: "George Wallace is a man to be reckoned wit'. Did you hear he come out de udda day for busin' da black people? If the Federal Government buys the buses and builds a bridge from Alabama to West Africa." I also talked about Nixon in China: "One a da reasons Nixon wanted diplomatic relations ovah dere was so he could send ovah a lotta people that would do da country a lotta good far away." I also had jokes about Howard Hughes, Sam Yorty, Hubert Humphrey and the pill: "I don't mean no headache pills. The kinda headache you take this pill for, you get in a motel."

[Q]Playboy: What was the critical reaction to your night-club debut?

[A]O'connor: With a few exceptions, it was a smash. And according to the pit bosses, the high rollers came in to see my show; the waiters got much bigger tips than usual. A couple of reviewers, however, did have the effrontery to say that my singing was "slightly off-key" or that I sounded like I was singing in the shower.

[Q]Playboy: Have you used mostly ethnic jokes in your act?

[A]O'connor: No, and calculatedly so. We have Archie making ethnic slurs on the television show, but the barbs are always answered by members of the family, usually by the son-in-law. In my night-club act, there's nobody there to retaliate, so I don't do that. Most of the humor of All in the Family hinges on Archie getting a lot of static. Sometimes when the writers give him racial remarks to say, they haven't given somebody else an answer, so we ad-lib one. Once or twice it's happened that there was just no way to get an answer into the script, so we've eliminated the barb.

[Q]Playboy: That's a form of self-censorship. Have you had any censorship imposed on you by the network or the sponsors?

[A]O'connor: It's a curious thing. When it comes to our show, CBS really lays off. I think it's because Norman Lear has been very forceful in his arguments. On the opening show, he wisely took a strong stand. He told the CBS brass, "On this first show, we're saying the worst we probably will ever say. If we get it over with now, we'll have a much easier time." There were several contested lines, but they let us use just about any racial epithet you can think of. I referred to coons, Hebes, spicks, Polacks. We even had micks in there someplace. We somehow got it all said. We also got some sexy stuff over.

[Q]Playboy: What was the contested material?

[A]O'connor: One of the things CBS questioned was when Edith and I came home from church and we obviously interrupted the kids balling upstairs. There was some kind of suggestion that we modify that business and Norman said, "No, that's what they were doing and it's too vital a part of the plot, and furthermore, we're going to be getting into a lot of this stuff as the series goes on, and we might as well get the audience used to it." CBS backed down.

[Q]Playboy: Didn't it seem absurd to you that the network would question the mere implication that a young married couple was making love offcamera?

[A]O'connor: Indeed it did. Balling is one of the best things we do in life, but --let's face it--TV is still tied to a moral taboo about it. I really think all of us in the industry lag behind the public. We're afraid the public will object; and most of the time they don't object at all. They keep fooling us.

[Q]Playboy: Have there been any conflicts among those involved in the show about what sort of material should be used?

[A]O'connor: Yes, we've had creative differences that have been hard to resolve and we've had friction on the show over my rejection of a lot of material. Good writing is very hard to come by, especially for television. The medium uses writing voraciously, like a blast furnace would burn up sawdust. Nobody can keep up with its demands. The most ordinary kind of mindless situation comedy finds itself short of acceptable material, so imagine the situation with the kind of show we became, lifted as we are into the realm of satire--a commodity virtually unknown in the American theater and utterly unknown on American television.

Now, there are many actors who regard the written word with a great deal of reverence simply because it's part of a script by the time they see it. They're more than willing to do whatever is given to them. I guess I'm perverse. I regard everything written that's handed to me with the utmost suspicion. The first thing I see is a script's faults; the last thing I'm ready to see is its merits.

Well, certain of our story lines I've felt weren't real, and I've said so. As everybody connected with the show knows, a week never passes that I don't change all sorts of things--and occasionally that causes problems. And one day we had a disagreement that suddenly got way out of proportion. This was a show in which the black kid, Lionel, his mother and his uncle came to our house on Christmas Day to pass the usual pleasantries. Lionel noticed that his mother was standing under the mistletoe and said to her, "Look out, Momma, Mr. Bunker is a devil with anybody standing under that mistletoe." She was then supposed to look at me and smile expectantly. I was to look at her in mixed bewilderment and horror, and walk away.

I didn't think this business rang true, Lionel is a very hip, smart kid who knows Archie very well. He would never put his mother in a position where Archie might insult her. So we began arguing that thing back and forth and agreed that we'd think about it again. I called Norman on a Sunday and went over to his home and told him I felt very strongly about this, that I'd been thinking about it for two days and concluded that I was absolutely right. I said we ought to change it or cut it. Norman asked for suggestions. Perhaps if Mrs. Jefferson herself would instigate a joke that might turn against her, I said, it might somehow take the curse off. So we made the change. Monday morning we came in for rehearsal and I felt a resistance in everybody to go along with the change. I began getting so many arguments that I finally said, "This must be cut or I guess we won't have a show." It was cut, but that wasn't the end. That night, when we were having a note session, Norman brought the whole thing up again, suggesting that we ought to consider going back to the original.

I don't think he realized how seriously I was taking the whole thing. At first I was objecting to something I just thought was wrong. I had objected to many things like this before and we'd made some adjustment. Sometimes the director, John Rich, would argue me out of it; other times we would reach a compromise; other times a thing I didn't like was cut. But here was a situation that for some strange reason was getting beyond my objecting to a minor bit of business. My ego had become involved.

Suddenly, my resentment exploded, and I thought: "I'm the star of the number-one show on TV. I carry 75 percent of every episode. If I were somebody like Jackie Gleason, they'd all be ordered out on the street." I couldn't imagine how anybody would set up this kind of argument with a big star like Jackie or Lucy. Why were they persisting in this thing when they knew Carroll O'Connor didn't want it? I called my agent that night and said, "Be prepared to get me out of this show at the (concluded on page 205) Playboy Interview(continued from page 74) end of the season." The mistletoe incident, on top of an accumulation of other disputes, had made me determined not to continue on the show. I felt I could no longer continue in an amicable creative relationship.

[Q]Playboy: It sounds more as if, with your ego at stake, you were abusing the star's prerogative to throw his weight around.

O'connor: Not abusing it. Using it rightfully--and properly. I think. I wasn't really throwing my weight around to show people I was the star. If I had left the show, it would have been a surrender, not a victory. I ask you, how much ego is there in a surrender?

[Q]Playboy: How was the conflict resolved?

O'connor: I got what I wanted. They cut the mistletoe reference. Subsequently, my contract was renegotiated--and my ego was assuaged.

[Q]Playboy: Do the terms of your contract provide for financial participation in All in the Family's extensive merchandising operation?

O'connor: They do. But I'm probably getting screwed out of the proceeds. I should be receiving a piece of the profits from T-shirts, posters, buttons, magazines, beer mugs, records and the rest of it. Most producers of hit television shows create additional revenues through this sort of merchandising, which involves everything from Mission: Impossible spy kits embellished with replicas of the cast to David Cassidy lunch boxes adorned with his likeness.

[Q]Playboy: Doesn't this sort of thing patently trade on the show's success for a quick buck?

O'connor: That's exactly what it does. Capitalizing on the show to make money in other ways is the name of the game. I've never read The Wit and Wisdom of Archie Bunker, but that's fine with me as long as I get some loot out of it. I didn't care for my mug being connected with silly things like sweat shirts or the "Archie Bunker for President" campaign or any of that horseshit. I think I'm above all that; I feel it's demeaning. But Norman said: "You might as well go along with it and make some money, because if we withhold approval, it's going to be bootlegged anyhow." However, I have asked for approval of any item that uses my face. And I did have something to say about the words appearing on the bumper stickers used in the Bunker for President campaign. In general, we rejected anything that seemed to be using Archie to ram home a specifically partisan political idea. We approved the slogans that really bespoke Archie's altitudes in the same way the show does. Like: "Build a Better Yesterday--with Archie" or "Bunker's the Man for '72 (1872)" or "I'm a Dingbat for Bunker."

[Q]Playboy: How would you react to an "America--Love It or Leave It" bumper sticker with Archie's name on it?

O'connor: I would immediately reject it as offensive, even without Archie's name. Inherent in that asshole bumper sticker is the smug implication that everybody who fails to display one doesn't love his country. That's an insult to every other driver on the road.

[Q]Playboy: If Bunker had a car, would he stick that sentiment on his bumper?

O'connor: Absolutely, along with "Support Your Local Police"--which is another message that gripes me. Of course we should support our local police; they're the guys who protect our person and our property. But again, the implication in that goddamn bumper sticker is that people without it aren't supporting their police. And that's a wretched slur. The sentiments we used on one of the Bunker for President campaign buttons might very well apply to people who think like that: "Archie Says: The Trouble with America Is Them!"

[Q]Playboy: Your record album, a nostalgic paean to "the beloved Thirties"--as you call them in the liner notes--is yet another example of All in the Family's ancillary dividends. What was beloved about the Thirties?

O'connor: They're beloved in sentimental retrospect because they were the years of my adolescence, the time when I was growing up. It was probably the last great decade in America because of the upbeat mood pervading the nation, despite the rampant deprivation. The system had let everybody down. People felt abandoned and turned out, as many of them were, with nowhere to go and nothing or no one to turn to for help. There were bread lines, and jobs were scarce. And there was a terrific fear among those who were still working that tomorrow they would be on relief. And certainly there was a fear of world war and potential loss of young manhood. But there were always voices in the Depression that said things were going to improve. Leaders like Roosevelt were always keeping our spirits up. There wasn't that fear of the end of the world that we live with today. One could look with hope to tomorrow, to next month, to next year, to the next program the Government was going to undertake. One saw the future, or at least felt that he could look for it. I don't really feel we can look for a future anymore.

I hate to be that pessimistic, but I almost feel afraid to imagine where I'll be five or ten years from now, or where my child will be. I'm filled with a kind of terror because I'm unable to plan for him or for myself. It's an extremely unsettling feeling that things are going on over which I've got no control whatsoever. And I'm not the only one who's afraid. Almost everybody 1 talk to on these matters is uptight. I catch their fear and they catch mine. It goes around like a current. I'm talking not just about people like me. I mean everybody--hard-hats and long-hairs, young and old, black and white. These groups are so busy at each other's throats that they don't realize how much they have in common, that we're all in the same boat and we're all going to sail straight to hell if we don't get the right people at the tiller. We all share the same sense of helplessness, the same feeling that things are getting out of control and that our institutions, even if they don't lie to us--and I think they do--aren't really working anymore. If we could just get together, we could start turning things around in this country.

[Q]Playboy: Are you speaking for Archie or for yourself when you say that?

O'connor: Are you kidding? If Archie had to sit and listen to all this--me telling him to join forces with blacks and radicals--he'd tell me to go hump myself.

[Q]Playboy: And how would you reply?

O'connor: I'd tell him I'd rather hump my sister.