Who was Norman Lear’s ex-wife, Frances?

NORMAN Lear was a well-known Hollywood figure who had a highly successful career in the entertainment industry.

Following his death at 101, fans want to know more about the TV and film producer’s late ex-wife, Frances Lear.

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Who was Norman Lear’s ex-wife, Frances?

Frances was born on July 14, 1923, in Hudson, New York at the Vanderheusen Home for Wayward Girls, per The New York Times.

Her mother was unmarried and her father was unknown.

According to the outlet, she was given the name Evelyn but was renamed Frances following her adoption by Aline and Herbert Loeb from Larchmont, New York after 14 months in an orphanage.

She then went to the Mary A. Burnham School for Girls in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, Frances worked multiple jobs, mainly within the advertising and retail industries in New York.

However, she was frequently fired from her positions.

The publication states: “She was, she never hesitated to say, dismissed from most of them for behavior like listening in on the boss’s telephone conversations and drinking through lunch.”

Frances “had two short-lived marriages” before meeting Norman.

The pair wed in 1956 in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to Hollywood Life.

The former couple had two kids together, including daughters Kate and Maggie Lear, who were born around 1957 and 1959, per People.

They lived in California, and while Norman’s career flourished, Frances felt overlooked.

According to The New York Times, in a 1981 Op-Ed piece for the publication, Frances discussed her negative experience as a Hollywood wife, writing that a woman in Hollywood is a nonperson “unless she is under 21, powerful or a star.” 

The outlet continues: “She noted, too, that an industry wife was looked through, never at.

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“In a later interview, recalling her years as a Hollywood wife, she said she had felt constantly ignored and undervalued, had had little self-esteem and had often been depressed.”

Per the New York Times, Frances said she “‘always aspired to something out of the ordinary” and moved to New York following the pair’s 1985 divorce.

Her settlement was “variously estimated” to be worth between $100 million and $112 million and was “one of the largest ever recorded.”

She “quickly set out to change the nonperson identity she had felt in Hollywood” with the creation of Lear’s, a magazine geared toward women like Frances — ”the woman who wasn’t born yesterday” — as it said on its cover.

The magazine found success with its 1988 publication.

However, “almost immediately” after its start, Frances “developed a reputation for being unpredictable and hot-tempered.”

Despite distributing over 500,000 copies in its last months, Lear’s halted its publication in March 1994, per The New York Times.

Who was Norman Lear?

Norman Lear was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 27, 1992.

He found major success as a television screenwriter and producer and was well-known for his work on multiple hit 1970s sitcoms such as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, and One Day at a Time.

As The New York Times reported, Norman died on Tuesday, December 5, 2023, at the age of 101.

Per the outlet, Lara Bergthold — a spokeswoman for the family — confirmed the star’s death.

The publication states: “Mr. Lear reigned at the top of the television world through the 1970s and into the early ’80s, leaving a lasting mark with shows that brought the sitcom into the real world.”

When did Frances Lear pass away?

Frances passed away on September 30, 1996, in New York City at the age of 73.

According to The New York Times, she died at her Manhattan home.

Her son-in-law — Dr. Jonathan LaPook — named breast cancer as Frances’ cause of death.