Norman Lear takes live call during Q&A at Ebertfest

CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, ILL. | Chaz Ebert told the audience at Ebertfest on Saturday afternoon that even though television titan Norman Lear is 94, he once eschewed a chair offered for him at a Sundance screening where a Q&A session went on for quite a while.

Ms. Ebert then introduced Rachel Grady, who co-directed the documentary “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You,” about the legendary comedy writer and TV show creator behind such staples as “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” “Good Times” and “Maude.”

Mr. Lear said following the screening that his only artistic contribution to the film was insisting that a shot of all of his grandchildren be included, but he left the creative decisions to Ms. Grady and her co-director, Heidi Ewing.

In an instance of life imitating art, Mr. Lear — shown in one scene of the film to be constantly working, answering phones in the middle of meeting with cast members — had his cellphone ring during the Q&A. Before answering the call, he explained that he was keeping a promise to his children, to whom he said it would always be on. On the other end was Ms. Ewing, co-director of the doc. He put her on speaker.

“Did they like the movie?” she said; the Virginia Theatre audience applauded cheerily in reply.

Ms. Ebert asked Mr. Lear about the controversy surrounding “Good Times,” his early-’70s show featuring a black family. As seen in “Just Another Version of You,” star John Amos and others in the cast constantly pushed for the show’s writers to take the family’s story more seriously.

“At one time, you had more African-American characters in prime time than anyone else in the history of television,” Ms. Ebert said.

“We’re all human beings,” Mr. Lear said, mentioning the recent release on Netflix of a reboot of “One Day at a Time,” this time featuring a Hispanic family.

Ms. Grady and Mr. Lear then discussed another project he has been pitching for years called “Guess Who Died,” which he envisioned as a way to get aging actors more roles in youth-obsessed Hollywood — as well as knocking down stereotypes of how the elderly “should” behave.

When asked how he blends humor, entertainment and social issues in the stories he has written over the course of his decadeslong career, Mr. Lear said much of it has to do with “understanding the foolishness of the human condition.”

He then told of being at a funeral when he was young, and as he watched a casket being lowered into the ground, “two people scratched their asses.”

“There’s humor to be found in any situation,” he said.

Mr. Lear said that Carroll O’Connor, who portrayed perennial grouch Archie Bunker on “All in the Family,” was a liberal intellectual in real life, “a total 180” compared with Archie’s notorious bigotry. O’Connor died in 2001; his on-screen wife, Jean Stapleton (Edith), passed in 2013.

Ms. Ebert told Mr. Lear that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” noting that Ben Lear, who directed the documentary “They Call Us Monsters,” had presented his own film Friday at the festival.

Mr. Lear said he is nervous about President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un being perhaps too eager to use nuclear weapons in the current climate.

“I worry about [Mr. Trump’s] natural ability,” he said. “I thought of America’s affection for him as their showing the middle finger on the right hand.”

He also lamented American corporations’ overriding love affair is with profit above all else.

“Nature suggests that nothing can grow forever, but the American corporation must. How sensible is that?” he said.

Even though Mr. Lear’s series shined a spotlight on social problems for decades — many of which remain — he is confident that the U.S. can and will prevail.

“We have a long way to go, but we’ll get there because we’re America,” Mr. Lear said, once again displaying his eternal sense of optimism.