‘All in the Family’ star Sally Struthers reveals disappointment about…
He introduced her into the household.
Sally Struthers took away a key piece of recommendation from her former “All in the Family” co-star Rob Reiner — which she’s held onto for more than 40 years.
“Rob Reiner saw me deflate one time at the Monday morning read through around the table,” Struthers, 78, completely told The Post, while selling the twenty fifth anniversary of “Gilmore Girls.”
Sally Struthers, Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton and Rob Reiner in “All in the Family.” Everett Collection
Sally Struthers speaks onstage during the seventy fifth Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on January 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images
“Every Monday morning, we would gather in the rehearsal space. It would be our director, the actors on the show, and then it would be Norman Lear, and it would be the writers. And we would read [an episode script] out loud,” Struthers explained.
A “script girl” would time it, and inform them if each script was “two minutes too long.”
On cases after they needed to search for two minutes to chop, “Rob Reiner would jump right in…we started to call him ‘The Sultan of Slice’ because he knew immediately what line to cut without affecting a joke or the plot,” Struthers said.
She recalled that they might “hardly keep up with” Reiner’s razor sharp instincts.
Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, and Sally Struthers pose with their Emmys backstage at the twenty fourth annual Emmy Awards in Hollywood, Ca., Sunday night time, May 14, 1972. AP
“He’d say, now go to page five. That line at the bottom. Gloria’s line.”
Struthers’ first major function was in “All in the Family,” which aired on CBS from 1971 to 1979.
Produced by Lear and Bud Yorkin, the seminal sitcom was about working-class Queens patriarch Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), his spouse Edith (Jean Stappleton), their daughter, Gloria (Struthers), and Gloria’s husband, Michael Stivic (Reiner).
Rob Reiner, left, and Sally Struthers introducing the In Memoriam section with a tribute to Norman Lear during the seventy fifth Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Struthers said the hassle arose when, “Maybe I only had seven lines in that whole episode. The writers were older men, and they didn’t know how to write for Gloria. And so, there wasn’t a lot for her to say. My lines every week were akin to, ‘I’ll help you set the table, Mom’ and ‘Oh, Daddy! Stop it!’”
She explained that when Gloria only had a handful of traces per episode, she tried her best to carry “on to those three lines.”
“If one of my three lines went [and got cut], I would physically sink in my chair,” she told The Post. “Because I was spending a lot of time at CBS in Los Angeles, rehearsing with everyone, and I always have the least to say as my character.”
Things got here to a head when the “When Harry Met Sally” director took her apart in the future.
Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, Carroll O’Connor, Sally Struthers for “All in the Family.” Everett Collection
Jean Stapleton and Carroll O’Connor, seated, proper, maintain their Emmys for “All in the Family” on Sept. 18, 1978, in Los Angeles. At rear, from left to proper are Rob Reiner, who gained an Emmy for supporting actor in the same collection and Norman Lear. AP
Sally Struthers arrives at Lifetime’s “Christmas Harmony” Premiere at Harmony Gold Theater on November 7, 2018 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images
“Rob said, ‘I know that we’re the same age, and I have no business instructing you. But, I see how disappointing it is for you when you lose a line or two, and nobody writes for you the delicious arguments like I get to do with Archie. If you could change your mindset, Sally, if you could make the show more important than your part, then you would not only be fine if a line or two of yours was cut, but you might even offer up yourself, knowing that’s not an important line and it could go. I hope you can do that.’”
From then on, Struthers “made each episode more important” than her “silly part.”
“And I wasn’t disappointed anymore,” she told The Post.
Struthers in the end gained two Emmys for the function.
“[Reiner] taught me all about mindset,” she said. “And that was a huge teaching moment for me.”
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