From "Politics and Policy" to the effect of All in the Family to prime time television, read and download some of our selected favorites!

Get 1000+ All in the Family Pictures! Click "F5" in IExplorer or go here.

Comedy scriptwriter whose character inspired Archie Bunker dies

( AP Online ) ; 07-06-1998

LONDON (AP) _ Johnny Speight, the British comedy writer who created the prototype of the bigoted Archie Bunker, is dead of pancreatic cancer at age 78.

Speight continued writing until a few weeks before his death, his younger son, Francis, said. He died Sunday night at his home at Chorleywood, near London.

The American television series ``All in the Family,'' which premiered in 1971, was based on Speight's British series, ``Till Death Us Do Part,'' and its lead character, Alf Garnett.

``There are very few writers who can claim to have created a character who embodied a spirit of a generation,'' said Paul Jackson, a top executive at British Broadcasting Corp. ``Johnny Speight did this with Alf Garnett. He will always be remembered as the man who created a comic icon for the age.''

Garnett, who first appeared in 1964, expounded his views on race, the neighbors, immigration and politics, all the while dealing his wife classic put-downs. Often a picture of the woman Garnett admired most, Queen Elizabeth II, was visible on a wall.

The series and its sequel, ``In Sickness and in Health,'' ranked among the BBC's greatest comedy hits.

Norman Lear obtained the U.S. rights to the series and developed the Bunker character. Versions of the program were also made in the Netherlands and Germany.

Speight, the son of a dockworker, was born in London's East End. He left school at 14 to work in a factory. A jazz enthusiast, he started in entertainment as the drummer in a local jazz band.

In 1956, a friend introduced him to three new comic talents - Spike Milligan, Frankie Howerd and Eric Sykes. He wrote for them, rapidly earning big fees.
Through the stresses of hard drinking and huge success, Speight' s family remained his rock and his own left-wing political views were unchanged.

He recently wrote of his marriage to his wife Connie, who he met when she was 17, ``I couldn't bear to think of life without her. Our story really could be called `Till Death Us Do Part'.''

He is survived by his wife and their three children. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.