HE might be 98, but there is no slowing down the award winning writer Norman Lear. Over the years he has enjoyed a busy love life, which includes three wives. Who is Norman Lear’s wife Lyn? Lyn is a Hollywood producer, mainly known for her work in documnetary film making. She wed Norman back in […]
HE might be 98, but there is no slowing down the award winning writer Norman Lear.
Over the years he has enjoyed a busy love life, which includes three wives.
Lyn is a Hollywood producer, mainly known for her work in documnetary film making.
She wed Norman back in 1987 and has been happy ever since.
Lyn opened up to EW about life with her famous husband, and said: “Being married to someone well-known, there’s an adjusting that goes on.”
The couple love collaborating too, and set up the Lear Family Foundation together.
Norman met his first wife Charlotte in 1939 on a hayride.
He was just 17 at the time and Charlotte was a year older than him.
They started seeing each other and dated each other for four years, but in 1942 Norman enlisted himself in US Army Air Forces and served in World War II.
He was in the service at the time when he proposed to Charlotte over the phone.
She said yes and the couple tied the knot in 1943.
However the divorced in 1956.
Wife number two was magazine editor and fellow writer Frances Loeb.
After a whirlwind romance the couple married in 1956 and went on to work together on his sitcoms.
But after nearly three decades, they decided to end their marriage and divorced in 1985.
The divorce generated one of the biggest settlements of the time, a whopping $112million (£80million).
When asked about the settlement, Frances told The New York Times that she was “very much part of his thinking and Norman could not have done his shows without me.”
She started a women’s magazine called Lear’s in 1988 and became an activist for the women’s movement, civil rights, and mental health.
Sadly Frances died of breast cancer at age 73.
Norman has six children – with his first born in 1947 and last in 1994.
From his first marriage to Charlotte he had his eldest daughter Ellen, who is now a sex therapist.
From marriage number two to Frances, he had Kate (born 1957) and Maggie (born 1959).
Together with wife Lyn, he has three children – Ben (born in 1988) and twins Madeline and Brianna (born in 1984).
