The script for what would become an iconic moment in television comedy in 1972 originally had Sammy Davis Jr., playing himself, posing for a photo beside the affable bigot Archie Bunker after stopping by the Bunker home to retrieve a briefcase he left in Archie’s cab.
Not particularly hilarious on its own—until director John Rich had a brilliant idea: as the camera flashed, Sammy should plant a kiss on Archie’s cheek.
“It’s the kind of punctuation to a scene that you pray for,” Rich told DGA Quarterly, the magazine of the Directors Guild of America, in an interview last year. The live audience’s roar of laughter “went on for about 30 to 40 seconds,” he said, “and we had to dial the audio down because it was far too big a laugh for the home viewer.”
Even more, the scene—depicting a black man kissing a white man, especially one as openly prejudiced as Archie (played by Carroll O’Connor)—was groundbreaking in its defiance of the racial taboos of the time. This boldness was entirely in line with the show’s premise: a sitcom that tackled social issues through the lens of a working-class family from Queens.
John Rich, who passed away on Sunday at 86, earned an Emmy and an N.A.A.C.P. Image Award for his work on that episode of All in the Family. His wife, Patricia, confirmed he died at their home in Los Angeles.
In a nearly 50-year career, Rich directed episodes of almost 100 television series, including Our Miss Brooks (27 episodes), Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (27 episodes), That Girl (19 episodes), Gunsmoke (14 episodes), and The Brady Bunch (7 episodes).
However, it was his direction of All in the Family from 1971 to 1974 (81 episodes) and The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966 (41 episodes) that garnered him the most acclaim. Norman Lear, the creator and producer of All in the Family, praised Rich’s willingness to let actors improvise.
“John knew funny,” Lear said. “So as much as we who wrote the scripts liked what we wrote, when we came to a run-through we could expect to see innovation from the actors, because John encouraged spontaneity.”
Rich demonstrated this in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, where Van Dyke’s character, Rob Petrie, believes he has an allergy. “I said to Dick, ‘How many ways can you sneeze?’” Rich recalled in DGA Quarterly. “He figured out about 35 different sneezes, and it was hysterical.”
Rich won an Emmy for The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1963 and a Golden Globe for All in the Family in 1971. He received these awards again in 1972 and 1973 for All in the Family.
“There was a universality to what was going on with Archie Bunker,” Rich said in the DGA Quarterly interview. “In fact, he was partly my father; certainly he was Norman Lear’s father.”
John Rich was born on July 6, 1925, in Rockaway Beach, Queens, to Louis and Jenny Rich, who owned a candy store on the boardwalk. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1948. In his senior year, he worked as a dollar-an-hour disc jockey at a local radio station. After moving to New York in 1950, he was hired as a stage manager at NBC. By 1953, he was directing episodes of The Dennis Day Show.
As a board member of the Screen Directors Guild, he played a key role in its merger with the Radio and Television Directors Guild to form the Directors Guild of America.
Rich is survived by his wife of 22 years, the former Patricia Dodds; two sons, Anthony and Robert; a daughter, Catherine Rich; three stepdaughters, Megan Lewis, Kimberly Beres, and Dana Benton; and eight grandchildren. His first two marriages ended in divorce.
“He understood the foolishness of the human condition,” Norman Lear remarked.