Patt Shea, the Norman Lear regular who co-wrote the 1979 series finale of All in the Family and co-created and worked on two spinoffs of the fabled sitcom, Archie Bunker’s Place and Gloria, has died. She was 93.
Shea died April 12 of natural causes on her birthday at her home in Sherman Oaks, her son Michael Shea, a director and assistant director, told The Hollywood Reporter. The family chose to wait until this week to publicly announce her death.
“Patt Shea was a trailblazer in comedy writing,” Michael noted. “Her success as a writer in groundbreaking sitcoms was only matched by her generosity and compassion for people.”
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Jack Shea, her husband of 59 years, died in 2013. He directed dozens of episodes of such Lear-connected sitcoms as The Jeffersons, Silver Spoons and Sanford and Son and served as president of the DGA from 1997-2002, part of a half-century of dedicated service to the guild.
Patt Shea received her first TV writing credit on The Jeffersons in 1977, and she also worked for Lear on the spinoff Sanford, the McLean Stevenson-starring In the Beginning and the Terrence McNally-created Mama Malone.
Plus, she collaborated with All in the Family stars Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton on their subsequent series In the Heat of the Night and Bagdad Café, respectively.
A story editor and then a staff writer on All in the Family, Shea and frequent writing partner Harriett Weiss received “written by” credit for “Too Good Edith,” the 205th (by many counts) and final installment of the show.
On the episode, Edith (Stapleton) is tasked with cooking all the food for Archie’s (O’Connor) St. Patrick’s Day shindig at his bar, but she’s developed phlebitis — which she’s keeping a secret — and is barely able to stand. At the end, they share a tender moment, rare for this TV couple.
Shea, who contributed to many of the Edith-centric storylines on the series, received the first of her three Humanitas Prize nominations for her work on this episode.
O’Connor and Stapleton immediately segued to Archie Bunker’s Place, which lasted four seasons and 97 episodes through April 1983. (At the start of the second season in 1980, it’s revealed that Edith has died from a stroke.) Shea got writing credit on about 20 episodes of this one.
Shea, Weiss and Joe Gannon then created Gloria, which starred Sally Struthers’ All in the Family character (now working in a veterinarian’s office) and her son. That series lasted one season (1982-83) of 21 episodes.
The daughter of a realtor, Patricia Catherine Carmody was born in Sacramento on April 12, 1931. She attended St. Francis High School and, after moving to Los Angeles, Immaculate Heart College.
She met her future husband backstage when she was in the cast of George Washington Slept Here at Immaculate Heart, and they married in Carmel, California. They lived in New York for a bit while Jack was a stage manager for NBC, then returned to L.A. in 1953.
Shea took writing classes at UCLA and always carried a yellow pad with her, constantly writing while her five kids attended practices, her son said.
Her inaugural credit on The Jeffersons came on an episode that was directed by her husband. She got writing credit on two final-season installments of All in the Family before tackling the last episode and also wrote for Happy Days, Cagney & Lacey, Lou Grant, Valerie and The Golden Girls.
She and Jack co-founded Catholics in Media Associates in 1992 and accepted the organization’s lifetime achievement award a decade later. They also were presented with a Luminosa in Unity honor from the Focolare Movement for “bringing together producers, directors, writers and actors to convey positive values through their work.”
In addition to Michael, survivors include her other sons, Bill (another director/assistant director) and J.J., and their grandchildren, Amanda, Michael, Dylan, Hudson, Katherine and Jackson.
Her oldest child, daughter Shawn Shea, a longtime assistant director and stage manager in Hollywood, died in February of pneumonia at age 69. Another daughter, Elizabeth, died in 2006 at age 48.
A joint service for Patt and Shawn was held April 20 at St. Francis De Sales Parish in Sherman Oaks.
