If by some miracle of time and telecommunications, Maude and Walter Findlay had moved in next door to Harriet and Ozzie Nelson, you can be sure Ozzie and Harriet would have moved out—and taken all their friends with them: Jim and Margaret Anderson, June and Ward Cleaver, Donna and Alex Stone, the Partridges, the Bradys, everyone.

But, boy, were we lucky to have Maude in our neighborhood. She was rough and tough—also fragile and frail—one of the first Real People to hit the small screen in sitcom history. She was yet another welcome example of the then new-school of sitcom-verite, in which sitcoms imitated life (of course, the joke was on sitcoms, because life had been imitating sitcoms for years). Maude’s theme song compared her to other strong, sturdy ladies of history—Lady Godiva, Joan of Arc, Betsy Ross. But Maude had something that none of them had, something that made her more powerful than them all: she had her own weekly TV show. Plus, the Nielsen family (not to be confused with the Nelson family) loved her.

Maude imitated nobody, but Maude seemed to intimidate everybody—the network censors, easily threatened men, and reactionary and frightened Americans who tried to burn crosses on Maude’s screen. As a child of Norman Lear (along with her cousins the Sanfords, the Jeffersons, the Bunkers and several others), Maude got herself in some R-rated antics, strictly seventies-style: a dab of politics, a nervous breakdown here, a little manic-depression there, a little wife-swapping here, a bit of abortion, some alcoholism. She was giving All in the Family a nose-to-nose race for the Most Controversial Pageant. And neither Maude nor cousin Archie was a strong contender for Miss Congeniality.

Maude was the first child of All in the Family, the first spin-off that itself would beget a spin-off of its own (Good Times). Maude’s roots crept back to a guest shot on All in the Family. Maude went sailing to the Bunkers’ to care for her ailing cousin Edith. Maude was Archie’s adversary. He was lower-middle class. She was upper-middle class. He was archconservative. She was an archliberal. But, you see—and this was the catch—they were really a lot alike: both were stubborn and pigheaded and outspoken. At that time, however, he had his own series; she didn’t. Daddy Lear rectified that situation on Tuesday, September 12, 1972, when he gave Maude a show of her own.

Maude lived in suburban Tuckahoe, New York (years later—in Real Life—someone in Tuckahoe opened up a tavern called Maude’s Bar), in a wonderful sitcom house that was just a little grander than the Bunkers’: a flame-stitched, camelback sofa was the room’s centerpiece (vying close with a stand-up, halfmoon bar, around which a lot of the action and interaction took place). There was a bentwood coatrack near the front door, and a small dining area at the other end of the room. There was a den off toward the back, an angular set of stairs that led to the bedrooms, and swinging doors that led to the modern kitchen where Maude and Walter often argued and fought with food and dishes. It was in this house that all of the situations were situated.

It was a breakthrough show—most of Lear’s were, course—but it dealt with not only sex, but its side-(and after-)effects; birth control, unwanted pregnancy, menopause. It dealt with other moral issues—everything from the meaning of life to the meaning of death, and points in between. With humor, of course.

But more important than even breaking the barriers of sex and the single sitcom (All in the Family had already done that), Maude was most significant in its exploration of the problem of upper-middle age. Maude had wrinkles. Most sitcom families were young and perky (Donna Reed and Margaret Anderson never aged from week to week, from season to season) and sitcom singles were usually forever young (That Girl never evolved into That Woman, and even Mary Richards canceled herself when she was nary thirty-seven). Maude Findlay was in her late forties, and every year she got older (and bolder). She was a grandmother. She went through menopause. She worried about aging. She had a facelift. She still looked her age. When she turned fifty, Maude’s birthday celebration was a moving visit to a psychotherapist. “I’m fifty and nobody loves me,” she cried, and then looked into the mirror: “Oh God, if I could only repeal the law of gravity.”

Since the show was a Lear creation, the subject matter was never the usual sitcom-style-fare. In one of the most significant series of episodes, Maude discovered she was pregnant, and was going through great consternation about what to do. Viewers—used to Lucy Ricardo’s not being able to even mention the word “pregnant”—probably assumed Maude would rid herself of an unwanted “expectancy” by having the baby and putting it up for adoption. But that would have been too easy. Instead, Maude—who always did things her own way—had an abortion.

Although the Supreme Court had legalized abortion, many CBS local affiliates tried to abort Maude from their airwaves. Those who ran the episodes received hundreds of letters and calls from irate and offended viewers. Stations and viewers went to court to battle the episodes being put on/pulled off, depending on their stance. "Prolife” groups were pro-death for Maude; many mailed Norman Lear 8x10 glossies of aborted fetuses.

Of course, Maude didn’t have abortions every week. No. Sometimes she had just the daily operations of her existence: Run-ins with John Wayne, trying to run Henry Fonda for President (of the US, not CBS), and working out the staples of everyday radical-chic sitcom life. Some examples:

• An acquaintance of Maude’s died. Maude had lent her a beloved brooch, and there it was, on the dead friend’s body in the casket. Maude hovered over the casket, crying hysterically, and then ripped it from the corpse
• Maude was arrested for speeding and, certain of her innocence, she contested and demanded her day in court. She won the battle but, as she was leaving, the bailiff demanded she pay up some delinquent parking fines. She’d gone to all the trouble to come down to court, but rather than wait in a long line at the cashiers’, she offered the bailiff a $ bribe.
• Maude wanted to cheer up Walter on his birthday, and so arranged a reunion between Walter and an old friend—only to have the friend drop dead of a heart attack when he’d been reunited with Walter, whose depression sank to new depths.

Maude was a ballsy bully who could—and would—rant and rave and roar like a lion (and purr like a kitten). The only one she ever listened to was her husband Walter. “Maude, sit!” he would command. And Maude would obey.

Until her next outburst. “God’ll get you for that!” she would bray at Walter, her fingers outstretched as though she were casting a spell or finger-painting an evil curse on his spirit, or simply ripping his heart out.

Beatrice Arthur, the dandy actress who played her, was Maude. Norman Lear had been trying to cajole her into sitcomland for years, but she resisted. Her husband at the time, writer/director Gene Saks, finally persuaded her. “Ambition didn’t land me the role of Maude,” Arthur said, “it was my husband nagging me to get off my butt and do something.” Not that she’d been doing nothing before. An accomplished actress, she had appeared in the original New York productions of Three Penny Opera, as well as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Mame (for which she won a Tony as Vera Charles; she subsequently made the movie with Lucille Ball and, many believe, was the only bright spot in it). She appeared with Chita Rivera and Dody Goodman in Shoestring Revue, and understudied Tallulah Bankhead in The Follies. (Banked used to call her ‘the Divine Beatrice.”) Beatrice Arthur—whose real first name was Bernice—was born in New York on May 13, 1926. Both she and Maude were nearly 5’10” and weighed nearly 150 pounds. “My true inner self is a tiny blonde sex object,” she once said.

Maude writer/executive producer Rod Parker had this to say about Arthur: “This lady’s perfect timing and fantastic talent is just unbelievable. If she loves a line of dialogue or a bit of business and she wants to take a big laugh and make it into a big scream, she’ll challenge the audience by holding off until the last possible second. Then, when she finally does it, they’ll go bananas. That takes a lot of courage and it gives the writer a bonus. Jackie Gleason is about the only one I ever worked with who could do the same thing.”

It’s a good thing she made it. With her deep-deep voice (people who called the Findlay house always thought she was Mr. Findlay) and her tall build, she shunned drama school to study to become a laboratory technician. But she ultimately realized that she was a different sort of technician. “There is no one else like me,” she once said.

Although it often seemed life a one-woman show (and on one occasion it actually was), Maude had quite a supporting cast of characters. Walter, her current husband, was played by Bill Macy, whose reputation painted him as childlike and faintly irresponsible. Before Maude’s Walter, Macy had an odd variety of acting roles: from poetry readings and small parts in movies (A Thousand Clowns and The World of Henry Orient), to the original cast of the “nudie-musical” Oh! Calcutta. He progressed. Back in 1973, his Maude salary was $10,000 a month.

Many episodes of the show focused around Walter, the voice of reason. He was sort of an inside-out version of Maude (kitten outside; tiger within). Once he and Maude split up (“It’s either politics or me, Maude”) and he went to live in a leopard-patterned singles palace, replete with swinging stewardesses and horny beer-guzzlers. Walter had troubles down at Findlay’s Friendly Appliances (until it went bankrupt and he tried to commit suicide). And, of course, there was his nervous breakdown and his alcoholism (little things like that…) that gave his character some character. Mainly, though, Walter was on the receiving end of Maude’s ploys and passions, and he often had a difficult time adjusting to her loud liberation. But we knew that in the bedroom, everything was equal.

Maude, of course, had friends—in this case, the token TV neighbors, her Fred and Ethel. Arthur and Vivian Harmon. Arthur was a conservative fathead (of a higher class, but not caliber, than Cousin Archie), a doctor who appeared faintly incompetent, which allowed for many jokes against the medical establishment. Vivian Harmon had been Vivian Cavender when we first met her. At that time, she was happily-ever-after married; she and her first husband were the Love Couple—until, after an island vacation with the Findlay’s (who were envying their lovey-dovey demeanor), they suddenly and unexpectedly announced they were divorcing. And soon after, an ever-twittering Vivian met the widower next door and married him. Always slightly askew of true liberation, Viv worried about her hair and what to serve for dinner, whereas Maude, with her crusades and modern ways, served up only sacred cows over dinner.

Also involved—although peripherally—was Maude’s divorced daughter Carol, who lived with Maude along with her son. Carol was the daughter from Maude’s second marriage—or was it her first? (Maude had four in all.)

Marriage of the lack of it played a big part on the show. Everybody was always married or re-married (or re-re-re-married, as in Maude’s case) or divorced or widowed or between marriages. For years (or seasons, anyway), Carol toyed with the idea of marrying her boyfriend Chris. Walter too had been married before. In fact, everyone had been married—everyone except Philip, who wasn’t married once (but who did change personalities in 1977 when they hired a new actor to play the role, which must count for something).

Besides marriage, Maude had a sprightly succession of maids. Her first was Florida (who would later spin off to Good Times). Their initial meeting, back in 1972, is a good example of Maude’s misdirected liberalism. When Florida came for her initial interview, Maude made it clear—loud and clear—that she didn’t want this black woman to be a traditional maid. She insisted that Florida use the front, not the back door. She wanted Florida to eat her meals with the family as well as join them for cocktails each day. Florida expressed her outrage: she’d rather use the back door because it was easier to get to the groceries in that way; she’d prefer to eat alone and didn’t like drinking martinis in the middle of the afternoon.

FLORIDA: Now, the first week we’ll be on a trial basis.
MAUDE: Oh Florida, don’t be ridiculous—you’re not on trial.
FLORIDA: I know—you are.

Florida’s departure at the end of the next season was a tearful one. There had developed a loving bond between the two women. When Florida—whose husband didn’t want her to work as a maid anymore—was about to leave and go back to her home in Harlem, she and Maude quietly faced each other. “Oh, we’ll visit,” they promised each other. Then Florida stopped, “Mrs. Findlay, you know we’ll never visit each other.” Said Maude quietly, “I know.” A very tender moment.

Things were not so tender between Maude and her next maid, a cynical, hard-drinking Englishwoman, Mrs. Naugatuck, played by Hermione Baddeley, a veteran British stage actress. Baddeley had trouble with the role (in many ways), especially with the American English and lines like “Mrs. Findlay struck out,” so she switched to an accent that was half-American, half-Cockney. In time, Baddeley became disgruntled with the show—in any accent. “My parts were getting smaller and smaller,” she said. “I didn’t want it to get to the ‘Yes mum, no, mum’ thing.” Mrs. Naugatuck exited in 1976 when she married Bert Beasley and returned to England. Her replacement was Victoria Butterfield (played by Marlene Warfield), who joined the household in the fall of 1977. But none of them ever achieved the popularity of Florida.

Like all Norman Lear sitcoms, there were some classic Maude episodes, just as there were classic I Love Lucy episodes (such as Lucy stomping grapes in Italy and stuffing chocolates down her blouse on an assembly line). But there’s a difference between those classics and Maude’s. Lucy’s episodes became classics because viewers loved them. Maude’s—and the other Norman Lear shows—were classics by design, as though the writers and producers got together in conference and tried to figure out what subjects would become “classics.” Here’s what they came up with: A stirring episode in which Walter, revealed as an alcoholic, hits Maude across the face and then undergoes rehabilitation; Maude, upon discovering she’s manic-depressive, starts taking Lithium (a medication that “evens out” moods); another in which Maude tries, unsuccessfully, to get Henry Fonda to run for President. In an early episode, Maude refuses to let Carol and her boyfriend sleep at the house in the same room; of course, the abortion episode; and one in which Maude gives a party at which John Wayne shows up. (Maude refers to him as “Mr. Conservative” and promises to give him “a piece of my mind” only, of course, to melt when he arrives. He calls her “the little woman,” and says, “I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t discuss politics with a woman.”)

Speaking of politics, when the ratings on the show started to decline in 1978, Maude was going to be transplanted to Washington, D.C. (the thinking was that the viewers were tired of the old setting and the old characters); only Walter would remain on the show. By that time, all three maids had left, and Adrienne Barbeau (Carol) was tired of having so little to do on the show. And the other characters had pretty much played out their roles. But Beatrice Arthur had a change of heart. “One can only live with the same character for so long, and it is time for both of us to take a rest,” she said in 1978. The fact that the show was sixty-sixth in the ratings and sinking didn’t encourage her.

And so Maude retired, Lear sold the shows in an unusual manner—only a year at a time—to a newly formed syndication. Many fans eagerly awaited seeing the 142 episodes of Maude over and over again.

Said Beatrice Arthur: “We’ve accomplished what we set out to accomplish. We brought good theater to television. I may be kidding myself, but I think we gave quality shows to television. Also, for the very first time, we presented somebody who wasn’t just a bubblehead out to get laughs. For the first time, issues were dealt with, thoughts were exchanged. I think we made television a little more adult, I really do.”

In one of the early episodes, Maude was groaning and griping—nothing unusual—until a friend asked her what is was, exactly, that she wanted. Maude deliberated a moment before answering. “I want it all.”

And that, of course, was the point of Maude and Maude. She wanted it all, and when she got it she handed it on to us. Maude made waves; with one hand she unbuttoned the stuffed shirts of convention, and with the other she gave the finger to authority.

And no doubt, God’ll get her for it.

 

from The Great TV Sitcom Book by Rick Mitz