# RIP Edith Bunker **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 1, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886 "2013-06-01T20:33:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/21 "2013-06-02T04:23:41Z")
[Archie, after Edith’s death.](http://youtu.be/-UKrAYD3zX8) ---
**Author:** ![expectopatronum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/expectopatronum/32/173_2.png) [@expectopatronum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/expectopatronum)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/22 "2013-06-02T15:40:35Z")
aw, this makes me sad. i never really watched the show, but it seemed like it was always on when i was little, and the opening credits have always stuck in my mind. those were the days, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/23 "2013-06-02T16:06:02Z")
Dick van Dyke and his much younger wife spoofing the [All in the Family theme song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLyux5ewZKY). ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/24 "2013-06-02T16:18:32Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > Dick van Dyke and his much younger wife spoofing the [All in the Family theme song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLyux5ewZKY). That’s cute. But DVD’s Queens accent is about as horrible as his Cockney. His wife does an excellent Edith screech, though. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/25 "2013-06-02T17:19:33Z")
IMHO, Edith’s best moment was escaping her [rapist](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4JqTkaEEzc) ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/26 "2013-06-02T18:29:26Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > [Jean Stapleton Dead -- 'All in the Family' Star Dies at 90](http://www.tmz.com/2013/06/01/jean-stapleton-dead-all-in-the-family-edith-bunker/) > > Another icon of my childhood gone. Sad. I was little whe All in the Familybwas on the air, and all the fighting on it made me anxious. But her character was a gentle person and I loved her for that. Ditto. Word for word. I could handle Archie’s racist tirades. I could even handle him being an ass to the kids and everybody else. But god dammit! Don’t be mean to Edith! I hated Archie for that. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/27 "2013-06-03T02:42:25Z")
Damn. I was one of the original viewers of _All in the Family_. January 1971. I remember it very well. It was like nothing ever seen before. And for a long time, Saturday night was a big TV-viewing night, what with that show, Mary Tyler Moore and Herschel Bernardi’s _Arnie_. And I think Dick Van Dyke’s new sitcom, the one set in Arizona, eventually joined that line-up. RIP, Edith. ☹ EDIT: I just looked up Sally Struthers. A can’t believe she’s 65 now! Man, I am getting old. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/28 "2013-06-03T20:00:28Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Along the same lines, I remember an episode in which Mike and Gloria were getting amorous, and Archie told them to knock it off. > > Mike: Believe it or not, Archie, people DO make love now and then. > > Edith (wistfully): More then than now. That and the line **Chefguy** quoted were both from the beta version of Edith, in the first six episodes. A lot of people don’t remember this, but the first six trial episodes were markedly different from the rest of the series. There was incidental music, which I’m glad they axed, and one dream sequence\*, but the primary difference was in the way O’Connor and Stapleton played Archie and Edith. Beta Archie seemed like he might turn violent at any moment, and Beta Edith was very bitter and cynical. When she said “And even then…” it was not coy; it was a definite putdown of Archie. Compare that to a much later episode where Edith’s friend feels inadequate because sex with her own husband is not “firecrackers and the Fourth of July.” Edith, giggling a bit: “With Archie and me it’s more like Thanksgivin’!” If you get a chance, check out those early episodes. It’s amazing to see how an actor can play the same character two different, almost polar opposite, ways. Anyway, non-Edith roles. Stapleton was on Murphy Brown once, as Miles’s grandmother, Nana Silverberg. She was hilarious in that, too. “You must be Mrs. Silverberg!” “Oh, what gave it away – my Nordic good looks?” 🆒 \*Archie did hallucinate once, when he was locked in the basement and drunk on vodka, but that was much later, and different in tone from the earlier one. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/29 "2013-06-03T20:21:22Z")
I remember the episode that used the same device that the Japanese movie Rashomon had. An incident was remembered from the point of view of the Meathead, Archie and Edith. Edith was the one who remembered things as they actually had happened, not as the biases of the Meathead and Archie colored them. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/30 "2013-06-03T23:12:10Z")
[The last time](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI3kmA0qFm8) she was on film with Carroll O’Connor. I love her reaction when Donnie Osmond tried to get her to do Edith’s voice. I’m glad that the movie _Michael_ gave her a great big screen role long after Edith. Random bits of trivia: She never remarried after her husband died, but her boyfriend until his death was actor [Howard Morton](http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/136068544-howard-morton-and-actress-jean-stapleton-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=fOqRSGnZREbdOD5U9z9TH%2FMo%2B1fmpZVOe0L1bc3%2Fj7tGiqiX2AZsP7uroeoILpBNiCMT9rMIbxHKfAA2RpsCUQ%3D%3D) (who appeared in a zillion roles but was perhaps best known as Grandpa in the execrable _Munsters Today_). She used to own a B&B in Gettysburg (though she sold it a while back). She was the first choice for Jessica Fletcher in _Murder She Wrote_ but turned it down because she’d promised to appear in a friend’s operetta. She said she had no regrets when it became a hit because she really didn’t want another series. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886/31 "2013-06-04T14:34:04Z")
_You’ve Got Mail_ (1998) was the last time I saw her. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-edith-bunker/659886.md?page=1)