Norman Lear, 97, Reveals the Biggest Life Lesson He’s Learned and How He’ll Celebrate Turning 100

He may have just turned 97 this summer, but Norman Lear is already looking forward to turning 100 on July 27, 2022.

“I’m focusing on 97 and I am honing in on a hundred,” the TV legend exclusively told Closer Weekly at the 2019 Britannia Awards in Beverly Hills on Friday, October 25. “I want to see your smile when you’re talking to me at a hundred.”

As for how the All in the Family producer plans on celebrating the milestone birthday, he’s going to keep things pretty simple. “I’m going to have dinner with my daughter,” he revealed. There’s no telling which child he’s talking about, as he is the father to five daughters — Brianna, Ellen, Kate, Madeline and Maggie — as well as a son, Benjamin.

Norman, who accepted the Britannia Award for Excellence in Television at the star-studded event, jokingly described this time in his life as “late” and said his “whole life has been a good story with Hollywood legends.” This honor from the British Academy, for him, is simply “another step along the way” but it’s also one he wants to enjoy and cherish.

“I’ve learned two little words we don’t pay enough attention to. Those are ‘over’ and ‘next,'” Norman — who also brought TV audiences Good Times, Maude, The Jeffersons and Sanford and Son — explained. “When something is over, it’s over and we’re on to the next. If there was a hammock in the middle of those two words, that would be the best definition I know of living in the moment. So, I’m grateful for this moment together and we’re going to the next.”

This moment may be over for Norman, but what’s next for him is writing and producing a TV documentary about Rita Moreno called Rita Moreno: The Girl Who Decided to Go for It. He was likely inspired to take on this project after working with the West Side Story actress, 87, on the reboot of his iconic sitcom One Day at a Time.

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