Charlotte Lear: Everything About Norman Lear’s ex-wife

Charlotte Lear is the ex-wife of Norman Lear. Charlotte Lear’s ex-husband Norman is a popular Hollywood television writer and film and television producer who has produced, written, created, or developed over 100 shows. Many popular 1970s sitcoms starred Lear, including All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, and Good Times.

Charlotte Lear: Bio Summary

How old is Charlotte Lear?

Charlotte’s age is unknown at the moment as she has not shared any information related to that. The ex-husband Norman on the other hand is 100 years old as of 2022. The six-time Emmy winner decided to celebrate his birthday week by bouncing between interviews, op-eds, and personal reflections.

How did Norman Lear meet her ex-wife Charlotte Lear?

The two former love birds meet when he was a teenager. “It’s as if I wanted to be the youngest man with a trophy wife,” Lear reflected in his memoir, Even This I Get To Experience. 

The famous Hollywood director, Lear met his first wife, Charlotte met in 1939 on a hayride. Lear was 17 at the time and Charlotte was a year older than the iconic producer. The duo started seeing each other and dated each other for four years. In 1942, Lear enlisted himself in US Army Air Forces and served in World War II.

Lear was serving in the military at the time, and he proposed to Charlotte over the phone. She said yes, and the couple married in 1943. However, problems soon began to cause disagreements, and the marriage was not turning out as happily as they had hoped.

Charlotte Lear’s maiden name is Rosen and she married into the Lear family. According to her family tree, Charlotte Lear was the mother of 1 child. She married Norman Milton Lear on October 21, 1943, in Buffalo, New York United States. The couple tied the knot in presence of their friends, family, and loved ones.

Charlotte Lear and Norman Lear’s divorce

In his memoir, ‘Even This I Get To Experience’, Norman Lear opened up about his honeymoon and wrote that he and Charlotte “were strangers” when they made love. He also noted that they knew each other “even less” when they finished making love to each other. The writer also shared that the two had hardly any common interests.

“Charlotte and I were strangers when we made love, and if possible, we knew each other even less when we had concluded,” Lear wrote.

Their marriage however did not last forever, they later divorced in 1947 in Buffalo, New York United States. They had a child Ellen Louise Lear. The pair welcomed their daughter in 1947. In 1949, Norman moves to California with his wife Charlotte Lear and daughter, Ellen to work as a freelance comedy writer.

In his memoir, he stated that he wished to relocate to New York in order to advance his career. Lear began house hunting in the area and was very excited about the film in New York. Charlotte, on the other hand, refused to leave Los Angeles.

Lear also revealed that Charlotte’s mental health suffered and that she began seeing “a therapist five times a week.” And to continue seeing her therapist, Charlotte Lear never wanted to leave Los Angeles and has decided not to relocate to New York. Norman moved to New York, but Charlotte and their daughter Ellen did not. Their marriage was annulled in 1956. Ellen did, eventually, when she was 14, to stay with Norman and his new wife, Frances.

Norman Lear has been married three times and has six children out of the marriages. Neither of Lear’s first two marriages was successful and always had a bitter ending. His first marriage to Charlotte Rosen lasted from 1944 to 1956 while his second marriage to Frances Loeb lasted from 1956 to 1986. Lear He has been married to Lyn Davis since 1987 and the two are still together for about 3 and a half decades now.