Jean Stapleton | 1923-2013: Actress wasn't defined by the role of Edith Bunker

NEW YORK — Jean Stapleton, the stage-trained character actress who played Archie Bunker’s far better half, the sweetly naive Edith, in TV’s groundbreaking 1970s comedy All in the Family, has died. She was 90.

Stapleton died on Friday of natural causes at her New York home surrounded by friends and family, her children said yesterday.

Little known to the public before All In the Family, she co-starred with Carroll O’Connor in the top-rated CBS sitcom about an unrepentant bigot, the wife he churlishly but fondly called “Dingbat,” their daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers), and liberal son-in-law, Mike, aka “Meathead” (Rob Reiner).

Stapleton received eight Emmy nominations, winning three times, during her eight-year run on All in the Family. Produced by Norman Lear, the series broke through the timidity of U.S. TV with social and political jabs. It was the No. 1 program for an unprecedented five years in a row.

Stapleton also earned Emmy nominations for playing Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1982 film Eleanor, First Lady of the World and for a guest appearance in 1995 on Grace Under Fire.

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Her big-screen films included a pair directed by Nora Ephron: the 1998 Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan romance You’ve Got Mail and 1996’s Michael starring John Travolta. She also turned down the chance to star in another popular TV show, Murder, She Wrote, which became a showcase for Angela Lansbury.

The theater was Stapleton’s first love and she compiled a rich resume, starting in 1941 and then moving to Broadway in the 1950s and ’60s. In 1964, she originated the role of Mrs. Strakosh in Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand. Others musicals and plays included Bells Are Ringing, Rhinoceros and Damn Yankees, in which her performance — and the nasal tone she would use in All in the Family — attracted Lear’s attention.

Edith, of the dithery manner, cheerfully high-pitched voice and family loyalty, charmed viewers but was viewed by Stapleton as submissive and, she hoped, removed from reality. She told The New York Times in 1972 that she didn’t think Edith was a typical American housewife — “at least I hope she’s not.”

“What Edith represents is the housewife who is still in bondage to the male figure, very submissive and restricted to the home. She is very naive, and she kind of thinks through a mist, and she lacks the education to expand her world,” said Stapleton, whose character regularly obeyed her husband’s demand to “stifle yourself.”

But Edith was honest and compassionate, and “in most situations she says the truth and pricks Archie’s inflated ego,” she added.

As the series progressed, Stapleton had the chance to offer a deeper take on Edith as the character faced milestones that included a breast-cancer scare and menopause.But Stapleton worried about typecasting, rejecting any roles, commercials or sketches on variety shows that called for a character similar to Edith. Stapleton left the show, retitled Archie’s Place, in 1980, leaving Archie a widower.

After O’Connor’s death in 2001, she got condolence letters from people who thought they were married. When people saw her in public and called her “Edith,” she would remind them her name was Jean.

Stapleton proved her own toughness when her husband of 26 years, William Putch, suffered a fatal heart attack in 1983 while the couple was touring with a play directed by Putch.

Stapleton went on stage in Syracuse, N.Y., that night and continued on with the tour. “That’s what he would have wanted,” she told People in 1984.

She and Putch had two children, John and Pamela.