Iconic television writer and producer Norman Lear, who revolutionised primetime TV with his shows All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Maude passed away last night reported The New York Times. He was 101.

Lear was known for tackling mainstream issues faced by American middle-class families in the 1970s and ’80s. “You looked around television in those years,” Lear said in an interview with the New York Times in 2012, referring to the middle and late 1960s. “And the biggest problem any family faced was ‘Mother dented the car, and how do you keep Dad from finding out’; ‘the boss is coming to dinner, and the roast’s ruined.’ The message that was sending out was that we didn’t have any problems.”

Lear’s shows tackled various social and political issues through humour and satire. Arguably one of his best works, All in the Family, featured iconic character Archie Bunker (played by Carroll O’Connor), one of the most celebrated characters in television history.