Sally Struthers

Early film and television roles

Struthers was hired as a regular performer and dancer on both The Smothers Brothers Summer Show and The Tim Conway Comedy Hour in 1970.^[11]

She made her feature film debut in a bit part in The Phynx (1970), followed by a supporting role in Bob Rafelson's drama Five Easy Pieces (also 1970), starring Jack Nicholson.^[12] She subsequently appeared as the restless wife of a veterinarian in Sam Peckinpah's thriller The Getaway (1972), starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.^[13]

All in the Family

In 1971, Struthers debuted as Gloria Stivic on the sitcom All in the Family, playing the daughter of Archie and Edith Bunker (Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton), and wife of Michael Stivic (Rob Reiner), a dysfunctional working-class family in Queens.^[14] Producer Norman Lear had found the actress dancing on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.^[15]

According to a WPTT radio interview with Doug Hoerth in 2003,^{[citation needed]} Struthers thought that Rob Reiner's then-fiancée and later wife, Penny Marshall, would get the role of Gloria, as Marshall more resembled Jean Stapleton, who played Edith Bunker. Actress Candice Azzara had played the role of Gloria in a pilot episode, but was soon dropped. After a shaky start, the series became a hit beginning with its summer reruns, giving tens of millions of viewers the chance to see Gloria defending her viewpoints about negative stereotypes and inequality. Struthers won two Emmy Awards (in 1972 and 1979) for her work on the show. In 2012, Struthers recalled the serendipity that helped her land the role:

I had just gotten let go from The Tim Conway Comedy Hour because the suits in New York said that I made the show look cheap. And the producer said, "That's the whole point, we're trying to make it look like the Conway show doesn't have a budget, has no money, and so that's why there's only one Tim Conway dancer instead of a line of them like the June Taylor Dancers on The Jackie Gleason Show, and there's only one musician, and they can't even afford an instrument for him, so he's standing at a music stand, humming the opening theme song." That's funny! And the suits said, "No, it makes the show look cheap." So they let me, the Tim Conway dancer, go. And if they hadn't done that, I wouldn't have been free to read for All in the Family.^[16]

Though Struthers has spoken fondly of All in the Family,^[17] she was also personally dissatisfied with the static nature of Gloria's character, and regarded only the time between the sixth and eighth seasons of All in the Family, which aired after she made an unsuccessful attempt to sue to get out of her contract with the show, as the best time she had playing Gloria.^[18][19] During the production of All in the Family, Struthers was offered a lead role in John Schlesinger's The Day of the Locust (1975), but was prevented from taking the role because Lear refused to let her out of her contract.^[20]

In 2025, Struthers stated that Lear regarded her as the show's "fourth banana" compared to the other three leads, never invited her to any of the dinner parties he held, and told her that he only wanted to cast her in the show because she had "blue eyes and a fat face."^[19] The Life and Times of Norman Lear author Tripp Whetsell revealed that Struthers had a tense relationship with Lear and tried to leave All in the Family after the fifth season, spending $40,000 in legal fees in an unsuccessful effort to get out of her contract.^[21]

Struthers and her co-star Reiner appeared in eight seasons of the series, with their final appearance on the March 19, 1978 episode.^[22]

Later work

In 1976, she portrayed Bess Houdini opposite Paul Michael Glaser in the Harry Houdini television biopic The Great Houdini.^[23] In 1977, she portrayed a housewife who was physically abused by her husband (portrayed by Dennis Weaver) in the made-for-TV movie Intimate Strangers, which was one of the first network features to focus on domestic violence.^[24]

On the short-lived Archie Bunker's Place spin-off Gloria (1982–1983), Struthers reprised Gloria as a new divorcée (she became an "exchange student," when husband Mike exchanged her for one of his students). The series co-starred Burgess Meredith as the doctor of an animal clinic with Gloria as his assistant.^{[citation needed]} From 1985 to 1986, Struthers starred as Florence Ungar in the female version of The Odd Couple. Struthers later stated in an interview on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, that it was an unpleasant experience until Rita Moreno, who was mean-spirited towards Struthers, left the play and was replaced by Brenda Vaccaro.^[25]

She was a semi-regular panelist on the 1990 revival of Match Game and an occasional guest on Win, Lose or Draw (even filling in for Vicki Lawrence as host for a week). She also had a recurring role as Bill Miller's manipulative mother, Louise, on Still Standing and regularly appeared on Gilmore Girls as Babette Dell. She also provided voices for a number of animated series such as The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (as a teenage Pebbles Flintstone), TaleSpin (as Rebecca Cunningham) and was one of the voice stars on ABC's Dinosaurs produced by Walt Disney and Henson Productions (as Charlene Sinclair).^[26][27]

Struthers starred in the stage production of Annie at the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia,^[28] and in the national tour of the production in the late 1990s. She has been a regular since the early 2000s at the Ogunquit Playhouse, in Ogunquit, Maine.^[29]

In 2014, Struthers toured in the 50th-anniversary production of Hello, Dolly!, playing Dolly Levi. In 2016, she appeared as a guest star in two episodes of the comedy series Maron, as well reprising her role of Babette Dell in the miniseries Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.^[30]

In 2024, Struthers began playing Virginia Foldau in the Netflix series A Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson. She would reprise the role in the show's second season.^[31]

Film

Television

Audio dramas

Stage

• Wally's Cafe (1981) ... Janet (Broadway: Brooks Atkinson Theatre)
• The Odd Couple (1985–1986) ... Florence Ungar (Broadway: Broadhurst Theatre)
• Grease (1994–1998) ... Miss Lynch (Broadway: Eugene O'Neill Theatre)
• Annie (1998–1999) ... Miss Hannigan, 20th Anniversary National Tour
• Nunsense (2008) ... Mother Superior, 25th Anniversary Tour
• Hello, Dolly! (2013–2014) ... Dolly Levi, 50th Anniversary Tour
• Young Frankenstein (2022) ... Frau Blucher (McCoy/Rigby Ent. / La Mirada Theatre, CA)