Unblessed Birthday Blues: Reflections on a Lack of Well-Wishes

This ’70s Blonde Bombshell Still Stuns Audiences Today – You Won’t Believe How

*All In The Family* was one of the greatest shows ever, and I believe its lessons are still relevant today. It made several actors famous – and Sally Struthers was one of them.

Today, the beautiful woman with her iconic blonde hair looks quite different – but she’s still working in the industry…

**A Precocious Talent**
For many of us, Sally Struthers will always be remembered for her role as Gloria Stivic in the ’70s sitcom *All In The Family*. The iconic show was about a working-class white family living in Queens, New York, and it received an incredible 73 award nominations and won 42 times during its run.

However, I wonder if people born after the show ended can really understand how groundbreaking it was. There had been funny sitcoms before, but they rarely addressed social issues and taboos. *All In The Family* took many of these topics and made them funny, heartbreaking, or sometimes both.

Watching old episodes of the show on YouTube really makes you feel young again. It makes you laugh and helps you forget about today’s problems. Many of the issues back then are still the same ones we face today, just presented in a comical way.

The main characters in *All In The Family* are Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton), Gloria Bunker-Stivic (Sally Struthers), Michael Stivic (Rob Reiner), and Stephanie Mills (Danielle Brisebois). They all had great chemistry together.

In my opinion, Sally Struthers was very talented and often underrated as an actress. She even sang in some episodes of *All In The Family*, and I could see how she grew as a performer throughout the series.

“At first, I behaved like an idiot on the set. I thought that was how to get people to like me. I’ve learned to be myself, and now they respect me,” she told *Longview Daily News* in 1973.

When the series premiered in January 1971, Sally was a 22-year-old unknown with little TV experience. Producer Norman Lear, who Sally called the “father of us all,” discovered her while she was dancing on *The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour*.

Despite her lack of experience, Sally did a fantastic job, just like the rest of the cast. Six months after the premiere, she was a certified star as *All In The Family* became the No. 1 show on television.

At the peak of her fame, she could hardly walk outside or go to dinner without being swarmed by fans. For an innocent 22-year-old, it was a very challenging experience.

During the first seasons of the show, Sally was happy playing Gloria Stivic. However, she was rarely given a chance to fully develop her character or showcase her acting skills. During a break from *All In The Family*, she told producers that she wanted to try a more dramatic role.

“When we go on hiatus, I want to do something different,” she said.

“There are so many ways to represent a woman. I would like to play a murderess, an unwed mother, a nun, and an old Jewish mother. At the end of my career, I’d like people to say that I am as funny as Judy Holliday and as respected as Ruth Gordon.”

Unfortunately, typecasting can hurt a career – how often do we see someone become famous from an iconic show, only to struggle afterward?

Sadly, that was somewhat true for Sally.

She won two Emmy Awards for her role as Gloria and was given leading parts in a few other shows after leaving *All In The Family*. But the reality was that she didn’t receive many offers, and work soon began to slow down for her.

In the 1990s, Sally was a semi-regular panelist on the game show *Match Game*. Others might recognize her as Babette Dell in *Gilmore Girls*.

Today, she has been a regular at the Ogunquit Playhouse since the early 2000s. This regional theater is located in Ogunquit, Maine, and produces four or more shows each season.

In 2022, she starred alongside AJ Holmes as Frau Blucher in Mel Brooks’ *Young Frankenstein* at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.

The *All In The Family* star has also worked hard to advocate for impoverished children in developing countries. Sally has been a spokesperson for the Christian Children’s Fund for many years and has appeared in their well-known TV commercials.

**Sally Struthers’ Daughter**
Many might not know this, but Sally is a mother of one, even though she never really wanted a child at first. After meeting famous psychiatrist William C. Rader, she changed her mind. The couple married in 1977, and two years later, they welcomed a daughter named Samantha.

Over the years, Sally has had her ups and downs. She lost her mother to Alzheimer’s in 1996; her mother passed away in Sally’s arms just two days before Christmas. Sally has also faced mean comments about her looks and weight over the years, mostly from random people on social media.

But the actress has handled all these challenges with charm, integrity, and a sense of humor.

“From the time I was able to walk and say a few words, my whole aim in life was to make people laugh,” she told *Spectrum News* in 2022.

“And when I hear other people laugh, and I know that some silly face I’ve made or some line reading has made them double over, I’m transported to heaven. That’s my thing. Laughter.”