During Season 7 of The Jeffersons, Sherman Hemsley was handed a script with a line that stopped him cold. It was supposed to be a joke, but it struck him as cruel—mocking another Black character’s education in a way that crossed a line.
He looked up and said, “I’m not saying that.”
The producers insisted. “It’s funny,” they said. “It’s George being George.”
But Hemsley saw it differently. “George is flawed, not heartless.”
The standoff lasted nearly three days. The studio considered bringing in a script doctor to rewrite the episode entirely—or worse, kill off a secondary character just to dodge the moment.
In the end, Sherman got his way. The line was changed. But the moment exposed the ongoing tension between Hemsley’s own values and the way George Jefferson was sometimes written.
“He was loud, yes,” said co-star Marla Gibbs. “But Sherman never let him be hateful.”
That one decision, one line, may have cost him studio points—but it earned him lifelong respect from the cast.
