All in the Family is more than just the only sitcom where “Dingbat” was a term of endearment. The Norman Lear-created series, which had its proper debut in 1971, ran for nine wildly popular seasons — five of which saw it crowned the number one show in the country. Following the adventures of the boorish Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), his sweet wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), their feisty daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers), and son-in-law Mike, better known as “Meathead” (Rob Reiner), in a rapidly-changing working class neighborhood in Queens, All in the Family broke ground examining topics like racism, the Vietnam War, sexual assault, and other issues that rarely turned up in sitcoms at the time — while still always staying hilarious.
Sadly, many of the show’s cast members have passed away — O’Connor died in 2001 at age 76 from a heart attack due to complications from diabetes, Stapleton died in 2013 at age 90, and famous supporting actors like Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford, and Bea Arthur have also passed away. However, a number of the show’s stars are not only still with us, but went on to great things long after Archie Bunker sat in his chair for the last time.
Struthers was just 24 when she landed the role of the Bunker family’s only child, but she already had a Hollywood resume: she’d appeared alongside Jack Nicholson and Karen Black in 1970’s Five Easy Pieces, and had been a cast member on The Tim Conway Comedy Hour. She got fired from Conway’s variety show after only a few months — the network heads, she said in a 2017 interview, didn’t get the show’s sense of humor and thought an ongoing gag with Struthers playing the show’s only dancer made “the show look cheap.” That moment of bad fortune turned out to be a stroke of good luck, as it freed Struthers to land the role of Gloria, who loves her father as much as she battles him and his retrograde worldview.
Struthers, who initially felt the role was flat, eventually won two Emmys for the role. During her time on the show, she also appeared in the 1972 Steve McQueen film The Getaway, and the 1977 made-for-TV film Intimate Strangers, one of the first depictions of domestic violence on television.
After briefly starring in her own All in the Family spin-off, 1982’s Gloria, Struthers took over one of the lead roles on the sitcom adaptation of Nine to Five in 1986, spending two seasons playing the role originated by Lily Tomlin in the 1980 film. She also became an accomplished voice actor — ’90s kids may recall her as the vocal talents behind Charlene Sinclair, the sassy teen daughter on the Jim Henson sitcom Dinosaurs, and Rebecca Cunningham, the businesswoman bear on the Disney cartoon TaleSpin.
Though Struthers spent much of the ’80s and ’90s working primarily as a vocal actor, she did show up on the small screen fairly regularly — as a spokesperson for charity the Christian Children’s Fund, and as a pitchwoman for ICS, a correspondence school (if you watched a lot of daytime TV in the ’90s, your brain is probably already reciting Struthers’ infomercial catchphrase: “Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do!”)
In the 2000s, Struthers moved back into live action TV, appearing as Babette Dell in over 50 episodes of Gilmore Girls. In 2025, she co-starred in the Netflix mystery dramedy A Man on the Inside, where she played a senior living facility resident who had the hots for fellow retiree Ted Danson.
Rob Reiner, 78
Mike Stivic
Reiner’s journey from playing Archie Bunker’s frequent adversary to becoming one of the most celebrated film directors of his generation isn’t that crazy when you realize he’s the eldest child of comedy legend Carl Reiner — but it’s still pretty impressive to remember that the man behind some of the greatest films of the ’80s and ’90s began his career as “Meathead.”
Reiner started out in his twenties with small roles on shows like That Girl, as well as writing on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, alongside a young Steve Martin. All in the Family was his biggest acting role — and although he won two Emmys while working on the show, soon after it wrapped, he decided to change his focus to directing.
After debuting as a director with 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap, Reiner went on to helm some of the most enduring films of the next decade, including The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, A Few Good Men, Misery, and Stand By Me. Reiner has been nominated for four Golden Globes for Best Director over the course of his career, but never won.
His post-2ooo film output wasn’t quite as iconic as his earlier movies, but he has continued to work, with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues scheduled for release in September 2025. He also still periodically makes appearances as an actor — often in his own films or playing himself on TV shows, though he did appear on 10 episodes of the comedy series New Girl, as father to Zooey Deschanel‘s Jess Day.
Danielle Brisebois, 55
Stephanie Mills
A late addition to the show, Brooklyn native Brisebois began her career at the age of seven, appearing on an episode of Kojak and the original Broadway production of Annie. She joined the series in its ninth season as the daughter of Edith’s cousin, who has abandoned the little girl to the Bunkers’ care. She continued to appear on four seasons of the 1979 spin-off Archie Bunker’s Place, and received a Golden Globe nomination for her work on the show in 1982.
After that show ended, Brisebois had a multi-episode arc on Knots Landing, and guest spots on The Love Boat and Mr. Belvedere. However, by the end of the decade, she decided acting wasn’t for her, and switched her focus to music — a smart decision, as the late ’90s saw her band, the New Radicals, skyrocket to fame. She can be seen jamming out on the keyboard in the video for their top 40 hit, “You Get What You Give,” which received heavy MTV rotation in 1998.
Brisebois has experienced major success in her second career, penning Natasha Bedingfield‘s hits “Unwritten” and “Pocketful of Sunshine,” and creating music for the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Kylie Minogue, Donna Summer, and many others. In 2015, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for “Lost Stars,” from the film Begin Again — a tune she wrote with former New Radicals band member Gregg Alexander, who is still a frequent collaborator.
