Frances Lear

Lear was born with only a first name, Evelyn, to an unwed mother in Hudson, New York, at the Vanderheusen Home for Wayward Girls. She was adopted at 14 months by Aline and Herbert Loeb from Larchmont, New York, who changed her name from Evelyn to Frances. When she was 10 years old, her adoptive father committed suicide after losing his business in the Depression. Her mother remarried and when Frances was 12, her stepfather began molesting her, according to her autobiography. She attended the Mary A. Burnham School for Girls in Northampton, Massachusetts.

She originally made her career as a buyer for women's sportswear at Lord & Taylor. She was married and divorced twice at a young age, first to Arnold Weiss and secondly to Morton Kaufman (or Kaufmann). In 1956, she married television producer Norman Lear in Las Vegas. At age 50, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She became an activist for the women's movement, civil rights and mental health.

During the 1968 Democratic Presidential Primaries, she worked on Minnesota U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy's campaign for President. She later worked with the National Organization for Women on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment.

In 1985, she divorced Lear after 28 years of marriage. The divorce settlement, estimated to be between $100 million to $112 million (equivalent to $317,287,129 in 2023), was one of the largest on record. She used $25 million of the settlement to start Lear's, a magazine targeting women over 45. She was Advertising Age Editor of the Year in 1989. The magazine folded six years later.

She is acknowledged to be the inspiration for the character Maude Findlay on the sitcom Maude. Norman Lear gave some support to this suggestion, including in his 1998 Emmy Legends interview.

Frances Lear published an autobiography in 1992, The Second Seduction, and at the time of her death had written another book, Frances Lear's Guide to Work and Family in the 21st Century.

She had two daughters, Kate (b. 1957) and Maggie (b. 1959), with Norman Lear. She died of breast cancer at age 73.

• Frances Lear at IMDb