Space physicist Virginia Carter in her lab at Aerospace Corp. in CA, 1972.
How does a woman go from being a physics researcher to an executive producer in television? Virginia Carter has quite an amazing story:
“It was 1973. I was working at the Aerospace Corporation, flying pioneering satellite experiments, but my other major interest was in the burgeoning field of feminism. Although I was very middle-of-the-road politically, I became an extreme activist in the feminist community, even serving for two years as president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Organization for Women. I gave speeches, lobbied the media, and generally made noises that were heard. I met Frances Lear through our common activism in the feminist movement. Her husband, Norman, was three years into the revolution that he had created in television with All in the Family.”
After working as a researcher for 10 years, Carter made a sudden career move into TV programming:
“Norman’s great contribution to television at that point in his career was to bring significant social issues to prime time comedy. Under his leadership the sitcom became politicized. Norman found me, through Frances, because of my expertise about the Women’s Movement. I knew more about that than Norman did, or Frances, or almost any other person in Hollywood at the time.”
(Image via UCLA’s superb collection of LA Times Photography)
