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Archie Bunker
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==Character biography== {{More citations needed section|date=May 2023}} When first introduced on ''All in the Family'' in 1971, Archie is the head of a family consisting of his wife [[Edith Bunker|Edith]] ([[Jean Stapleton]]), his adult daughter [[Gloria Stivic|Gloria]] ([[Sally Struthers]]) and his liberal son-in-law, college student [[Michael Stivic|Michael "Mike" Stivic]] ([[Rob Reiner]]), with whom Archie disagrees on virtually everything; Archie frequently characterizes Mike as a "dumb [[Polack]]" and usually addresses him as "Meathead" because, in Archie's words, he is "dead from the neck up". During the show's first five seasons, Mike and Gloria live with Archie and Edith so Mike can put himself through college. Upon Mike's graduation, he and Gloria move into their own home next door, allowing Archie and Mike to interact nearly as much as they had when they were living in the same house. Archie was born in Queens<ref>{{Cite web |title=Episode 7: Archie Bunker for President! {{!}} U-M LSA History |url=https://lsa.umich.edu/history/reverbeffect/episode7.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814094752/https://lsa.umich.edu/history/reverbeffect/episode7.html |archive-date=2020-08-14 |website=lsa.umich.edu}}</ref> on May 18, 1924,<ref name="Bday-note1">In the episode "Archie & the Miracle", Archie explains to Mike that he believes he has the winning church raffle ticket #18 because "the Lord saved me on the 18th; I was born on the 18th of the month". In episode 106, [[List of All in the Family episodes#Season 5: 1974–1975|"Archie and the Quiz"]], there is a direct reference to the fact that Archie was born in 1924.</ref> to parents David and Sarah.<ref name="Bday-note2">Stated in season one, episode one, "Meet the Bunkers"</ref> He is a [[Taurus (astrology)|Taurus]].<ref>Last original airing of [[Archie Bunker's Place]]</ref> Information on his siblings is inconsistent, because three of them are mentioned and Archie is seen talking on the phone to his younger brother Fred in "Cousin Oscar" (as well as Fred's daughter Debbie Marie) but during season 6{{nbsp}}episode "Archie Finds a Friend", he states that he is an only child. Two later episodes (one during season{{nbsp}}8 and another during season 9) feature Fred (played by [[Richard McKenzie (actor)|Richard McKenzie]]) and it is now suggested{{When|date=June 2019|reason=When/by whom? In the timeline of the show or IRL?}} that Fred is Archie's only sibling. Another of Fred's daughters, Linda, visited Archie during the third season (she briefly dated the Bunkers' neighbor Lionel in "Lionel Steps Out"). Archie's father David is said to be an only child while his mother Sarah has one brother named Roy Longstreet whom Archie liked more than his own parents. Two of Archie's cousins are depicted: Oscar, who dies off-camera in the Bunker house during a visit and cousin Bertha (played by [[Peggy Rea]], who appears in the same episode), apparently a somewhat distant cousin, because Archie does not recognize her.<ref>In the Season 2 opener, Archie asks "Who the hell are you?" to his cousin Bertha.</ref> Archie celebrates his 50th birthday in a 1974 episode and the character is last seen on the final episode of ''[[Archie Bunker's Place]]'', titled "I'm Torn Here", on April 4, 1983. In season 5, during a three-episode stretch where Archie's whereabouts are unknown, it is revealed that he attended [[Flushing, Queens|Flushing High School]] and [[varsity letter|lettered]] in baseball. He tried out for the [[New York Giants]] but could not turn professional because he was drafted to serve in [[World War II]]. Likewise, he never took advantage of the [[G.I. Bill]] in order to finish his high school education (although years later he took a night school course to get a high school diploma). After World War II ended, he got a job on a New York City loading dock through his uncle's influence; by 1974 he had risen up to dock foreman. To supplement his income, he also works as a part-time taxi driver at night. While locked in the storeroom of Archie's bar (Archie's Place) with Mike in the season{{nbsp}}8 ''All in the Family'' episode [[List of All in the Family episodes#Season 8: 1977–1978|"Two's a Crowd"]], a drunk Archie confides that as a child, his family was desperately poor and he was teased in school because he wore a shoe on one foot and a boot on the other, so kids nicknamed him "Shoe-booty". In the same episode, Mike learns that Archie was mentally and physically abused by his father, who was also the source of his bigoted views. Yet, Archie then goes on to vehemently defend his father, who he claims loved him and taught him "to do good". It is revealed that Archie's father was a [[brakeman]] for the [[Long Island Rail Road]], when Archie receives his father's pocket watch from his formerly long-estranged brother, Alfred ("Fred"), who later appeared in two ''All in the Family'' episodes, "[[List of All in the Family episodes|Archie's Brother]]" and "[[List of All in the Family episodes|The Return of Archie's Brother]]", and the ''Archie Bunker's Place'' episode "Father Christmas". When Fred visits Archie in the "Archie's Brother" episode, it is revealed that they had not seen each other in the 29 years since Archie and Edith's wedding, although they apparently had communicated over the years via phone (two early episodes, "Cousin Oscar" and "Lionel Steps Out", depict phone conversations between Archie and Fred). Their long estrangement was fueled by the fact that Fred refused to attend their father's funeral, with Fred even describing him as "nuts about everything." In "The Return of Archie's Brother," the two seem to have reconciled, with Fred offering to invest $5,000 to put Archie's bar in a [[Syndicate|national syndicate]]. However, in Fred's return trip to visit Archie and Edith, he arrives with a beautiful 18-year-old wife named Katherine. This leads to a heated discussion, which erupts into an argument between Archie and Fred over "[[Age disparity in sexual relationships|May–September romances]]", with Archie even asking if the "[[truant officer]]" married them and places another strain on the relationship between Archie and Fred, who storms angrily out of the Bunker home with his teen bride after Archie vehemently snubs his brother's offer to go into business with him. Archie and Fred apparently are estranged for the next three-plus years. Putting a further strain on the relationship was the 1981 arrival of Fred's 18-year-old daughter, Barbara ("Billie") [[Denise Miller]], who is also upset over her father's marriage to someone not even three years older than she is (although in ''Archie Bunker's Place'', Billie begins dating someone 15 years her senior). Fred visits again for Christmas in 1982, finally revealing to everyone why he left his first wife and found love with Katherine. Archie is a [[World War II]] veteran who had been based in [[Foggia]], Italy, for 22 months. During a doctor's appointment, it is stated that Archie had an undistinguished military record for his non-combat ground role in the [[Fleet vehicle|motor pool]] of the [[United States Army Air Corps|Air Corps]], later called the Army Air Forces, which at the time was a branch of the [[United States Army]]. He received a [[Good Conduct Medal (United States)|Good Conduct Medal]]<ref>[[List of All in the Family episodes#Season 2 (1971–72)|"Archie and the FBI"]]</ref> and, in the ''All in the Family'' episode [[List of All in the Family episodes#Season 6 (1975–76)|"Archie's Civil Rights"]], it is disclosed he also received a [[Purple Heart]] for being hit in his buttocks by shrapnel. Archie married [[Edith Bunker]] 22 years before season 1. Later recollections of their mid-1940s courtship do not result in a consistent timeline. In the flashback episode showing Mike and Gloria's wedding, Archie tells Mike his courtship of Edith lasted two years and hints that their relationship was not consummated until a month after their wedding night. Edith elsewhere recollects that Archie fell asleep on their wedding night and reveals that their sex life has not been very active in recent years. On another occasion, Edith discusses Archie's history of [[Problem gambling|gambling addiction]], which caused problems in the early years of their marriage. Archie also reveals that when Edith was in labor with Gloria, he took her to [[Bayside, Queens|Bayside Hospital]] on the [[NYCT|Q5 bus]] because "[[New York City Subway|the subway]] don't run to Bayside".{{Clarify|date=June 2019|reason=Is this relevant to the rest of the 'graph (or important at all)?}} According to Edith, Archie's resentment of Mike stems primarily from Mike's attending college while Archie had been forced to drop out of high school, to help support his family during the [[Great Depression]]. Archie does not take advantage of the [[G.I. Bill]], although he does attend night school to earn his diploma in 1973.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}} Archie is also revealed to have been an outstanding baseball player in his youth. His dream was to pitch for the [[New York Yankees]] but he had to leave high school to enter the workforce to financially support his family. His uncle got him a job on a loading dock after World War II, and by the 1970s he was a foreman.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}} Although he is a [[Protestant]], Archie seldom attends church, despite professing strong Christian views. The [[Justice For All (TV pilot)|original pilot]] mentions that in the 22 years Archie and Edith were married, Archie had attended church only seven times (including their wedding day) and that Archie had walked out of the sermon the most recent time, disgusted with the preacher's message (which he perceived as [[leftist]]).{{citation needed|date=December 2015}} Archie's religiosity often translates into "knee-jerk" opposition to [[atheism]] or [[agnosticism]] (which Mike and Gloria variously espouse), Catholicism, and [[Judaism]]; by the time of ''Archie Bunker's Place'', Archie's [[antisemitism]] has mostly disappeared in part due to being increasingly associated with Jews such as his adopted daughter Stephanie and business partner Murray Klein. Archie is a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] and an outspoken supporter of [[Richard Nixon]], as well as an early supporter of [[Ronald Reagan]] in [[1976 United States presidential election|1976]]; he correctly predicts Reagan's election in [[1980 United States presidential election|1980]]. During the [[Vietnam War]], Archie dismisses peace protesters as unpatriotic and has little good to say about the [[civil rights movement]]. Despite having an adversarial relationship with his black neighbors, the Jeffersons, he forms an unlikely friendship with their son Lionel, who performs various [[handyman|odd jobs]] for the Bunkers and responds to Archie's patronizing racial views with sarcastic quips that usually go over Archie's head. The later spinoff series ''[[704 Hauser]]'' features a new, black family moving into Bunker's old home. The series is set in 1994 but does not indicate whether Bunker, who would have been 70 by this time, is still alive. His now-adult grandson, [[Joey Stivic]], appears briefly in the first episode of the series and references his grandfather, but does not state whether he's still alive at this point.
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