Sally Struthers has spent fifty years as the loud, small, warm woman at the edge of somebody else's scene, and she is better at it than the parts usually deserve. Gloria Stivic is still the reason to know her name.
Fi1m perspective
Watch Gloria Stivic in the Bunkers' living room when the men are in full flow. Archie has said something unforgivable, Michael is explaining why, and Struthers, in the middle, is visibly running out of patience with both of them. It is a small, physical thing, a set of the jaw and a voice that climbs a note or two, and it is often the funniest thing in the frame. In our review of All in the Family (1971) we called it useful impatience, and that is still the right phrase: she gives the arguments somewhere to land.
She came to the part from dancing on variety shows, including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and Norman Lear cast her after seeing her dance, which tells you what he wanted: energy, not a position. Gloria was written thin for a long time. Struthers has said so herself, and the early seasons bear her out; Gloria states where she stands and then waits for the men to react. What Struthers added was the reaction nobody asked her for. Eight seasons opposite Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton and Rob Reiner taught her how to be heard in a room full of people paid to shout, and it is the skill she has traded on since.
The career after 1978 is scattered and busy. Film came first, in fact: small parts in Five Easy Pieces (1970) and Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway (1972), before television took her. Afterwards there were the spin-offs, Archie Bunker's Place and the short-lived Gloria (1982), then voice work, where that cracked, girlish voice turned out to be an asset rather than a limitation: Charlene Sinclair in Dinosaurs (1991), Rebecca Cunningham in TaleSpin. Stage tours of Annie and Grease kept her working. And from 2000 there were seven seasons as Babette Dell in Gilmore Girls, the neighbour who talks too much and means well, which is Gloria thirty years on and content about it.
The honest thing to say is that the parts rarely stretched her, and that she rarely seemed to mind. Going back to the Bunker house for our review, we were surprised by how much the arguments still hurt, and by how often it was Struthers' face, not the men's lines, that told us someone in that room was about to cry. She has said Rob Reiner taught her this at the table reads: "If you can make the show itself more important than your own part, you will wind up offering to give up some of your lines." It is a generous philosophy and a risky one for an actor, and her career shows both sides of it.
She is still at it, well into her seventies, as Virginia Foldau in A Man on the Inside (2024). If you want to see what she does, start with the Bunkers, and watch her when she is not speaking.
Biography
Sally Struthers is an American actress. She is known for playing Gloria Stivic on the television series All in the Family (1971–1978).
Struthers was born in Portland, Oregon. She began her career with appearances on variety shows including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Tim Conway Comedy Hour. She had supporting roles in the films Five Easy Pieces (1970) and The Getaway (1972). For her work as Gloria Stivic she received two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Later credits include the voice of Charlene Sinclair on Dinosaurs (1991) and the recurring role of Babette Dell on Gilmore Girls (2000–2007) and its 2016 revival.
