Jean Stapleton died on Friday at her home in New York City. She was 90. The actress whose portrayal of a slow-witted & big-hearted housewife on the hit 1970s series "All in the Family" made her one of the foremost women in television comedy. As Edith Bunker, Jean Stapleton starred in "All in the Family" with Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers as Gloria, and Carroll O'Connor.

Ms. Stapleton was an accomplished theater actress with some television credits when the producer Norman Lear, who had seen her in the musical "Damn Yankees" on Broadway, asked her to audition for a new series. The audition, for a character named Edith Bunker, would chang her life forever.

The show, initially called "Those Were the Days," was Lear's adaptation of an English series called "Till Death Us Do Part." The show would feature a working-class couple in east London who held reactionary and racist views. "All In The Family" ended up being the American incarnation of that story.

The producers filmed three different pilots, changed networks, and Ms. Stapleton acted in a few side projects while waiting for "All in the Family" to find a home. It ended up being first broadcast in January 1971.

The show struggled to find an audience in the first months, but when it did, it became one of the most popular shows in television, finishing first in the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons and winning four consecutive Emmy Awards for outstanding comedy series.

Ms. Stapleton won three Emmys of her own, in 1971, '72 and '78.