The starring role of Sanford and Son was portrayed by actor-comedian Redd Foxx. Born John Elroy Sanford in St. Louis. Missouri. Foxx was no newcomer to the entertainment industry. He began a career in the late 1930s performing street acts. and during the 1950s he achieved a measure of success as a nightclub per­ former and recorder of bawdy joke albums. with his racy routines influencing generations of comics to the present time. By the 1960s, he was headlining in Las Vegas. In 1969, he earned a role as an  aging  junk dealer in the  motion  picture Cotton Comes to Harlem, a portrayal that brought him to  the  attention  of  Lear and Yorkin.

It was Foxx's enormously funny portrayal of 65-year-old Fred G. Sanford that quickly earned Sanford and Son a place among the top- IO most-watched tele­ vision programs to air on NBC television. He was sup­ ported by Lamont, his 30ish son. and a multiracial cast of regular and occasional characters who served as the butt of Sanford's often bigoted jokes and insults. Fred's nemesis. the "evil and ugly" Aunt Esther (por­ trayed by veteran actor LaWanda Page). often pro­ vided the funniest moments of episodes as she and Fred traded jibes and insults. The trademark routine of the series occurred when Fred feigned a heart attack by clasping his chest in mock pain. Staggering drunkenly. he would threaten to join his deceased wife Elizabeth. calling out "I'm coming to join you. Elizabeth!"

Although Sanford and Son was enormously success­ful, Foxx became dissatisfied with the show, its direc­tion, and his treatment as star of the program. In a Los Angele Times article, he stated. "Certain things should be yours to have when you work your way to the top." At one point he walked off the show, complaining that the white producers and writers had little regard or ap­preciation of African-American life and culture. In newspaper interviews. he lambasted the total lack of Black writers or directors. Moreover, Foxx believed that  his efforts were  not  appreciated, and  in  1977 he left NBC for his own variety show on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The program barely lasted one season.

Sanford and Son survived some five years on prime­ time television. It earned its place in television history as the first successful, mostly Black cast television sit­ com to appear on a U.S. network in prime time since the cancellation of Amos 'n' Andy. It was an enor­mously funny program, sans obvious ethnic stereotyp­ing. ''I'm convinced that Sanford and Son shows middle-class America a lot of what they need to know," Foxx said in a 1973 interview. "The show ... doesn't drive home a lesson. but it can open up peo­ple's minds enough for them to see how stupid every kind of prejudice can be." After Foxx left the show permanentlym a pseudo-spin-off called Sanford Arms proved unsuccessful and lasted only one season.