With divorced Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) as the central character, One Day did what a classic hit couldn't five years earlier. "When Jimmy Brooks and Allan Burns did The Mary Tyler Moore Show, they had written her as a divorcee and the network wouldn't have it. So they redid it." But for Lear's single mother with daughters, "the time was right."

Unhappy with some early scripts, Franklin got a lesson about speaking up from O'Connor. "I went to Carroll crying one day. I said, 'Carroll, your show is so wonderful.' He was a writer and a guy; I'm this girl in a man's world. I said, 'I can't do that.' He said, 'You have to. That's your responsibility. Period.' "

She told Lear she felt the show was dealing with minor topics, not about actual divorce. He hired some new writers, who introduced the father and dealt with the kids' unhappiness. Franklin says: "It was the meat of what the show was supposed to be about. And then we were on the right track."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2009-06-08-lear-memories_N.htm