I saw the list of celebrities that attended the funeral and was surprised to see that Jean Stapleton did not attend. Did they have a good relationship after the show ended? I know Ms. Stapleton was in a play, but I thought for sure she would have been there. I'm sure she could have been let out of the play for a couple of days if she wished to attend.

I know Sally Struthers had a hard time attending and decided I guess at the last minute to attend. Mabye it would have to emotional for Jean Stapleton to attend.

From everything I've read, Jean and Carroll had a good relationship both during and after the series. They appeared together on the "Donny & Marie" talk show about a year ago, and they were very affectionate with each other.

I was also surprised to see Jean wasn't at the funeral. You'd think she could have gotten out of her play commitment, but perhaps she's one of those people who shies away from funerals because they're difficult to deal with.

Jean could not attend because she is a 78 year old woman who is actually working in a play in Louisiana and she could not get away to fly out to California on such short notice. Please realize that Jean is not a young sprout anymore and it is very difficult for her to just drop everything fly to California one night and come back in less than 24 hours to continue to work on a play in Louisiana. I am certain that Jean did right by Carroll and did what Carroll would have wished she would do in a situation like this and I am positive she honored his death in the same way Edith honored Archie for all those years. If you are curious to know if Jean and Carroll got along well during those yeasrs I can tell you right now that they never had a serious issue when they performed together on the shows. The main conflict Carroll had was always with Norman Lear. The cast never really had too many problems with each other that would have jeopardized the show or hurt the working relationships. Issues that would arise were with Norman and CBS most of the time. The E! True Hollywood Story goes through all of this stuff, watch it the next time its on whether you've seen it already or not.

[This message has been edited by dcarus (edited 07-11-2001).]