Bill Loud, patriarch of the Loud family, is dead at 97.
I’m not sure how many people remember the Loud family. They were the stars of what may have been the first television “reality” show: “An American Family”, which ran on PBS in 1973.
“An American Family” shocked Americans families. Aired with the imprimatur of public broadcasting, it was portrayed as sociological exploration, not exploitation, and although many people found it irresistible, it was also hard to watch.
It showed Mr. Loud’s wife, Pat, bluntly discussing his adultery with her brother and sister-in-law. It showed her telling her husband to move out. It captured the Louds’ oldest son, Lance, living an openly gay life in New York — startling images for many people at the time.
The Louds separated during the filming of the series, ended up divorcing…and thirty years later, moved back in together and cohabited until Mr. Loud’s death.
In the 1970s much of the outside world had taken moral measure of Mr. Loud and found him wanting. But Grant Loud said his father was not created by television and should not be defined by it. He noted that the family moved to Santa Barbara in 1962 with very little money, and that his father had created a successful business from scratch.
“It provided a family of five kids with a very comfortable life, and took him — and us — around the world,” he said by email in 2013. “As a kid, I never thought much about it. As a middle-aged guy, I can only shake my head in awe and respect.”
The Loud’s had five children. Four survive him: Lance passed away in 2001.
