Ed O'Neill, July 1995

Very often, as I'm digitizing my past, I come across pieces that I completely forgot about. This interview with Ed O'Neill, who right now is so great on "Modern Family," is one of them. I interviewed him at a Fox Network party one evening around the pool of the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena. He were there to meet with the press, and now that my memory has been  bumped, I recall talking with him and Michael Moore that night. This is ironic for me, because I just watched an immensely entertaining interview with O'Neill on "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show."

By Donald Porter
Standard-Examiner staff

PASADENA, Calif. -- A couple of years back, Ed O'Neill was cut out of a movie because a test audience laughed when he was on screen. It was a drama, you see -- a war film -- and he was playing a character who wasn't supposed to be laughed at.

Actors can be typecast, and O'Neill, after playing Al Bundy for eight years on "Married ... with Children," knows all about it. He's so identifiable as Al Bundy that, in the case of the aforementioned movie, "Flight of the Intruder," it meant his work was left on the cutting room floor.

O'Neill, however, is sanguine about his being Al Bundy.