Pat Loud dies: Matriach of pioneering reality TV show An American Family was 94

The New York Times

Loud died Sunday afternoon of natural causes, her family said in a Facebook statement. When An American Family premiered on PBS in 1973, it presented "a startling female character named Pat Loud," William Yardely writes in her New York Times obituary. "Ms. Loud was a tan California mother of five. She drank, she plotted her divorce, she adored, and accepted, her openly gay son (Lance Loud). She did it all in Santa Barbara and all on camera — in 1973. Hurt, angry, boisterous, sharp, witty, loving, resilient, she did not act like most women on television at the time. But she was, ostensibly, not acting at all. She was the first reality television star on the first reality show — and she paid a price for breaking new ground. Critics called her vacuous, materialistic and self-absorbed. An 'affluent zombie,' one said. What wife and mother would do such a thing? Newsweek put Ms. Loud, her husband, Bill, and their children on its cover with the headline 'The Broken Family.' Many others saw her as honest and brave, uninhibited and unconditional in her love for her children." Ms. Loud died on Sunday at her home, her family said in a Facebook post.  She was 94. She was 47 when the show that made her famous first aired, and she spent much of the rest of her life explaining why she did it and how it had changed her family. She made few apologies."