Surprising Stories from the Set of One Day at a Time

The heart of One Day at a Time didn’t just come from a writers’ room — it came from real life. Actress and writer Whitney Blake, herself a divorced single mother raising three children, helped inspire the show’s central premise of a family led by a working mom.

Blake brought the concept to producer Norman Lear, who developed it into the 1975 CBS series starring Bonnie Franklin as Ann Romano. At a time when single motherhood was rarely centered on television, Blake’s real-world experience helped shape a sitcom that felt refreshingly honest — and very much of its moment.