Maude Findlay Maude Findlay Maude Findlay (née Chadbourne; formerly Hilliard) is a fictional character and the main title character on the controversial 1970s sitcom "Maude". She was portrayed by the Emmy-winning actress Bea Arthur. Maude Findlay first appeared on "All in the Family" in December 1971, in the second-season episode, "Cousin Maude's Visit", and is the cousin of Edith Bunker. Maude cared for Edith, but disliked her husband, Archie Bunker. Archie and Maude were both known for getting on each other's nerves, especially since she was a liberal and Archie was a conservative. Because she was a liberal, Maude was also an
Archie Bunker sprinkling "incest" (incense) on their congregation, whereas he referred to incest itself as "committing 'insects' in the family". Archie repeatedly called Richard M. Nixon "Richard E. Nixon". By the show's second season, these had become dubbed "Bunkerisms", "Archie Bunkerisms", or simply "Archie-isms". The actor who played Bunker, Carroll O'Connor, is Irish Catholic, and Norman Lear modeled the character on his Jewish father, but Bunker's own ethnicity is never explicitly stated, other than identifying him as a WASP; over the course of the series, he mocks or belittles not just most minorities (including blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, Jews, and Asians), but also