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|---|---|---|---|---|
 Irene Lorenzo, a liberal neighbor of the Bunkers who gets hired to work with Archie at the Pendergast Tool & Die company on All in the Family in Season four. | ||||
| Personal Information | ||||
| Related to: | Frank Lorenzo (husband) | |||
| Character information | ||||
| Appeared on: | All in the Family | |||
| Episodes appeared in: | 24 episodes from Seasons 4-6 | |||
| Character played by: | Betty Garrett | |||
Irene Lorenzo is a character in All in the Family. She was played by Betty Garrett.
About Irene[]
Irene is the liberal friend of Edith Bunker and wife of fellow liberal Frank Lorenzo; they are neighbors who lived down the street from the Bunkers.
Irene, being a 'handyman' of sorts with her own tools that she carried in her purse, fixed a broken wire on the Bunker's living room phone that Archie had a hard time fixing himself. Irene repaired numerous things at the Bunker house during her duration on the show. She also had a sister that was a nun who appeared in one episode. It is revealed in the episode "Edith's Christmas Story" that Irene had a mastectomy. Archie got her a job as a forklift operator at the plant where Archie worked. Irene was a strong-willed woman of Irish heritage and Frank was a jovial Italian house-husband who loved cooking and singing. He also was a salesman but it never was said what he sold. In one hilarious episode, "Archie is Cursed", Archie, who thinks of himself as a pool shark actually challenged Irene to a pool game - until he found out she was a billiards champ! He tried to back off by claiming he had a bad back from a curse by Frank Lorenzo, until Frank tricked Archie into revealing that his back wasn't hurt and the game was on!
Gardenia, who also appeared as Jim Bowman in Episode 8 of Season 1 (as the man who sold his house to the Jeffersons) and as Curtis Remply in Episode 7 of Season 3 (as a swinger opposite Rue McClanahan), became a semi-regular along with Garrett in 1973. Gardenia only stayed for one season as Frank Lorenzo but Garrett remained until her character was phased out in late 1975.