Don't Hate Him, He's Just an Actor

Sometimes actors do their job so well the audience forgets that they are acting. The actor has actually become the character in the audience's mind. This was the case for an American character actor named David Dukes. Dukes was an accomplished film television and Broadway actor when he was cast in a role that for a time changed his life. Dukes was cast in a two part episode of "All in the Family" that aired on October 16, 1977. The role he played was that of a character called Lambert who masquerades as a cop in search of a neighborhood rapist. He appears the the episode titled "Edith's 50th Birthday" as the cop he gains access to the Bunker home where Edith is home alone awaiting to go to her surprise birthday party next door. It turns out that Lambert is not a cop but the rapist and attempts to rape the beloved character of Edith played by Jean Stapleton. 

In the course of the episode Duke's character threatens Edith with a gun and ties her hands with a necktie. He makes several attempts to rape Edith only to be foiled and finally getting hit with a burning birthday cake and pushed from the house.
The episode was both funny and moving at the same time. It was the first time on American television let alone on a sitcom where an attempted rape is shown. The character of Edith was so loved by the American viewing public that audiences truly believed in her and thus believed that Dukes really did attempt to assault Edith. Dukes received hate mail and death threats because of the episode and the audiences belief that it was Dukes not his character that attempted to rape Edith Bunker.