Carroll O'Connor

John Carroll O'Connor (August2, 1924– June21, 2001) was an American actor whose television career spanned over four decades.

Carroll O'Connor, the eldest of three sons, was born on August2, 1924, in Manhattan, New York City, to Edward Joseph O'Connor, a lawyer, and his wife, Elise Patricia O'Connor (née O'Connor), a teacher.

He met Nancy Fields (born 1929), who later became his wife, when she was working as a makeup artist and lighting technician in a student-produced production of Our Town.

He later left that university to help his younger brother Hugh get into medical school in Ireland, where Carroll completed his undergraduate studies at University College Dublin.

In 1941, he enrolled at Wake Forest University in North Carolina but dropped out when the United States entered World War II.

During the war, he was rejected by the United States Navy and enrolled in the United States Merchant Marine Academy for a short time.

After leaving that institution, he became a merchant seaman and served in the United States Merchant Marine during the war.

After the war, O'Connor attended the University of Montana, where he worked at the Montana Kaimin student newspaper as an editor; in 1949 he resigned his editing position in protest to the pressure from the campus administration that led to the confiscation and destruction of an issue of the paper, which carried a cartoon depicting the Montana Board of Education as rats gnawing at a bag of university funds.

At the University of Montana, he also joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

O'Connor did not take any drama courses as an undergraduate at the University of Montana, but he did act in student theater productions.

After acting in theatrical productions in Dublin and New York during the 1950s, O'Connor's breakthrough came when he was cast by director Burgess Meredith (assisted by John Astin) in a featured role in the Broadway adaptation of James Joyce's novel Ulysses.

O'Connor and Meredith remained close, lifelong friends.

O'Connor made his television acting debut as a character actor on two episodes of Sunday Showcase.

These two parts led to other roles on such television series as The Americans, The Eleventh Hour, Bonanza, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Outer Limits, The Great Adventure, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Dr. Kildare, I Spy, That Girl, Premiere, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Insight, “The Twilight Zone”, among many others.

O'Connor guest-starred as Josef Varsh in the first season of Mission Impossible, season one, episode 18 "The Trial".

Late in his career, he appeared on several episodes of Mad About You as the father of Helen Hunt's character.

After O'Connor's fiancée, Nancy Fields, graduated from the University of Montana in 1951 with degrees in drama and English, she sailed to Ireland to study at Trinity College Dublin and met Carroll, who was visiting his brother, Hugh.

The couple married in Dublin on July28, 1951.

There he studied Irish history and English literature, graduated in 1952, and began his acting career.

In 1956, O'Connor returned to the University of Montana to earn a master's degree in speech.

O'Connor appeared in a number of studio films in the 1960s and early 1970s, including Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Cleopatra (1963), In Harm's Way (1965), What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966), Hawaii (1966), Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966), Warning Shot (1967), Point Blank (1967), The Devil's Brigade (1968), For Love of Ivy (1968), Death of a Gunfighter (1969), Marlowe (1969), Kelly's Heroes (1970) and Doctors' Wives (1971).

In many of his roles he portrayed a military or police officer, in several a particularly blustery one.

In the 1960s, O'Connor appeared in episodes of notable television series such as The Americans, The Untouchables, Naked City, Death Valley Days, Bonanza, The Defenders, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, The Time Tunnel, That Girl and Gunsmoke (1966 - "The Wrong Man"; S12E7).

O'Connor also performed in anthology television shows such as NBC Sunday Showcase, The United States Steel Hour, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Play of the Week, The Dick Powell Show, Alcoa Premiere, The DuPont Show of the Week, Profiles in Courage and Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre.

Both of his brothers became doctors: Hugh, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1961, and Robert, a psychiatrist in New York City.

O'Connor spent much of his youth in Elmhurst and Forest Hills, Queens, which is where his character Archie Bunker would later live.

O'Connor graduated from Newtown High School in Elmhurst.

O'Connor was living in Italy in 1968 when producer Norman Lear asked him to come to New York City and star in a series that he was creating for ABC titled Justice For All. Lear recruited O'Connor to play the role of Archie Justice, a bigot who was able to bring forth some measure of empathy from the audience.

After two television pilots of the sitcom were produced (between 1968 and 1970), the hosting network was changed to CBS.

For the third pilot, the last name of its main character was changed to Bunker, and its title was changed to All in the Family.

The show was based on the BBC's Till Death Us Do Part, and Bunker was based on Alf Garnett, but he was somewhat less abrasive than the original British character.

O'Connor's Queens background and his ability to speak with a working-class New York accent both influenced Lear to set the show in Queens.

Desiring a well known actor to play the lead, Lear approached Mickey Rooney, but he declined the role.

O'Connor accepted the role because he did not expect the show to succeed, and he believed that he would move back to Europe when it failed.

O'Connor found widespread fame as Archie Bunker (for which he won four Emmy Awards), the main character in the CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971–1979) and its continuation, Archie Bunker's Place (1979–1983).

He was among the actors considered for the roles of the Skipper on Gilligan's Island and Dr. Smith in the TV show Lost in Space, and he was the visual template in the creation of Batman nemesis Rupert Thorne, a character who debuted at the height of All in the Family success in Detective Comics No. 469 (published May 1976 by DC Comics).

O'Connor later starred in the NBC/CBS television crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995), where he played the role of police chief William "Bill" Gillespie.

In the late 1990s, he played Gus Stemple, the father of Jamie Buchman (Helen Hunt) on Mad About You.

In 1996, O'Connor was ranked number 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

He won five Emmys and one Golden Globe Award.