Carroll O'Connor

At 76 years old, Carroll O'Connor has this physical status:

John Carroll O'Connor (August 2, 1924 – June 21, 2001) was an American actor, producer, and director whose television career spanned four decades.

O'Connor, a lifelong member of the Actors Studio, rose to fame as Archie Bunker, the main character in the CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971–79) and its sequel, Archie Bunker's Place (1979–83).

O'Connor appeared in In the Heat of the Night (1988–95), where he appeared as Sparta, Mississippi, police chief William (Bill) Gillespie.

He played Jamie Buchman (Helen Hunt) on Mad About You at the end of his youth in the late 1990s. O'Connor debuted at number 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time in 1996.

Early life

Carroll O'Connor, the eldest of three sons, was born in Manhattan, New York City, on August 2, 1924, to Edward Joseph O'Connor, a lawyer, and Elise Patricia O'Connor, a teacher. Hugh, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1961, and Robert, a New York City psychiatrist, became doctors. O'Connor spent a large portion of his childhood in Elmhurst and Forest Hills, Queens, the same borough in which his character Archie Bunker would later live.

O'Connor graduated from Newtown High School in Elmhurst. He enrolled at Wake Forest University in North Carolina in 1941 but was forced to withdraw as a result of 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 period. After leaving the school, he became a merchant seaman and served in the United States Merchant Marine Marine during the war.

O'Connor spent time at the University of Montana, where he worked at the Montana Kaimin student newspaper as an editor, in 1949, he resigned from his editing position in response to the campus administration's pressure, which resulted in the confiscation and destruction of a newspaper issue, which featured a cartoon depicting the Montana Board of Education as rats gnawing at a bag of university funds. He was also a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at the University of Montana. O'Connor did not take any drama classes as an undergraduate at the University of Montana, but he did appear in student theater productions. In a student-produced version of "Our Town," he met Nancy Fields (born 1929), who later became his wife, when she was working as a makeup artist and lighting technician. Carroll later left the university to help his younger brother Hugh enroll in medical school in Ireland, where Carroll completed his undergraduate studies at University College Dublin. He studied Irish history and English literature, completing his studies in 1952 and beginning his acting career.

Nancy Fields, O'Connor's fiancée, graduated from the University of Montana in 1951 with degrees in drama and English, and she met Carroll, who was visiting his brother Hugh. On July 28, 1951, the couple married in Dublin. O'Connor earned a master's degree in speech at the University of Montana in 1956.

Early film roles

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) You Don't Withhold My Wife, Not with My Wife. Warning Shot (1967), Point Blank (1968), The Devil's Brigade (1968), The Devil's Brigade (1968), For Love of Ivy (1968), For Love of Ivy (1968), Kelly's Heroes (1969), and Doctors' Wives (1971). In several of his roles, he played a military or police officer, one of which was particularly blustery.

Personal life

O'Connor and his partner Nancy Fields O'Connor adopted a six-day-old boy in 1962, naming him Hugh after O'Connor's brother who had died a year before. Hugh was a courier on the set of Archie Bunker's Place at the age of 17. Officer Lonnie Jamison was later introduced on In the Heat of the Night to O'Connor's son's role.

O'Connor, a devout Catholic who attended Mass on a Sunday, was a devout Catholic.

O'Connor was admitted to the hospital for heart bypass surgery and quit his 30-year smoking habit in 1989.

Hugh O'Connor's son Hugh died of cocaine use in March 28, 1995, following a long fight with heroin use. Following his son's death, O'Connor appeared in public service announcements for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and spent the remainder of his life raising concerns about drug use. O'Connor also campaigned for change in California to authorize family members of an addicted person or anyone wounded by a drug dealer's activities, including employers, to sue for medical care, rehabilitation fees, and other financial and noneconomic harms. The Drug Dealer Civil Liability Act, also known as the Drug Dealer Civil Liability Act, went into operation in 1997. The Hugh O'Connor Memorial Law is also known as the Hugh O'Connor Memorial Law. The act is based on the 1992 Model Drug Dealer Liability Act, which has been passed in 17 states and the Virgin Islands. In states such as California, Illinois, and Utah, lawsuits have been filed under the legislation.

O'Connor's son's suicide prompted O'Connor to begin a crusade against the man who sold the pills to Hugh. Harry Perzigian called him "a partner in murder" and a "sleazeball," according to Perzigian, who filed a defamation lawsuit against O'Connor. A California jury selected O'Connor in 1997, in O'Connor's favour. O'Connor said in a CNN's Larry King Live interview a few weeks after the verdict, that he would never be able to put his son's death behind him, adding, "I can't forget it." There isn't a day that I don't think of him and want him back and miss him, and I'll be sad if I'm not here anymore."

O'Connor owned a small auto repair shop in Newbury Park, California, in the late 1990s. The shop, named Carroll O'Connor Classics, was filled with many of O'Connor's personal automobiles and the cars that had been rented by his late son. O'Connor owned a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow inherited by William Harrah, a Maserati 3500 GT, and a Dodge Challenger with a 440-cubic inch V-8, which he drove during the production of All in the Family.

In 1997, the O'Connors donated US$1 million (worth $1,688,018 today) to their alma mater to help with a National Endowment for Humanities grant to the University of Montana. The University also named the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West as a regional studies and public policy center. Thenext, O'Connor taught screenwriting at the university.

In 1998, O'Connor underwent a second surgery to open the blockage in a carotid artery in order to minimize his risk of stroke.

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Career honors

In 1973, his fraternity conferred its highest honor, the Sigma Phi Epsilon Citation, on him.

O'Connor is the only male actor to have won the lead acting Emmy Award in both the comedy and drama series categories.

In July 1991, O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Reiner, and Sally Struthers reunited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of All in the Family. With reruns airing in syndication on TV Land, Antenna TV and CBS, the show's popularity continued.

In March 2000, O'Connor received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was given a St. Patrick's Day tribute by MGM.

O'Connor's caricature is displayed at Sardi's restaurant in New York City's Theater District.

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