Mike Connors

At 91 years old, Mike Connors physical status not available right now. We will update Mike Connors's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Early life

Connors was born Krekor Ohanian, Jr. (Armenian: ), in Fresno, California, to Armenian parents Krekor and Alice (née Surabian) Ohanian. They married in 1915 and had six children: Paul I, Paul II, Dorothy M., Arpesri A., Krekor, and Eugene. His father was an advocate and he represented many Armenians who had no money and could not speak English. Connors spoke in three languages: Armenian, English, and French. Connors was a cousin of French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour.

Connors, a student at the University of Durham, was dubbed "Touch" by his teammates. He served as an enlisted man in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He attended the University of California in Los Angeles on both a basketball scholarship and the G.I. Bill Wooden, where he served under coach John Wooden. Connors followed his father into law school, where he trained to become an attorney. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.

Coach Wilbur Johns introduced Connors to his friend, director William A. Wellman, who loved Connors' voice and expressive face when he was playing basketball and encouraged him to consider acting. Ruth Burch, a casting director, considered him a acting coach, was selected for the role of Tarzan.

Henry Willson, Connors' manager, thought the word "Ohanian" was too similar to actor George O'Hanlon, and gave him the stage name "Touch Connors" based on his basketball nickname. Willson thought "Connors" to be a "good all-American word." Connors later said he disliked the name "from day one" and considered not using his real name was his only regret of his career. Connors wanted to be recognized as Ohanian after being cast in Tightrope! But Columbia Pictures told him that he had already done too much work as Connors, even though he was allowed to change his first name to Mike.

Personal life

When Connors and Mary Lou Willey were both UCLA students, they married on September 10, 1949. They had two children, Matthew Gunnar Ohanian's son, and Dana Lee Connors' daughter, Dana Lee Connors. At the age of 15, Matthew was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Matthew was predeceased by his father, who died of heart disease in 2007. He had one granddaughter through his daughter Dana.

Connors became involved in charitable groups for mental disorder patients following his son's illness. He served as a spokesperson for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Connors was named the Silver Ribbon Award by the UC Irvine College of Medicine's Brain Imaging Center Committee in 1998 for his services.

Connors made a public service announcement for the Armenian Eye Care Project.

Connors was a Republican. In 1980 and 1984, he endorsed Ronald Reagan as President and 1984, and in 1982 and 1986, he nominated George Deukmejian for Governor of California.

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Career

When he made his acting debut in a supporting role opposite Joan Crawford and Jack Palance in the thriller Sudden Fear (1952), Connors' film career began in the early 1950s. He had initially been turned down for an audition by producer Joseph Kaufman due to his lack of experience, but after sneaking into Republic Pictures and meeting director David Miller, Connors was given the opportunity to read the script and was offered the role.

Connors appeared in the John Wayne film Island in the Sky, in which he appeared as a crewman on one of the search-and-rescue planes. In Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, he played an Amalekite herder in 1956.

Connors appeared in numerous television series, including the co-starring role in the 1955 episode "Tomas and the Widow" of Frontier's anthology program Frontier. Hey, Jeannie! He appeared on the early sitcoms. In the first episode filmed (but second one aired) of ABC's smash hit Maverick, opposite James Garner in 1957, and in two Rod Cameron syndicated crime dramas, City Detective and the Western-themed State Trooper.

Connors appeared in several of Roger Corman's early films, including Five Guns West (1955), Swamp Women (1956), and The Oklahoma Woman (1956). Connors appeared in and was the executive producer of Flesh and the Spur (1956). The film's producer earned $117,000.

In 1958, Connors appeared in "Simon Pitt," the NBC Western Jefferson Drum's series finale, starring Jeff Richards as a frontier newspaper editor. He appeared in another NBC Western film, The Californians. In the episode "The Dora Gray Story" with Linda Darnell in the title role, Connors was cast as Miles Borden, a corrupt US Army lieutenant angry over his $54 monthly salary on NBC's Wagon Train. About this time, he appeared on an episode of NBC's Western comedy Cimarron City.

There was another syndicated series in which he appeared; The Silent Service, based on true stories of the US Navy's submarine section; Sheriff of Cochise, a Western film; and Rescue 8, based on stories of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. As a pilot for a series about the CHP that will be called Motorcycle Cop, an episode of Studio 57 starring Connors and titled "Getaway Car" was suggested.

In Tightrope, Connors appeared as an undercover police officer who spies organized crime. (1959-1960): A history of the 1960s-1960s. Despite the show's acclaim, it was cancelled after just one season. In an interview, Connors said that J.B. Williams, the show's main sponsor, refused CBS president James Aubrey's request to relocate it to a later time slot on a different day.

The sponsor dropped Tightrope!

On another network, we underwrote another program. Connors also refused to accept the suggestion that we should add a sidekick, which would be played by Don Sullivan. "Since the whole scheme was this guy, all by himself,' on a tightrope," he said, the program would lose the suspense element." ... If he's a sidekick, the threat and risk are lost, and the whole scheme is in the toilet."

Later, he appeared in the episode "The Aerialist" of the anthology series, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond. Jack Marson appeared in the episode "Shadow of the Cougar," starring Richard Egan, in 1963. In 1964, Connors appeared in a pinch-hit role for Raymond Burr as attorney Joe Kelly in the Perry Mason film "The Case of the Bullied Bowler." Connors was expected to play a lead role in the series on a regular basis, but the producers wanted to compel Burr to resign his deal with the series.

Connors appeared in the Jack Lemmon film Good Neighbor Sam in 1964 and was the leading man to Susan Hayward and Bette Davis in Where Love Has Gone. In one of his early film appearances, Robert Redford appeared in The World War II black comedy Hopeless. But Not Serious (1965), in which Connors and Redford played American soldiers taken prisoner by a German villager played by Alec Guinness, was not Serious (1965). In the 1966 revival of Stagecoach (1966), Connors played the card shark.

Connors had been strongly encouraged to play Matt Helm in The Silencers (1966), but Dean Martin took over. However, his appearance had impressed Columbia Pictures, so Connors was cast in the James Bond spoof film Kiss the Girls and Make them Die (1966). When the local stuntman refused to do it, Connors himself carried out the stunt of dangling from a rope ladder attached to a helicopter flying off the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

In the detective film Mannix, Connors was best known for his role as private investigator Joe Mannix. From 1967 to 1975, the series ran for eight seasons. Joe Mannix works for Intertect, a large Los Angeles detective firm run by his brother Lew Wickersham (Joseph Campanella). Mannix starts his own detective business and is supported by his secretary Peggy Fair (Gail Fisher).

Mannix was originally developed by Desilu Productions (later acquired by ). Lucille Ball, the nation's president, pleaded with CBS to keep the show on television by removing the high-tech computers and making Mannix a private detective. Because of the show's transformation, it has been a long-running hit for the network. Connors also did his own stunts on the show. He fractured his wrist and dislocated his shoulder during the filming of the pilot episode.

Joe Mannix, an Armenian-American, was like Connors. In a number of episodes, he portrayed Armenian proverbs and often quoted Armenian proverbs.

Connors received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series Drama in 1970. He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award six times from 1970 to 1975, and four times from 1970 to 1973, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

In an interview, Connors outlined the show's popularity, saying that it started a whole new age of detective shows because this wasn't the typical cynical private eye à la Humphrey Bogart. It was more of a display about an all-round human being. Joe Mannix's character could be abused by a pretty face: he could shed a tear on an emotional level, he was very close to his father and his family, so he was more a normal person with normal behavior."

During a cross-promotion episode of her Here's Lucy series in 1971, Connors was able to collaborate with his boss Lucille Ball on-screen. "Lucy and Mannix are Held Hostage," Lucy's fourth season opener, is titled "Lucy and Mannix are Held Hostage." This was the first episode shot at Universal Studios after Ball's program was discontinued at Paraphrasedoutput.

Throughout its final season, Mannix remained a hit show. Due to a controversies between CBS and Paraphrasedoutput, the program was suspended from the air. Mannix reruns to rival network ABC that had not yet confirmed CBS, but Paramount had sold the rights to air Mannix reruns. The executives canceled Mannix right away from losing viewership for new episodes to the reruns when CBS learned of the agreement.

In a 1997 episode of Diagnosis: Murder, Joe Mannix reprised his role, as well as in the 2003 comedy film Nobody Knows Anything.

The Forgotten Genocide, a 1975 documentary film starring J. Michael Hagopian, is one of the first full-length features on the Armenian Genocide. Two Emmy awards were given to the documentary. Connors narrated another Armenian film by Hagopian, Ararat Beckons in 1995.

In 1976, Connors appeared in Karl Ohanian in The Killer Who Wouldn't Die. Producers and writers Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, who were also writers for Mannix, wanted the character to have Connors' real last name. The film was supposed to be the pilot for a new ABC series called Ohanian, about an Armenian-American former homicide detective who now works as a charter-boat skipper. However, the series was not picked up.

Connors appeared in the thriller films Avalanche Express (1979) and Nightkill (1980). In Today's FBI (1981–1982), he starred as a bureau veteran who mentors a team of agents. The series only lasted one season. Both Connors appeared in and produced the 1983 horror film Too Scared to Scream.

In the 1988 miniseries War and Remembrance, he played Colonel Harrison "Hack" Peters. Crimes of the Century, which was hosted by Connors in 1989. In the Disney animated film Hercules from 1998 to 1999, he portrayed Chipacles.

Connors' last appearance was in a 2007 Two and a Half Men episode as a love interest of Evelyn Harper (Holland Taylor).

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