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Carroll O'Connor Dead

All in the Family Star Dies of a Heart Attack

By Anthony Breznican The Associated Press

C U L V E R C I T Y, Calif., June 21 — Carroll O'Connor, whose portrayal of irascible bigot Archie Bunker on All in the Family helped make the groundbreaking TV comedy part of the American dialogue on race and politics, died today. He was 76.

O'Connor died from a heart attack about 3 p.m. local time today at Brotman Medical Center, his publicist Frank Tobin said. He collapsed at his home and was rushed to the hospital, where he died with his wife of nearly 50 years, Nancy, by his side, he said. In November, O'Connor was hospitalized at UCLA Medical Center, where he had a toe on his left foot amputated because of a circulatory problem related to diabetes.

O'Connor's television success continued with the durable 1988-94 police drama In the Heat of the Night, but personal tragedy darkened the actor's later years when his only child, Hugh, shot himself in a drug-related suicide in 1996.

From the Stage to His Recliner

A native of New York, O'Connor had been working for two decades on stage and in TV and movie supporting parts when he was tapped by producer Norman Lear to play a blue-collar worker from Queens with the gift of gab and a big chip on his shoulder.

On Jan. 12, 1971, Archie began spouting off against minorities, liberals and his long-haired son-in-law (whom he called "Meathead") and kept at it for 13 years. O'Connor didn't flinch at playing an unlikeable character and deftly brought Archie's intolerance to feisty comic life.

The actor also managed to give Archie a vulnerability that allowed him to be seen as a beleaguered soul, bound by his unthinking prejudices and buffeted by the changes sweeping Vietnam War-era America.

Further softening the character was his love for wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), lovingly known as "Dingbat," and their daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers), and his grudging affection for Meathead Mike (Rob Reiner).

America's Favorite Bigot

All in the Family, adapted from the British series Till Death Do Us Part, shattered the sitcom mold that had produced decades of superficial and bland series featuring, invariably, a wise and kindly paternal figure.

Lear considered other actors for the pivotal role of Archie, but said he found the right combination of "bombast and sweetness" in O'Connor, whom he had seen in the film What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?

The sitcom got off to a rocky start. Many found it unsettling and offensive, and tuned it out. Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, who later worked with Bill Cosby on his popular sitcom, called All in the Family's bigotry "dangerous because it's disarming."

Eventually, however, viewers came to embrace Archie and the series as a comedy and a source of debate. It ranked No. 1 for five years, was top-rated for much of its 1971-92 run and gave birth to two spin-offs, Maude and The Jeffersons.

O'Connor moved from All in the Family (1971-79) to Archie Bunker's Place (1979-83), which was based in a bar owned by Archie rather than in the Bunker household.

O'Connor On Archie Bunker

The actor put his controversial character in perspective.

"I have a great deal of sympathy for him," O'Connor said of Archie in a 1986 Playboy magazine interview. "As James Baldwin wrote, the white man here is trapped by his own history, a history that he himself cannot comprehend, and therefore what can I do but love him?"

O'Connor and his two brothers were raised by their father, an attorney, and schoolteacher mother in New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, a more prosperous section of Queens than Archie would ever know. O'Connor grew up in a life of financial comfort and social tolerance.

"I never heard Archie's kind of talk in my own family," he once said. "My father was a lawyer and was in partnership with two Jews, who with their families were close to us. There were black families in our circle of friends. My father disliked talk like Archie's — he called it lowbrow."

O'Connor served as a merchant seaman in World War II, enrolling at the University of Montana on his return. Although both his siblings became physicians, O'Connor studied literature and discovered acting.

Long Road to Fame

He met his future wife, Nancy Fields, while appearing in a play. Captivated by Ireland during a visit in 1950, O'Connor finished his undergraduate studies at the National University of Ireland.

Miss Fields joined him and they were married in Dublin in 1951. O'Connor appeared on stage throughout Ireland and in London, Paris and Edinburgh. Making it in New York proved to be a struggle. He worked as a substitute teacher, earned his master's degree at Montana and, in the late 1950s, finally began getting roles in theater and films.

Lonely Are the Brave and Cleopatra (both 1963), Hawaii (1966) and Point Blank (1967) were among the movies in which he appeared.

Then All in the Family made him a star and, eventually, a four-time Emmy winner.

"Today's public recognition is something I never wished for or even cared about," he said in 1971. "But now that it is here, I find it wonderful, of course."

Life After Family

He followed Archie's Place with a return to the New York theater, then came back to TV series in 1988 with In the Heat of the Night, a police drama based on the Rod Steiger-Sidney Poitier film. O'Connor played Bill Gillespie, police chief of a small Mississippi town; Howard Rollins co-starred as detective Virgil Tibbs.

O'Connor continued with the series through health problems — including coronary artery bypass surgery in 1989 — and a network change, from NBC to CBS.

Son's Suicide Sparks Crusade

The O'Connors adopted their son as an infant in 1962 in Italy, where O'Connor was filming Cleopatra. Hugh O'Connor, who appeared with his father on In the Heat of the Night, battled a longtime alcohol and drug addiction problem.

On March 28, 1995, in several phone conversations, Hugh told his father "this is a very black day," said he had a gun and was going to "cap" himself. O'Connor recalled telling him "you're just saying crazy things" and advising him to seek a doctor's care.

"So long, I love you," his son replied. O'Connor called police, who arrived just as Hugh O'Connor shot himself.

O'Connor turned his grief over the death of 32-year-old Hugh into an anti-drug crusade and a quest for legal vengeance against his son's drug supplier.

"Nothing will help," O'Connor said after Harry Perzigian was sentenced to a year in jail. "Our lives have changed. My wife's and mine, and his widow."

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2001

Answers

I just heard! I am very sad. Archie looked like my dad. Although my dad is a very well educated man, he'd "degress" during "time-off", my dad was opinunated like Archie, but only to those close to him, and under neath the hard demeaner, just like Archie, my dad has a soft big heart. yes, his passing touches me deeply.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2001

this is sad....

we don't watch much tv around here, except for news and discovery channel type stuff.......but we love the All in the Family, Beverly Hillbillies, and Andy Griffith reruns

even tho he'll be missed....it's good to know that archie will "live on in infamy"

; )

mebs

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001

SAR, I was going to post that he looks very much like MY dad! Not the Archie Bunker character, more like the guy in In The Heat Of The Night. I'll miss him too.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001