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Carroll O'Connor

Age: 76 (passed away Jun. 21st, 2001)
Height: 5' 11"

Birth Place: Manhattan, New York, USA
Born: Aug. 2nd, 1924

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Carroll O'Connor's Main TV Roles

Show	Character(s)
All in the Family	Archie Bunker
In the Heat of the Night	Chief William&hellip
Archie Bunker's Place	Archie Bunker

NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at IMDB

BIOGRAPHY:

Carroll was born in Manhattan and raised in Forest Hills, a community of Queens, New York. After high school in 1942, he joined the Merchant Marines and worked on ships in the Atlantic. In 1946, he enrolled at the University of Montana to study English. While there, he became interested in theater. During one of the amateur productions, he met his future wife, Nancy Fields, whom he married in 1951. He moved to Ireland where he continued his theatrical studies at the National University of Ireland. He was discovered during one of his college productions and was signed to appear at the Dublin Gate Theater. He worked in theater in Europe until 1954 when he returned to New York. His attempts to land on Broadway failed and he taught high school until 1958. Finally in 1958, he landed an Off-Broadway production, "Ulysses In Downtown". He followed that with a production that was directed by Peter Bogdanovich. At the same time, he was getting attention on TV. He worked in a great many character roles throughout the 1960s. A pilot for "Those Were The Days" was first shot in 1968 based on the English hit, "Till Death Do Us Part", but was rejected by the networks. In 1971, it was re-shot and re-cast as "All in the Family" (1971) and the rest is history.

TRIVIA:

Earned a reported $250,000 a week for "All in the Family" in 1980.
Performed the "Archie Bunker" role for a remarkable 12 years and 307 episodes (_"All in the Family" (1971)_ (qv) and _"Archie Bunker's Place" (1979)_ (qv)).
Was so displeased with CBS's axing of _"Archie Bunker's Place" (1979)_ (qv) in 1983, without a chance to film an actual series finale, that he vowed to never work for the network again. (Nonetheless, his late-1980s NBC series, _"In the Heat of the Night" (1988)_ (qv) later moved to CBS in 1992.)
Has one grandson, Sean Carroll O'Connor.
He passed away on the same day that blues legend, 'John Lee Hooker (II)' (qv) did. Coincidentally, their stars are right next to one another on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Archie Bunker, O'Connor's character on _"All in the Family" (1971)_ (qv), was ranked #24 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" [20 June 2004 issue].
Listed as #20 on TV Land's Top 50 TV Icons Countdown. He beat out Alan Alda, George Clooney, Matthew J. Fox, and Kermit the Frog.
His favorite expressions on _"All in the Family" (1971)_ (qv) were "Dingbat" and "Stifle" to his wife, Edith, and "Meathead" to his son-in-law, Michael.