Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,509

This is the grave of Carroll O’Connor.

Born in 1924 in Manhattan, O’Connor grew up pretty wealthy. His father was a lawyer. His brothers became doctors, but he would be on a different path. The family mostly lived in Elmhurst and Forest Hills in Queens, which is interesting because this was the home setting for the reason O’Connor is so well known today. He started at Wake Forest in North Carolina in 1941, but dropped out when the nation joined World War II. He tried to get into the Navy, but had some medical reason that he was rejected. He was accepted by the Merchant Marine though and so he spent a few years there during the war. When he came back stateside, he started college again, this time at the University of Montana. Not sure why or why he went to Wake Forest either. Maybe he wanted to check out other parts of the country. He edited the school newspaper and resigned over censorship of a cartoon he had published that showed the Montana state legislature as rats attacking a bag of grain that was the university budget. Can’t say that’s changed much up there!

O’Connor did meet his wife Nancy in Montana and they married in 1951. But then he dropped out and they moved to Ireland, where he graduated from University College in Dublin. He eventually came back to Montana and got a master’s degree in speech. Anyway, this restless young man got involved in theater productions, both in Dublin and New York. He started getting a little bit of attention. Then Burgess Meredith (John Astin was the assistant director!) was directing a Broadway adaptation of James Joyce’ Ulysses. Now I’m trying to imagine Ulysses as a big musical today. Hmmm… Anyway, Meredith cast O’Connor in one of the leads and he got a lot more attention after that.

O’Connor moved to Hollywood shortly after this and he started getting TV parts. These were small bits, sure, but he started slowly building up quite a set of appearances on shows that ranged from excellent to terrible. He also proved to be a good character actor in a number of films. Because he wasn’t a traditionally handsome guy–a little pudgy, certainly no model in the face–he was perfect for the character dominated film. My first time seeing him was in Lonely Are the Brave, from 1962. This is the superb adaptation of the Edward Abbey novel about the lone man trying to survive in modern West where there is no room for him. Kirk Douglas ends up on the run from the law (Walter Matthau), only to get plowed over by a toilet truck. O’Connor plays the toilet truck driver. He was also in Cleopatra, Point Break, Marlowe, Kelly’s Heroes, and many other films in the 60s and early 70s.

O’Connor was never going to be a movie lead. But he might make a TV lead. As respect for his craft grew thanks to his films and he as he proved himself a quality actor for TV, he started getting consideration for lead roles. He was nearly cast as the Skipper in Gilligan’s Island, but that went to Alan Hale, Jr., instead. He was also considered as Dr. Smith in Lost in Space, but that one went to Jonathan Harris. But O’Connor worked whenever he wanted. He didn’t quite work all the time. He had a home in Italy and he was hanging out over there when the now recently departed great television producer Norman Lear gave him a call and asked him to come to New York to audition for the role of Archie Bunker in All in the Family. As we all know, this is why O’Connor is a legend today.

I don’t know what there is I can add to the already fertile discourse on All in the Family. With Lear’s recent death, we have just discussed this as well. So let me just say that it is an astounding show. It’s a very good show, of course, but that’s not quite the point. To take on these social issues, create a sympathetic character about someone with horrible politics, create sympathetic characters out of hippies who really weren’t that bright either, and make people laugh about it, not out of meanness but because it is funny–I mean how is this possible. Especially given we weren’t that far from the era of Mister Ed. Just a revolutionary television show, as the many other great shows Lear produced in the 70s were as well. But this was the pioneer of the comedy about serious matters, as well as MASH, which also started in 1971. I don’t know if anyone could have done better with the role than O’Connor. He really was the perfect casting for the perfect part. Again, he was even from the neighborhood where the show was set! O’Connor himself was worried about being typecast after this, but he loved the show. Oh, and this was also performed before a live studio audience every week.

When All in the Family ended in 1979, O’Connor continued the character for another four years in Archie Bunker’s Place, so I guess by that point he wasn’t that worried about being typecast. In fact, he was furious when the show was cancelled. But he moved quickly to In the Heat of the Night. Based on the 1967 movie, it ran from 1988 to 1995. Even after that, there were 4 movies made for television out of the series. Overall, O’Connor won five Emmys, four for All in the Family and one for In the Heat of the Night.

O’Connor was also a big country music fan. In 1991, for some reason In the Heat of the Night cast members decided to record a Christmas album (now there’s a collector album!). O’Connor recruited a bunch of big Nashville people, including the legendary mandolinist and bluegrass god Jesse McReynolds to play with him. The whole cast sang “Jingle Bells” and were joined by such legends as Kitty Wells and Little Jimmy Dickens. None of this is actually important, but I like country music and that’s enough for me.

However, during these years, O’Connor had to deal with his son Hugh’s severe addiction issues, which turned late life O’Connor into a very strong anti-drug crusader after Hugh killed himself in 1995. Just a sad story. O’Connor and his wife loved their son very much but like Joe Biden with Hunter, sometimes your kid is just a mess but you love them anyway. This was the dominant feature of O’Connor’s late life, including after the asshole who sold Hugh the drugs suing O’Connor for defamation after O’Connor used his name publicly and said he was a murderer. O’Connor won the case. Otherwise, he was a big car guy and he also donated a ton of money to the University of Montana.

O’Connor died in 2001, at the age of 76. He had diabetes and that led to a heart attack. His health had been not great for years so no one was really surprised here.

Carroll O’Connor is buried in Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California.

If you would like this series to visit other legends of 1970s television, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Sherman Hemsley (now there’s an interesting human being!) is in El Paso, Texas and Fred Berry is in Hollywood. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.