Carroll O'Connor biography

Synopsis

Early Career

Carroll O'Connor was born on August 2, 1924 to a lawyer and a school teacher. His family moved from the Bronx to Elmhurst and then Forest Hills, Queens, where young O'Connor developed a strong interest in baseball. He entertained the idea of becoming a sportswriter and attended college at Wake Forest University in North Carolina in 1941.

He left college and returned to New York after the start of World War II and volunteered for the Naval Air Corps. The Navy rejected him partly because of his poor college grades, and he joined the United States Merchant Marine Academy instead as a midshipman. He was called out by officers for having a bad attitude and dropped out to join the National Maritime Union and become a merchant seamen.

After World War II, O'Connor returned to New York and worked for an Irish newspaper run by his family. He considered a career in journalism and returned to Wake Forest in 1948 and then took courses at Montana State University where he met another student, Nancy Fields, whom he married in 1951.

Still unsure about his career path, he took a trip to Dublin in 1950 and enrolled at the University College where he began to act, using the stage name George Roberts. He appeared in productions at the Dublin's Gate Theater and performed Shakespeare at the Edinburgh Festival and throughout Ireland. He graduated in 1952 and wanted to pursue an acting career.

But when he returned to New York, he couldn't find acting jobs so he worked as a New York City school teacher until he auditioned for a stage production of James Joyce's Ulysses, produced by the actor Burgess Meredith. O'Connor won that role and then starred in an Off Broadway production of Clifford Odet's Big Knife. O'Connor's portrayal of a greedy studio boss drew attention and his acting career began to take off.

Television Career

In 1960, O'Connor broke into television, playing the role of the prosecutor in the Armstrong Circle Theater production of The Sacco-Vanzetti Story. Over the next decade, he worked as a character actor in television shows includng The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Bonanza and The Outer Limits, as well as movies such as Cleopatra (1963), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Otto Preminger's World War II epic In Harm's Way (1965) and the 1970 war comedy Kelly's Heroes. He had also been up for the role of the Skipper in the TV show Gilligan's Island, but lost the part to Alan Hale. However, another role was about to define him as one of the greatest TV actors of all time.

All in the Family

O'Connor was offered the role of the working-class bigot Archie Bunker in Norman Lear's All in the Family, but he wasn't confident it would be a success.