Best
known for his portrayal of cantankerous Archie Bunker on the
long-running CBS series All in the Family, Carroll O'Connor
has been one of television's most recognized actors for over
twenty years. For his work on All in the Family and In
the Heat of the Night the actor has received five Emmy Awards,
eight Emmy nominations, a Golden Globe Award and a Peabody Award.
O'Connor's
acting career began while he was a student in Ireland in the
1950s. Following on experiences in American and European theatre,
he established himself as a versatile character actor in Hollywood
during the 1960s. Between films he made guest appearances on
television programs such as the U.S. Steel Hour, Kraft
Television Theatre, the Armstrong Circle Theatre and many of
the filmed series hits of the 1960s. But O'Connor became a
television star with his portrayal of outspoken bigot Archie
Bunker, the American archetype whose chair now sits in the
Smithsonian Institution.
In
1968, ABC Television, which had the first rights to the series,
financed production of two pilot episodes of All in The Family
(then under the title Those Were the Days). But the
network's trepidation about the program's socially controversial
content led ABC to reject the show. Producer Norman Lear sold the
series to CBS, where All in The Family was broadcast for
the first time on 12 January 1971 with O'Connor as Archie Bunker.
By using humor to tackle racism and other sensitive subjects, All
in The Family changed the style and tone of prime time
programming on television. It may also have opened the door for
political and social satires such as Saturday Night Live
and other controversial programs.
Throughout
its thirteen seasons the show gained immense popularity (in its
heyday, it was said to have reached an average of fifty million
viewers weekly), and maintained a groundbreaking sense of social
criticism. Archie Bunker's regular stream of racial epithets and
malapropisms catalyzed strong reaction from critics. All in the
Family was attacked by conservatives who thought that the show
made fun of their views, and by liberals who charged that the show
was too matter-of-fact about bigotry. The show's successor Archie
Bunker's Place, was broadcast on CBS from 1979 TO 1983, and
the earlier show also begat two successful spinoffs, Maude and
The Jeffersons, one of television's longest-running series
about African Americans.
From
1988 to 1994 O'Connor starred in and served as executive producer
and head writer for the hit prime time drama In the Heat of the
Night. Set in fictional Sparta, Mississippi, but shot on
location in Covington, Georgia, In the Heat of the Night may be
seen as a continuation of O'Connor's association with television
programs designed to function as social commentary by addressing
issues of racism and bigotry. O'Connor plays Bill Gillespie, a
Southern police chief whose top detective (played by Howard
Rollins) is African American. In its 1993 season, the show also
featured the marriage of Chief Gillespie to an African American
city administrator. The series has received two NAACP Image Awards
for contributing positive portrayals of African Americans on
television. When the series version of In the Heat of the Night
ended, O'Connor produced several made-for-television-movies using
the same locations and characters. In 1995, O'Connor's son and
co-star on In the Heat of the Night, Hugh O'Connor died of
a drug overdose. O'Connor chose to speak out publicly about his
grief and his views on the legalization of drugs, and gave a
number of well-publicized interviews on these topics on
television. He continues to devote much of his time to the social
problems surrounding drug addiction.
-Diane
Negra |
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Caroll O'Connor
Photo courtesy of Caroll O'Connor
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