Carroll O’Connor

John Carroll O'Connor (August 2, 1924 – June 21, 2001) was an American actor, producer, and director whose television career spanned four decades. A lifelong member of the Actors Studio, in 1971, O'Connor found widespread fame as Archie Bunker (for which he won 4 Emmy Awards), the main character in the CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971–79) and its spinoff, Archie Bunker's Place (1979–83). O'Connor later starred in the NBC/CBS television crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1988–95), where he played the role of Sparta, Mississippi, police chief William (Bill) Gillespie. At the end of his career in the late 1990s, he played the father of Jamie Buchman (Helen Hunt) on Mad About You.

In 1996, O'Connor was ranked number 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. He won 5 Emmys and two Golden Globe Awards.

Personal life

In 1962, while he was in Rome filming Cleopatra, O'Connor and his wife adopted a six-day-old boy, naming him Hugh after O'Connor's brother who had died a year earlier. At age 17, Hugh worked as a courier on the set of Archie Bunker's Place. O'Connor eventually created the role of Officer Lonnie Jamison on In the Heat of the Night for his son.

In 1989, O'Connor was admitted to the hospital for heart bypass surgery.

On March 28, 1995, O'Connor's son Hugh died by suicide after a long battle with drug addiction. Following his son's death, O'Connor appeared in public service announcements for Partnership for a Drug Free America and spent the rest of his life working to raise awareness about drug addiction. O'Connor also successfully lobbied to get the state of California to pass legislation allowing family members of an addicted person or anyone injured by a drug dealer's actions, including employers, to sue for reimbursement for medical treatment and rehabilitation costs and other economic and noneconomic damages. The law, known as the Drug Dealer Civil Liability Act in California, went into effect in 1997. It is also referred to as the Hugh O'Connor Memorial Law. The act is based on the Model Drug Dealer Liability Act authored in 1992 by then Hawaii U.S. Attorney Daniel Bent. The Model Drug Dealer Liability Act has been passed in 17 states and the Virgin Islands. A website devoted to the Act can be found at: www.ModelDDLA.com. Cases have been brought under the Act in California, Illinois, Utah, and other states.

His son's suicide inspired O'Connor to start a crusade against the man who sold the drugs to Hugh. He called Harry Perzigian "a partner in murder" and a "sleazeball". Perzigian filed a defamation lawsuit against the actor. In 1997, a California jury decided in O'Connor's favor. In an interview on CNN's Larry King Live soon after the verdict, O'Connor said he would never be able to put his son's death behind him. "I can't forget it. There isn't a day that I don't think of him and want him back and miss him, and I'll feel that way until I'm not here any more," he said.

During the late 1990s, O'Connor established a small automotive restoration shop in Newbury Park, California. Called "Carroll O'Connor Classics", the shop contained many of O'Connor's personal vehicles and the cars once owned by his late son. Among the cars O'Connor owned were a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow sold to him by William Harrah, a Maserati 3500 GT, and a Dodge Challenger equipped with the 440-cubic inch V-8 that was the car he drove during production of All in the Family.

In 1997, the O'Connors donated US$1 million (worth $1,592,662 today) to their alma mater to help match a challenge grant to the University of Montana from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The university named a regional studies and public policy institute the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West. Afterward, O'Connor taught screenwriting at the university.

In 1998, O'Connor underwent a second surgery to clear the blockage in a carotid artery, to reduce his risk of stroke.

Death

O'Connor died on June 21, 2001, in Culver City, California, from a heart attack due to complications from diabetes at age 76. His funeral Mass was celebrated at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and was attended by All in the Family cast members Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers, and Danielle Brisebois, as well as producer Norman Lear. Jean Stapleton, who had been a close friend of O'Connor's since the early 1960s, did not attend the service due to a commitment for a stage performance.

O'Connor's best friend Larry Hagman and his family were also there, alongside the surviving cast of In the Heat of the Night, including Alan Autry and Denise Nicholas, who also attended the Mass. Actor Martin Sheen, then starring on The West Wing, delivered the eulogy. O'Connor's body was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery with his son Hugh's cenotaph placed on his gravestone.

In honor of O'Connor's career, TV Land moved an entire weekend of programming to the next week and showed a continuous marathon of All in the Family. During the commercial breaks, TV Land also showed interview footage of O'Connor and various All in the Family actors, producers with whom he had worked, and other associates. His wife, Nancy Fields O'Connor, died November 10, 2014, at age 84.

In March 2000, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was given a St. Patrick's Day tribute by MGM.