A&E Biography - Carroll O.Connor All in a Lifetime (2004)

Carroll O'Connor (born John Carroll O'Connor; August 2, 1924 – June 21, 2001) was an American actor, Television producer and Television director whose television career spanned four decades. Known at first for playing the role of Major General Colt in the 1970 movie “Kelly's Heroes”, he later found fame as the bigoted working man Archie Bunker, the main character in the 1970s CBS television sitcom series “All In The Family”, from 1971 to 1979, and was then in “Archie's Bunker”, from 1979 to 1983. Bunker is a veteran of World War II, a reactionary, conservative, blue-collar dock worker, and family man. After 26 movies and 100 TV appearances, the role of Archie Bunker looked just like another part. But within the first broadcast year of “All in the Family”, Carroll O'Connor's portrayal skyrocketed him to fame. The show, which had an average of 50m viewers a week, was adapted from BBC sitcom “Till Death Do Us Part”, and Bunker was as loud-mouthed, reactionary and misogynistic dockworker/cabdriver from Queens, New York. Tame as it was by today's American TV standard, the series was a breakthrough after decades of bland sitcoms featuring wise and loveable parents, and it made O'Connor a household name. “All in the Family” got many of its laughs by playing on Archie's bigotry, although the dynamic tension between Archie and liberal son-in-law “Meathead” Mike provided an ongoing political and social sounding board for a variety of topics. Our profile spans his life from Merchant Marine to schoolteacher to stage, film, and TV career, and includes the tragedy of his son Hugh's suicide.

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