'All in the Family' star Carroll O'Connor dies

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LOS ANGELES - Carroll O'Connor, the Emmy-winning actor best-known for his iconic role as Archie Bunker in the ground-breaking 1970s television comedy "All in the Family," died yesterday of a heart attack. He was 76.

The silver-haired and blue-eyed actor was rushed from the family home to Brotman Medical Center in Culver City after experiencing chest pains. His wife of 50 years, Nancy, was with him when he died about an hour after being admitted.

"All in the Family" and the character of Bunker - a lovable, conservative bigot loosely modeled after series creator Norman Lear's own father - established Mr. O'Connor as a major television star. Mr. O'Connor played Bunker for 13 seasons, with "All in the Family" becoming "Archie Bunker's Place" after the departure of the show's other major cast members.

Archie Bunkerisms Memorable Archie Bunker quotes from "All in the Family" Gloria: Do you know that 60 percent of all deaths in America are caused by guns? Archie Bunker: Would it make you feel any better if dey was pushed out of windows? Archie Bunker: Well, I'll tell you one thing about President Nixon. He keeps Pat home. Which was where Roosevelt should have kept Eleanor. Instead he let her run. Archie Bunker: When your mother-in-law and me was goin' around together, it was two years - we never - I never - I mean absolutely nothin', not 'til the wedding night. Edith Bunker: Yeah, and even then ... Archie Bunker: Now, no prejudice intended, but I always check with the Bible on these here things. I think that, I mean if God had meant for us to be together he'd a put us together. But look what he done. He put you over in Africa, and put the rest of us in all the white countries. Sammy Davis Jr.: Well, he must've told 'em where we were because somebody came and got us.

Lear said he last spoke with Mr. O'Connor a couple of months ago. Regarding the casting of Mr. O'Connor and co-stars Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers, he said, "Carroll O'Connor walked into my office, we shook hands, we sat down at a table, took out a script and started reading Archie Bunker, and as the character was later wont to say, `Case closed,' " he recalled. "I looked up to the heavens and said, `Thank God, Archie has arrived.' "

The show forever altered a television landscape that had been largely filled with innocuous characters and steered clear of sensitive topics, according to Earle Marsh, co-author of "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows."

"Everything in sitcoms had been, up until then, squeaky clean," Marsh noted. "Couples never slept in the same bed. No one ever had sex. What happened with `All in The Family,' it dealt with realistic issues in a realistic manner in a comedy."

"One of the unusual things about `All in the Family' was that people saw the absurdity of his prejudice and all his bizarre attitudes," Marsh said. "(But) you couldn't hate him. He was a fool, but he had a good heart. O'Connor made Archie likable."

Despite criticism of both the show's underlying liberal political view and Bunker's derisive terminology to describe various racial and ethnic groups, Lear said, "Carroll and I thought the show started people talking around the dinner table."

A self-described liberal, Mr. O'Connor said in a 1994 interview that the character of Archie "wasn't even close" to who he was as a person. Still, he conceded, "I'll never play a better part than Archie."

Mr. O'Connor is also among those rare television performers to star in another hit series. "In the Heat of the Night" - a drama that premiered in 1988, based on the 1967 film - cast him as Bill Gillespie, a sheriff in Sparta, Miss.

He also directed several episodes and his adopted son, Hugh, co-starred as detective Lonnie Jamison.

A four-time Emmy winner for "All in the Family," Mr. O'Connor won his fifth best-actor award for the drama in 1989.

Six years later, though, Mr. O'Connor experienced tragedy when his son Hugh, who had struggled with cocaine addiction, committed suicide.

Mr. O'Connor began a crusade to see the man who sold Hugh the drugs, Harry Perzigian, charged with a crime. Perzigian was convicted on two drug counts in 1996. A month later, he filed a defamation lawsuit against Mr. O'Connor, though a jury ultimately found in Mr. O'Connor's favor.

His son's death turned Mr. O'Connor into an advocate against drug abuse.

Prior to "All in the Family," the New York native had appeared in a string of 1960s films, among them the World War II epics "In Harm's Way" and "The Devil's Brigade," "Lonely Are the Brave" and the famous flop "Cleopatra."

His father was a lawyer and Mr. O'Connor grew up on Long Island.

After graduating from high school in 1942 he became a seaman during World War II, before enrolling at the University of Montana, where he majored in English.

He finished his studies at the National University of Ireland in Dublin. Mr. O'Connor and his wife married in Ireland in 1951. After a variety of stage roles, he made his Broadway debut in 1958.