Actor Carroll O'Connor dead at 76

Actor Carroll O'Connor

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Carroll O'Connor, whose portrayal of the intolerant, word-mangling bigot Archie Bunker on "All in the Family" helped change not only American television but possibly America itself, died Thursday of a heart attack, his publicist's office said. He was 76.

The actor died around 3 p.m. PDT (6 p.m. EDT) at Brotman Hospital in Los Angeles with his wife, Nancy, at his side. The couple would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary July 28.

Charles Sherman, a spokesman for Frank Tobin Public Relations, which represented the actor, said O'Connor had chest pains earlier in the day Thursday and was rushed to the hospital, but doctors were not able to revive him.

O'Connor appeared in more than 30 films, including "Lonely Are the Brave" and "Cleopatra," but it was as Archie Bunker that he became a household name.

"All in the Family," a Normal Lear sitcom adapted from a British series, delved into topics never before addressed on American television -- racism, sexism, intolerance and bigotry -- pitting O'Connor against a daffy-but-wise wife Edith, played by Jean Stapleton; their daughter Gloria, played by Sally Struthers, and her liberal and outspoken husband Mike, played by Rob Reiner.

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In the role of Archie, O'Connor tapped into angst, anger and unthinking prejudice that buffeted the U.S. in the Vietnam-war era. He admitted his character was both loved and hated, but said he just played Archie as truthfully as he knew how.

"Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker was a genius at work, God's gift to the world," producer Norman Lear told The Associated Press. "He is etched permanently in our memories."

The show -- which ran from 1971-79 -- initially drew sharp criticism, but it grew to draw a tremendous audience, ranking No. 1 for five years and spinning off three successful shows -- "Archie Bunker's Place," "Maude" and "The Jeffersons."

The furniture in the show's living room was later installed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

'He called it lowbrow'

Carroll O'Connor was born August 2, 1924, in Bronx, New York. One of three sons raised by a successful New York attorney and his wife, O'Connor once said, "I never heard Archie's kind of talk in my own family. My father was a lawyer and was in partnership with two Jews, who with their families were close to us. There were black families in our circle of friends. My father disliked talk like Archie's -- he called it lowbrow."

Although both his siblings became physicians, O'Connor studied literature and acting.

He met his future wife, Nancy Fields, while appearing in a play, and they were married in 1951 in Dublin, where he finished his undergraduate studies at the National University of Ireland. He went on to appear on stage throughout Europe in the 1950s before breaking into movies.

O'Connor at first disliked the pilot script for "All in the Family," which Lear adapted from the British show "Till Death Do Us Part." But, after it was rewritten, he agreed to play Archie. After some initial difficulty getting on the air -- the show was rejected by ABC, which was nervous about the subject matter -- it debuted on CBS on January 12, 1971.

In a 1986 interview with Playboy magazine, O'Connor said he had "a great deal of sympathy" for the Archie Bunker character. "As James Baldwin wrote, 'the white man here is trapped by his own history, a history that he himself cannot comprehend,' and therefore what can I do but love him?"

O'Connor won five Emmy Awards over his career, four for Archie and one as the chief of police in the popular "In the Heat of the Night."

Son's suicide defined later life

The actor's son, Hugh, was a regular on that show. When in 1995 he committed suicide after battling drug addiction for several years, his father publicly targeted the man he held responsible for the death, and became a public advocate against drug abuse.

O'Connor went on a public offensive against the man, accusing him of being "a partner in murder" and a "sleazeball." The man sued for slander, but a Los Angeles jury unanimously sided with O'Connor.

In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" soon after the verdict, O'Connor, who had taken a phone call from his son moments before his suicide, said he would never be able to put the 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 anymore," he said.

O'Connor earned an undergraduate degree from the National University of Ireland, and while struggling to make it as an actor he worked as a substitute teacher and earned his master's degree in education.

O'Connor had been battling poor health in recent years, losing a toe to complications from diabetes and undergoing gall bladder surgery. O'Connor had surgery in June 1998 to clear a blockage in a heart artery to reduce his risk of stroke.