Mike Connors

Connors was born Krekor Ohanian Jr. on August 15, 1925, in Fresno, California, to Armenian parents Krekor and Alice (née Surabian) Ohanian. His father had escaped the Armenian genocide. They married in 1915 and had six children: Paul I (died in childhood), Paul II, Dorothy M., Arpesri A., Krekor and Eugene. His father was an attorney and represented many Armenians who had little money and could not speak English. Connors spoke three languages: Armenian, English, and French. Connors was a cousin of French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour. Connors was an avid basketball player in high school, nicknamed "Touch" by his teammates. During World War II, he served as an enlisted man in the United States Army Air Forces. After the war, he attended the University of California at Los Angeles on both a basketball scholarship and the G.I. Bill, where he played under coach John Wooden. Connors went to law school, where he studied to become an attorney, taking after his father. He was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. After a basketball game, coach Wilbur Johns introduced Connors to his friend, director William A. Wellman, who liked Connors' voice and expressive face while he was playing basketball, and encouraged him to consider acting. He was considered for the role of Tarzan by casting director Ruth Burch, who found him an acting coach. After Connors became an actor, his agent Henry Willson thought the name "Ohanian" was too similar to the actor George O'Hanlon and gave him the stage name "Touch Connors" based on his basketball nickname. Willson considered "Connors" to be a "good all-American name." Connors later stated he hated the name "from day one" and considered not using his real name the only big regret of his career. After getting the starring role in Tightrope!, Connors wanted to be credited as Ohanian, but Columbia Pictures told him that he had already done too much work as Connors, though he was allowed to change his first name to Mike. ==Career==

Early roles (left) and Claire Kelly in a publicity photo for Tightrope!, 1960 Connors's film career started in the early 1950s, when he made his acting debut in a supporting role opposite Joan Crawford and Jack Palance in the thriller Sudden Fear (1952). He had initially been rejected for an audition by producer Joseph Kaufman due to his lack of experience, but after sneaking into Republic Pictures and meeting director David Miller, Connors was given a chance to read the script and was offered the part. Connors was cast in the John Wayne film Island in the Sky, in which he played a crewman on one of the search-and-rescue planes. In 1956, he played an Amalekite herder in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. Connors appeared in numerous television series, including the co-starring role in the 1955 episode "Tomas and the Widow" of the anthology series Frontier. He guest-starred on the early sitcoms Hey, Jeannie! and ''The People's Choice, and in two Rod Cameron syndicated crime dramas, City Detective and the Western-themed State Trooper'', and played the villain in the first episode filmed (but second aired) of ABC's smash hit Maverick, opposite James Garner in 1957. Connors had roles in several of the earliest films Roger Corman directed: Five Guns West (1955), The Day the World Ended (1955), Swamp Women (1956) and The Oklahoma Woman (1956). Connors starred in and was the executive producer of Flesh and the Spur (1956). He raised $117,000 for the film. In 1958, Connors appeared in the title role of the episode "Simon Pitt", the series finale of the NBC Western Jefferson Drum, starring Jeff Richards as a frontier newspaper editor. He appeared in another NBC Western series, The Californians. That same year, Connors was cast as Miles Borden, a corrupt US Army lieutenant bitter over his $54 monthly pay on NBC's Wagon Train in the episode "The Dora Gray Story" with Linda Darnell in the title role. About this time, he also appeared on an episode of NBC's Western series Cimarron City. Connors starred as an undercover police officer who infiltrated organized crime in Tightrope! (1959–1960). Despite the show's popularity, it was canceled after only one season. Connors stated in an interview that the show's primary sponsor, J.B. Williams, refused CBS president James Aubrey's request to move it to a later time slot on a different day. The sponsor dropped Tightrope! and underwrote another program on another network. Connors also did not agree with the suggested change to add a sidekick, to be played by Don Sullivan. He thought the program would lose the suspense element, "Because the whole premise was this guy, all by himself, 'on a tightrope.' ... When he gets a sidekick, it loses the threat and the danger, and the whole premise is in the toilet." Later, he was cast in the episode "The Aerialist" of the anthology series, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond. In 1963, he guest-starred as Jack Marson in the episode "Shadow of the Cougar" on the NBC modern Western series, Redigo, starring Richard Egan. Connors himself performed the stuntwork of dangling from a rope ladder attached to a helicopter flying off the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro when the local stuntman refused to do it. Mannix in a publicity photo for Mannix, 1970 Connors became best known for playing the private investigator Joe Mannix in the detective series Mannix. The series ran for eight seasons from 1967 to 1975. During the first season of the series, Joe Mannix worked for Intertect, a large Los Angeles detective agency run by his superior Lew Wickersham (Joseph Campanella). From the second season onward, Mannix opened his own detective agency and is assisted by his secretary Peggy Fair (Gail Fisher). Connors performed his own stunts on the series. During the filming of the pilot episode, he broke his wrist and dislocated his shoulder. The show was taken off the air due to a dispute between CBS and Paramount. He later reprised the role of Joe Mannix in a 1997 episode of Diagnosis: Murder and in the 2003 comedy film Nobody Knows Anything! Later career in a publicity photo for Mannix, 1973 He narrated J. Michael Hagopian's 1975 documentary film The Forgotten Genocide, one of the first full-length features on the Armenian genocide. The documentary was nominated for two Emmys. In 1995, Connors narrated another Armenian documentary by Hagopian, Ararat Beckons. However, the series was not picked up. Connors had roles in the thriller films Avalanche Express (1979) and Nightkill (1980). He starred as a bureau veteran who mentors a team of agents in ''Today's FBI (1981–1982). The series only lasted one season. Connors both starred in and produced the independent horror film Too Scared to Scream'' (1985). He played Colonel Harrison "Hack" Peters in the 1988 miniseries War and Remembrance. Connors hosted the 1989 series Crimes of the Century. He voiced the character Chipacles in the Disney animated series Hercules from 1998 to 1999. Connors' final appearance was in a 2007 Two and a Half Men episode, as a love interest of Evelyn Harper's (Holland Taylor). ==Personal life==

Connors married Mary Lou Willey on September 10, 1949, when they were both UCLA students. Through his daughter Dana, he had one granddaughter. He endorsed Ronald Reagan for President in 1980 and 1984 and endorsed George Deukmejian for Governor of California in 1982 and 1986. ==Death==

Connors died in Tarzana, California, at age 91 on January 26, 2017, a week after being diagnosed with leukemia. ==Filmography==

Film Television ==Awards and nominations==