Mike Connors, who portrayed a private detective on the long-running CBS action series “Mannix” in the 1960s and 1970s, has died at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 91.
Connors, who played basketball player for coach John Wooden at UCLA, died Thursday from what was reported to be leukemia.
“Mannix,” the last series from Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’ famed TV company Desilu Productions to air, ran for eight seasons from September 1967 until April 1975, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Connors became one of the highest-paid stars on television, earning $40,000 an episode at the height of the show’s ratings run.
Connors received four Emmy nominations from 1970-73 and six Golden Globe nominations from 1970-75 but won just once, picking up a trophy from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 1970. The only Emmy the show ever received was given that year to Gail Fisher, who played Peggy Fair, Mannix’s prim secretary, and who was one of the first African-American actresses to have a regular series role on TV.
“I loved the show, I loved doing it, and it had no negatives as far as I was concerned,” Connors said during a 2014 interview cited by the Reporter.
He was also featured in the seriesTightrope” (1959-60), “Today’s FBI” (1981-82) and the syndicated series “Crimes of the Century,” (1989), which he hosted. He played Robert Mitchum’s wartime comrade in the 1988-89 miniseries “War and Remembrance.
Born Krekor Ohanian in Fresno on Aug. 15, 1925, Connors served in the Army Air Force during World War II, then came to Westwood on a basketball scholarship. While aiming for law school, he developed a passion for acting and appeared in several plays.
Connors got his professional start in 1952 in an RKO release, Sudden Fear,” as Touch Connors (Touch had been his nickname at UCLA). He also had turns in “Island in the Sky” (1953), starring John Wayne, and as a herder in “The Ten Commandments” (1956) with Charlton Heston.
Funeral plans were not immediately announced.
—City News Service