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 Chuck Connors was born Kevin Joseph Connors in Brooklyn, New York, to Marcella (nee Lundrigan; died 1971) and Alban Francis "Allan" Connors (died 1966), Roman Catholic immigrants of Irish descent from the Dominion of Newfoundland (now part of Canada). Chuck and his two-years-younger sister, Gloria, grew up in a working-class section of the west side of Brooklyn, where their father worked the local docks as a longshoreman. He served as an altar boy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica School and attended school there. He later became a member of the Bay Ridge Boys' Club and playing sandlot ball as a member of the Bay Ridge Celtics.A life-long Dodgers' fan, he always dreamed of a baseball career with his favorite team. His natural athletic prowess earned him a scholarship to Adelphi Academy, a private high school, and then to Seton Hall, a Catholic college in South Orange, New Jersey. Leaving Seton Hall after two years, on October 20, 1942, aged 21, he joined the army, listing his occupation as a ski instructor. After enlistment in the infantry at Fort Knox, he later served mostly as a tank-warfare instructor at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, and then finally at West Point. Following his discharge early in 1946, he resumed his athletic pursuits. He played center for the Boston Celtics in the 1946-47 season but left early for spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers.Baseball had always been Connors' first love, and for the next several years he knocked about the minor leagues in such places as Rochester (NY), Norfolk (VA), Newark (NJ), Newport News (VA), Mobile (AL) and Montreal, Canada (while in Montreal he met Elizabeth Riddell, whom he married in October 1948. They had four sons during their 13-year marriage). He finally reached his goal, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, in May 1949, but after just five weeks and one at-bat, he returned to Montreal. After a brief stint with the Chicago Cubs in 1951, during which he hit two home runs, Connors wound up with the Cubs' Triple-A farm team, the L.A. Angels, in 1952.A baseball fan who was also a casting director for MGM spotted Connors and recommended him for a part in the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedy Pat and Mike (1952). Originally cast to play a prizefighter, but that role went instead to Aldo Ray. Connors was cast as a captain in the state police. He now abandoned his athletic hopes and devoted full time to his acting career, which often emphasized his muscular 6'6" physique.During the next several years Connors made 20 movies, culminating in a key role in William Wyler's 1958 western The Big Country (1958). Also appearing in many television series, he finally hit the big time in 1958 with The Rifleman (1958), which began its highly successful five-year run on ABC. Other television series followed, as did a number of movies which, though mostly minor, allowed Connors to display his range as both a stalwart "good guy" and a menacing "heavy".Connors died at age 71 of lung cancer and pneumonia on November 10, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. He is buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery with his tombstone carrying a photo of Connors as Lucas McCain in "The Rifleman" as well as logos from the three professional sports teams he played for: the Dodgers, Cubs and Celtics.
Bio:
Chuck Connors was born Kevin Joseph Connors in Brooklyn, New York, to Marcella (nee Lundrigan; died 1971) and Alban Francis "Allan" Connors (died 1966), Roman Catholic immigrants of Irish descent from the Dominion of Newfoundland (now part of Canada). Chuck and his two-years-younger sister, Gloria, grew up in a working-class section of the west side of Brooklyn, where their father worked the local docks as a longshoreman. He served as an altar boy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica School and attended school there. He later became a member of the Bay Ridge Boys' Club and playing sandlot ball as a member of the Bay Ridge Celtics.A life-long Dodgers' fan, he always dreamed of a baseball career with his favorite team. His natural athletic prowess earned him a scholarship to Adelphi Academy, a private high school, and then to Seton Hall, a Catholic college in South Orange, New Jersey. Leaving Seton Hall after two years, on October 20, 1942, aged 21, he joined the army, listing his occupation as a ski instructor. After enlistment in the infantry at Fort Knox, he later served mostly as a tank-warfare instructor at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, and then finally at West Point. Following his discharge early in 1946, he resumed his athletic pursuits. He played center for the Boston Celtics in the 1946-47 season but left early for spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers.Baseball had always been Connors' first love, and for the next several years he knocked about the minor leagues in such places as Rochester (NY), Norfolk (VA), Newark (NJ), Newport News (VA), Mobile (AL) and Montreal, Canada (while in Montreal he met Elizabeth Riddell, whom he married in October 1948. They had four sons during their 13-year marriage). He finally reached his goal, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, in May 1949, but after just five weeks and one at-bat, he returned to Montreal. After a brief stint with the Chicago Cubs in 1951, during which he hit two home runs, Connors wound up with the Cubs' Triple-A farm team, the L.A. Angels, in 1952.A baseball fan who was also a casting director for MGM spotted Connors and recommended him for a part in the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedy Pat and Mike (1952). Originally cast to play a prizefighter, but that role went instead to Aldo Ray. Connors was cast as a captain in the state police. He now abandoned his athletic hopes and devoted full time to his acting career, which often emphasized his muscular 6'6" physique.During the next several years Connors made 20 movies, culminating in a key role in William Wyler's 1958 western The Big Country (1958). Also appearing in many television series, he finally hit the big time in 1958 with The Rifleman (1958), which began its highly successful five-year run on ABC. Other television series followed, as did a number of movies which, though mostly minor, allowed Connors to display his range as both a stalwart "good guy" and a menacing "heavy".Connors died at age 71 of lung cancer and pneumonia on November 10, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. He is buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery with his tombstone carrying a photo of Connors as Lucas McCain in "The Rifleman" as well as logos from the three professional sports teams he played for: the Dodgers, Cubs and Celtics.
Tivia:
In a biography titled "The Man Behind the Rifle" (1997), author David Fury says that Chuck Connors acquired his nickname while an athlete playing first base. He had a habit of calling to the pitcher: "Chuck it to me, baby, chuck it to me!".In November 1990, he was devastated to hear about Burt Lancaster's stroke. He tried calling his office one day, but his office wasn't releasing any information at that time. Connors sent a letter in support of David Fury's nomination of Lancaster to the Cowboy Hall of Fame and signed the petition which Fury sent to the American film Institute nominating Lancaster for the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.Connors wasn't the only baseball star to appear on The Rifleman (1958), a couple of former baseball stars appeared on that show were: Duke Snider and Don Drysdale.Before the 1940 baseball season, he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent. On October 10, 1950, he was traded by the Brooklyn Dodgers -- with whom he had appeared with in one game in 1949 -- with Dee Fondy to the Chicago Cubs for Hank Edwards and cash. He spent part of the 1951 season with the Cubs. He also played professional basketball with the Boston Celtics. Playing for the Boston Celtics in 1946, Chuck Connors was the first NBA player to shatter a backboard, doing so during a pre-game warm-up in the Boston Garden.A longtime smoker, he was hospitalized with pneumonia three weeks before his death from lung cancer. He was interred at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery. His headstone has the logos of all three sports teams for which he played: Boston Celtics, Chicago Cubs, and Brooklyn Dodgers.Connors was one of only twelve athletes in history to have played for both Major League Baseball and in the NBA.Before he was an actor, he spent most of the war as a tank-warfare instructor in Camp Campbell, Kentucky, before West Point, New York.Appeared on the front cover of TV Guide five times.Connors graduated from Adelphi Academy, a private high school in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940. He was offered numerous scholarships but chose to attend Seton Hall College (now Seton Hall University) and played basketball, football & baseball. His college studies were interrupted when he was enlisted in the United States Army in 1942 in Fort Knox, Kentucky.Best remembered by the public for his starring role as Lucas McCain on The Rifleman (1958), which was canceled at the end of its fifth season, because Connors and his co-star, Johnny Crawford, had reportedly decided to move on to other projects. The two remained good friends both during the series' run and after it ended. Crawford later told an interviewer that when he was a little boy, he also was an avid baseball fan, as Connors had been, and Crawford would bring his baseball equipment on location during filming.Accepted the role of Mr. Slausen in Tourist Trap (1979) because he wanted to "become the Boris Karloff of the '80s".He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on July 18, 1984.Actors David Cassidy, Kathy Garver, Clarence Gilyard Jr., and Bill Mumy, comedians Bill Rafferty and Vicki Lawrence, announcers Burton Richardson and Randy West, and talk show host turned billionaire entrepreneur, Oprah Winfrey, all described him as a childhood television hero.He smoked three packs of Camel cigarettes a day until the 1970s. He fronted anti-smoking campaigns in the mid-1970s. In a 1987 interview he said he was still smoking, but claimed to ration himself to only one cigarette a day.Lucas McCain, Connors' character on The Rifleman (1958), was ranked #32 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" [20 June 2004 issue].Chuck Connors hit only two home runs during his Major League Baseball career, but one of them came against Sal "The Barber" Maglie of the New York Giants during the 1951 season, one of Maglie's most successful: 23 wins (leading the National League), 6 losses, 2.93 ERA, and appearances in the All-Star game and World Series.According to an article on television westerns in Time magazine (March 30, 1959), Connors stood 6' 5" tall, weighed 215 pounds, and had chest-waist-hips measurements of 45-34-41.Years after The Rifleman (1958), he was a spokesperson for the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in the early 1970s.In June 1973, he befriended Soviet Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev in a meeting at the White House. Connors traveled to the Soviet Union in December 1973, and presented Brezhnev with two Colt revolvers. In 1982, he asked his friend President Ronald Reagan if he could attend Brezhnev's funeral service, but he was not allowed to be part of the official US delegation.Was a film "enemy" of Charlton Heston at least twice -- as Buck Hannesey in The Big Country (1958) and as Tab Fielding in Soylent Green (1973).Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (1991).At age 13, he remembered he was a lousy first baseman, and the man who made the biggest impact on his life was his coach on a team called the Celtics, a diminutive gent named John Flynn.Was an altar boy and parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.Suffered almost the same fate in each of his two television western series. In The Vaqueros (1961), he was stripped to the waist, tied to a tree, and left to die under a scorching sun by a group of Mexican bandits. In Fill No Glass for Me: Part 2 (1965), he was stripped to the waist, tied to a tree, and left to die under a scorching sun by a group of Indian warriors (In both cases, he survived.).He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party as well as a frequent guest at the White House during the administration of his close friend President Richard Nixon.He had 10 hobbies: golfing, riding horses, reading, swimming, fishing, poetry writing, spending time with his family, baseball, philanthropy and politics.His parents were Allan Connors, a longshoreman, and Marcella Lundrigan Connors, a housewife, both of Irish descent. His father was born in Dunville and his mother in St. Marys, Placentia Bay (both in the Dominion of Newfoundland, now part of Canada). Allan Connors died in 1966 and Marcella Connors died in 1971.He supported Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election.Almost one year before his death, his first wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Connors, died on February 27, 1992, after a long illness.Was a member of the Sheriff's Advisory Board of Orange County, California.Retired NBA Player, Chuck Person is named after him.He campaigned for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election.Resumed his sports career after the war had ended. Connors had no choice other than to play professional basketball, when he continued to play baseball.Took part in a parade in New York in support of the Vietnam War in 1967, and campaigned for his friend Ronald Reagan.On The Rifleman (1958), his character used a lot of rifles, and in real-life he owned rifles.Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume 3, 1991-1993, pp. 116-118. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (2001). |
| Name: |
Chuck Connors |
Type: |
Actor,Writer,Director (IMDB) |
| Area: |
All World |
Platform: |
IMDB |
| Category: |
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Business scope: |
Actor,Writer,Director |
| Products for sale: |
Actor,Writer,Director |
| Last update: |
2024-07-01 05:26:40 |
| Height: |
6' 6' (1.98 m) |
| Biography: |
Chuck Connors was born Kevin Joseph Connors in Brooklyn, New York, to Marcella (nee Lundrigan; died 1971) and Alban Francis \"Allan\" Connors (died 1966), Roman Catholic immigrants of Irish descent from the Dominion of Newfoundland (now part of |
| Trivia: |
In a biography titled "The Man Behind the Rifle" (1997), author David Fury says that Chuck Connors acquired his nickname while an athlete playing first base. He had a habit of calling to the pitcher: "Chuck it to me, baby, chuck it to me!".In November 1990, he was devastated to hear about Burt Lancaster's stroke. He tried calling his office one day, but his office wasn't releasing any information at that time. Connors sent a letter in support of David Fury's nomination of Lancaster to the Cowboy Hall of Fame and signed the petition which Fury sent to the American film Institute nominating Lancaster for the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.Connors wasn't the only baseball star to appear on The Rifleman (1958), a couple of former baseball stars appeared on that show were: Duke Snider and Don Drysdale.Before the 1940 baseball season, he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent. On October 10, 1950, he was traded by the Brooklyn Dodgers -- with whom he had appeared with in one game in 1949 -- with Dee Fondy to the Chicago Cubs for Hank Edwards and cash. He spent part of the 1951 season with the Cubs. He also played professional basketball with the Boston Celtics. Playing for the Boston Celtics in 1946, Chuck Connors was the first NBA player to shatter a backboard, doing so during a pre-game warm-up in the Boston Garden.A longtime smoker, he was hospitalized with pneumonia three weeks before his death from lung cancer. He was interred at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery. His headstone has the logos of all three sports teams for which he played: Boston Celtics, Chicago Cubs, and Brooklyn Dodgers.Connors was one of only twelve athletes in history to have played for both Major League Baseball and in the NBA.Before he was an actor, he spent most of the war as a tank-warfare instructor in Camp Campbell, Kentucky, before West Point, New York.Appeared on the front cover of TV Guide five times.Connors graduated from Adelphi Academy, a private high school in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940. He was offered numerous scholarships but chose to attend Seton Hall College (now Seton Hall University) and played basketball, football & baseball. His college studies were interrupted when he was enlisted in the United States Army in 1942 in Fort Knox, Kentucky.Best remembered by the public for his starring role as Lucas McCain on The Rifleman (1958), which was canceled at the end of its fifth season, because Connors and his co-star, Johnny Crawford, had reportedly decided to move on to other projects. The two remained good friends both during the series' run and after it ended. Crawford later told an interviewer that when he was a little boy, he also was an avid baseball fan, as Connors had been, and Crawford would bring his baseball equipment on location during filming.Accepted the role of Mr. Slausen in Tourist Trap (1979) because he wanted to "become the Boris Karloff of the '80s".He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on July 18, 1984.Actors David Cassidy, Kathy Garver, Clarence Gilyard Jr., and Bill Mumy, comedians Bill Rafferty and Vicki Lawrence, announcers Burton Richardson and Randy West, and talk show host turned billionaire entrepreneur, Oprah Winfrey, all described him as a childhood television hero.He smoked three packs of Camel cigarettes a day until the 1970s. He fronted anti-smoking campaigns in the mid-1970s. In a 1987 interview he said he was still smoking, but claimed to ration himself to only one cigarette a day.Lucas McCain, Connors' character on The Rifleman (1958), was ranked #32 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" [20 June 2004 issue].Chuck Connors hit only two home runs during his Major League Baseball career, but one of them came against Sal "The Barber" Maglie of the New York Giants during the 1951 season, one of Maglie's most successful: 23 wins (leading the National League), 6 losses, 2.93 ERA, and appearances in the All-Star game and World Series.According to an article on television westerns in Time magazine (March 30, 1959), Connors stood 6' 5" tall, weighed 215 pounds, and had chest-waist-hips measurements of 45-34-41.Years after The Rifleman (1958), he was a spokesperson for the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in the early 1970s.In June 1973, he befriended Soviet Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev in a meeting at the White House. Connors traveled to the Soviet Union in December 1973, and presented Brezhnev with two Colt revolvers. In 1982, he asked his friend President Ronald Reagan if he could attend Brezhnev's funeral service, but he was not allowed to be part of the official US delegation.Was a film "enemy" of Charlton Heston at least twice -- as Buck Hannesey in The Big Country (1958) and as Tab Fielding in Soylent Green (1973).Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (1991).At age 13, he remembered he was a lousy first baseman, and the man who made the biggest impact on his life was his coach on a team called the Celtics, a diminutive gent named John Flynn.Was an altar boy and parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.Suffered almost the same fate in each of his two television western series. In The Vaqueros (1961), he was stripped to the waist, tied to a tree, and left to die under a scorching sun by a group of Mexican bandits. In Fill No Glass for Me: Part 2 (1965), he was stripped to the waist, tied to a tree, and left to die under a scorching sun by a group of Indian warriors (In both cases, he survived.).He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party as well as a frequent guest at the White House during the administration of his close friend President Richard Nixon.He had 10 hobbies: golfing, riding horses, reading, swimming, fishing, poetry writing, spending time with his family, baseball, philanthropy and politics.His parents were Allan Connors, a longshoreman, and Marcella Lundrigan Connors, a housewife, both of Irish descent. His father was born in Dunville and his mother in St. Marys, Placentia Bay (both in the Dominion of Newfoundland, now part of Canada). Allan Connors died in 1966 and Marcella Connors died in 1971.He supported Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election.Almost one year before his death, his first wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Connors, died on February 27, 1992, after a long illness.Was a member of the Sheriff's Advisory Board of Orange County, California.Retired NBA Player, Chuck Person is named after him.He campaigned for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election.Resumed his sports career after the war had ended. Connors had no choice other than to play professional basketball, when he continued to play baseball.Took part in a parade in New York in support of the Vietnam War in 1967, and campaigned for his friend Ronald Reagan.On The Rifleman (1958), his character used a lot of rifles, and in real-life he owned rifles.Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume 3, 1991-1993, pp. 116-118. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (2001). |
| Trademarks: |
Deep commanding voice with Brooklyn accent
Towering height and athletic physique
Square jaw and bold blue eyes
His rifle from The Rifleman (1958) |
| Quotes: |
I don't want my kids growing up believing that there is nothing destructive in the world. I want them to know that there is good and bad in the world, that you can be hurt physically, that guns can kill you, that drugs are bad for you, that not everyone means well.
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[In 1973] The President gave me about two dozen presidential tie clips and ladies' pins, with instructions to spread them around when I thought it appropriate, Brezhnev [Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev] will get more than a tie clip. I've ordered two engraved Colt revolvers for the General Secretary, Brezhnev is quite a western buff.
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[on The Rifleman (1958)'s theme song] I hear the same thing everywhere I go.
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Well, it isn't because I'm the fidgety guy, seriously, I have to sit there like a mummy you can't move. Regular makeup you can turn around and I sit there like that, and the worst part of it is, after working 14 hours, I can't just take it off, I have to sit for another hour because of the way they made these appliances, and they have to be taken out very slowly.
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<hr>
[Of Johnny Crawford] When Johnny came on the set in 1958, he was a little 12-year-old boy. He called everyone in the cast or crew "Sir" or "Ma'am". During the course of the five years of our run, he had two hit records, and he was nominated for an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor. And yet, when the show was finished after five seasons, Johnny went around and thanked everyone in the cast and crew, and he still called them "Sir" or "Ma'am". |
| Salaries: |
Cowboy in Africa (1967) - $25,000 /week (1967)
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Branded (1965) - $12,000 /week + percentage
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Arrest and Trial (1963) - $7,500 /week |
| Job title: |
Actor,Writer,Director |
| Others works: |
(1970s) TV commercial (PSA): Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms
(1956) Unsold pilot: Starred in a pilot for an adventure series called, "Big Foot Wallace" in which he played a modern-day mountain man.
(10/26/55) Radio: Appeared in the episo |
| Spouse: |
Faith Quabius (September 7, 1977 - April 15, 1980) (divorced)Kamala Devi (April 10, 1963 - February 9, 1972) (divorced)Elizabeth Jane \Betty\ Riddell (October 1, 1948 - February 19, 1962) (divorced, 4 children) |
| Children: |
Mike ConnorsJeff ConnorsSteve ConnorsKevin Connors |
| Parents: |
Allan Connors
Marcella Connors |
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