1. Krekor Ohanian, known professionally as Mike Connors, was an American actor.
42 Facts About Mike Connors
1. 2.
Mike Connors was best known for playing private detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series Mannix from 1967 to 1975.
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Mike Connors's father was an attorney and represented many Armenians who had little money and could not speak English.
4.
Mike Connors went to law school, where he studied to become an attorney, taking after his father.
5.
Mike Connors was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
6.
Mike Connors was considered for the role of Tarzan by casting director Ruth Burch, who found him an acting coach.
7.
Mike Connors 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.
8.
Mike 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.
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Mike Connors appeared in numerous television series, including the co-starring role in the 1955 episode "Tomas and the Widow" of the anthology series Frontier.
10.
Mike Connors had roles in several of the earliest films Roger Corman directed: Five Guns West, The Day the World Ended, Swamp Women, and The Oklahoma Woman.
11.
Mike Connors starred in and was the executive producer of Flesh and the Spur.
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In 1958, Mike 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.
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Mike Connors appeared in another NBC Western series, The Californians.
14.
That same year, Mike 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.
15.
An episode of Studio 57 starring Mike Connors and titled "Getaway Car" was proposed as a pilot for a series about the CHP to be called Motorcycle Cop.
16.
Mike Connors did not agree with the suggested change to add a sidekick, to be played by Don Sullivan.
17.
In 1964, Mike Connors appeared in a pinch-hit role for Raymond Burr as attorney Joe Kelly in the Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Bullied Bowler".
18.
Mike Connors was invited to take on a lead role in the series on an ongoing basis, but the producers had actually wanted to pressure Burr into resigning his contract with the series.
19.
In 1964, Mike Connors had a role in the Jack Lemmon comedy Good Neighbor Sam, and was the leading man to Susan Hayward and Bette Davis in Where Love Has Gone.
20.
Mike Connors co-starred with Robert Redford in one of his earliest film roles, the World War II black comedy Situation Hopeless.
21.
Mike Connors played the card sharp in the remake of Stagecoach.
22.
Mike Connors was strongly considered to play Matt Helm in The Silencers, but that role had eventually gone to Dean Martin.
23.
However, his audition had impressed Columbia Pictures, so Mike Connors was instead cast in the similar James Bond spoof film Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die.
24.
Mike 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.
25.
Mike Connors became best known for playing the private investigator Joe Mannix in the detective series Mannix.
26.
Mike Connors spoke Armenian in a number of episodes and often quoted Armenian proverbs.
27.
In 1970, Mike Connors won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series Drama.
28.
Mike Connors was nominated for the Golden Globe Award six times from 1970 to 1975 and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times from 1970 to 1973.
29.
Mike Connors was able to work with his boss Lucille Ball on-screen during a cross-promotion episode of her Here's Lucy series in 1971.
30.
Mike Connors narrated J Michael Hagopian's 1975 documentary film The Forgotten Genocide, one of the first full-length features on the Armenian genocide.
31.
In 1995, Mike Connors narrated another Armenian documentary by Hagopian, Ararat Beckons.
32.
In 1976, Mike Connors played Karl Ohanian in the television film The Killer Who Wouldn't Die.
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Mike Connors had roles in the thriller films Avalanche Express and Nightkill.
34.
Mike Connors starred as a bureau veteran who mentors a team of agents in Today's FBI.
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Mike Connors both starred in and produced the independent horror film Too Scared to Scream.
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Mike Connors played Colonel Harrison "Hack" Peters in the 1988 miniseries War and Remembrance.
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Mike Connors voiced the character Chipacles in the Disney animated series Hercules from 1998 to 1999.
38.
Mike Connors married Mary Lou Willey on September 10,1949, when they were both UCLA students.
39.
Mike Connors was a spokesperson for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
40.
Mike Connors made a public service announcement for the Armenian Eye Care Project.
41.
Mike Connors endorsed Ronald Reagan for President in 1980 and 1984 and endorsed George Deukmejian for Governor of California in 1982 and 1986.
42.
Mike Connors died in Tarzana, California, at the age of 91 on January 26,2017, a week after being diagnosed with leukemia.