Results for Chuck Connors
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Artist:

Chuck Connors

Born:
1930

  • Genre: Jazz
  • Active: '50s, '60s, '70s
  • Instruments: Trombone (Bass), Trombone

Biography

A consistent performer on the bass trombone, and a longtime member of The Ellington orchestra, Chuck Connors has been better known for his section work than his solo ability. He earned his degree from Boston Conservatory in the mid-'50s, then worked for nine months with Dizzy Gillespie in 1957. Connors joined Duke Ellington in 1961. He was with the orchestra until the mid-'70s, remaining for a limited time after Duke died and Mercer assumed leadership. Connors not only recorded often with Ellington, but with many band members on their sessions; among them Ray Nance, Cat Anderson, Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves and Clark Terry in the '60s and '70s. He and Terry co-led a touring band in 1974, and visited Europe twice in the '70s. Connors can be heard on numerous Ellington recordings on CD, as well as Hodges sessions. His best known solo was on "Perdido," from the album The Popular Duke Ellington on RCA in the mid-'60s. ~ Ron Wynn, All Music Guide

Worked With:

Sam Woodyard, Jimmy Hamilton, Duke Ellington, Buster Cooper, Harry Carney, Russell Procope, Lawrence Brown, Cootie Williams, Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Mercer Ellington, Cat Anderson
 
 
Actor:

Chuck Connors

  • Born: Apr 10, 1921 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
  • Died: Nov 10, 1992 in Los Angeles, California
  • Occupation: Actor, Writer
  • Active: '50s-'80s
  • Major Genres: Western, Drama
  • Career Highlights: Old Yeller, Salmonberries, Soylent Green
  • First Major Screen Credit: South Sea Woman (1953)

Biography

Chuck Connors attended Seton Hall University before embarking on a career in professional sports. He first played basketball with the Boston Celtics, then baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. Hardly a spectacular player -- while with the Cubbies, he hit .233 in 70 games -- Connors was eventually shipped off to Chicago's Pacific Coast League farm team, the L.A. Angels. Here his reputation rested more on his cut-up antics than his ball-playing prowess. While going through his usual routine of performing cartwheels while rounding the bases, Connors was spotted by a Hollywood director, who arranged for Connors to play a one-line bit as a highway patrolman in the 1952 Tracy-Hepburn vehicle Pat and Mike. Finding acting an agreeable and comparatively less strenuous way to make a living, Connors gave up baseball for films and television. One of his first roles of consequence was as a comic hillbilly on the memorable Superman TV episode "Flight to the North." In films, Connors played a variety of heavies, including raspy-voiced gangster Johnny O in Designing Woman (1957) and swaggering bully Buck Hannassy in The Big Country (1958). He switched to the Good Guys in 1958, when he was cast as frontiersman-family man Lucas McCain on the popular TV Western series The Rifleman. During the series' five-year run, he managed to make several worthwhile starring appearances in films: he was seen in the title role of Geronimo (1962), which also featured his second wife, Kamala Devi, and originated the role of Porter Ricks in the 1963 film version of Flipper. After Rifleman folded, Connors co-starred with Ben Gazzara in the one-season dramatic series Arrest and Trial (1963), a 90-minute precursor to Law and Order. He enjoyed a longer run as Jason McCord, an ex-Army officer falsely accused of cowardice on the weekly Branded (1965-1966). His next TV project, Cowboy in Africa, never got past 13 episodes. In 1972, Connors acted as host/narrator of Thrill Seekers, a 52-week syndicated TV documentary. Then followed a great many TV guest-star roles and B-pictures of the Tourist Trap (1980) variety. He was never more delightfully over the top than as the curiously accented 2,000-year-old lycanthrope Janos Skorzeny in the Fox Network's Werewolf (1987). Shortly before his death from lung cancer at age 71, Chuck Connors revived his Rifleman character Lucas McCain for the star-studded made-for-TV Western The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1993). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

 
Wikipedia: Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors
Connors-chuck.jpg
Chuck Connors
Born April 10 1921(1921--)
Flag of Canada Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, Canada
Died November 10 1992 (aged 71)

Chuck Connors (April 10 1921 – November 10 1992) was an American actor and professional basketball and baseball player.

Biography

Early life

Connors was born Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, Canada, the son of Marcella (Lundrigan) and Allan Connors, immigrants to Brooklyn, New York City from Ireland. Connors grew up with a two-years-younger sister named Gloria; their father was a longshoreman and their mother a homemaker. He was raised a Roman Catholic, serving as an altar boy at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

His natural athletic abilities earned him a scholarship to the private high school Adelphi Academy, and then to the Catholic college, Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. After two years in college he then dropped out and in 1942 enlisted in the Army at Fort Knox, Kentucky, listing his civilian occupation as a ski instructor. Serving mostly as a tank-warfare instructor, he was stationed at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, and later at West Point, New York.

Sports career

Following his military discharge in 1946, he joined the newly formed Boston Celtics of the Basketball Association of America. Connors left the team for spring training with Major League Baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers. He played for numerous minor league teams before joining the Dodgers in 1949, for whom he played in just 1 game; and the Chicago Cubs in 1951, for whom he played in 66 games as a first baseman and occasional pinch hitter. In 1952 he was sent to the minor leagues again, to play for the Cubs' top farm team, the Los Angeles Angels. Connors was also drafted by the Chicago Bears, but never suited-up for the team. Chuck Connors is one of only twelve athletes in history to have played for both Major League Baseball and in the NBA. Connors is credited with being the first professional basketball player to break a backboard. The incident occurred on November 5, 1946 during a pre-game warmup at Boston Garden when Connors hit the basket rim with a two-handed shot.[1]

Acting career

Connors realized that he would not make a career in professional sports, so he decided to become an actor. Playing baseball near Hollywood proved to be fortuitous, as he was spotted by an MGM casting director and cast in the 1952 Tracy-Hepburn film Pat and Mike. In 1953 he starred opposite Burt Lancaster playing a rebellious Marine private in the film South Sea Woman.

During his career in Hollywood, Connors was best known for his television work. He appeared in a 1954 episode of Adventures of Superman titled Flight to the North, in which he played a good-natured (and very strong) backwoods fellow named Sylvester J. Superman. He starred in an episode of CBS's The Millionaire. He was cast as "Lucas McCain" in the television Western series The Rifleman (1958-1963), with Johnny Crawford as his son Mark. Thereafter, he starred in Branded (1965-1966) and the 1967 Cowboy in Africa TV series, alongside Ronald Howard and Tom Nardini. The opening titles of The Rifleman featured Connors rapid-firing 13 shots as he walked down the street of North Fork. Actually, he only fired 12 shots; the 13th had to be dubbed in to time out with the music.[2] In 1973 and 1974 he hosted a television series called Thrill Seekers. He had a key role as a slaveowner in the famous 1977 miniseries Roots.

Connors also hosted a number of episodes of Family Theater on the Mutual Radio Network. This series was aimed at promoting prayer as a path to world peace and stronger families, with the motto "The family which prays together stays together". In 1987 he co-starred in the FOX series Werewolf as drifter Janos Skorzeny. In 1991, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Personal life & death

Connors was frequently a supporter of the Republican Party and attended a few fundraisers for campaigns of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, who reportedly was a fan of Connors.

Connors was introduced to Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union at a party given by Nixon at the Western White House in San Clemente, California, in June, 1973. Upon boarding his airplane bound for Moscow, Brezhnev noticed Connors in the crowd and went back to him to shake hands, and, jokingly, jump up into Connor's towering hug. The Rifleman was one of the few American shows allowed on Russian television at that time because it was Brezhnev's favorite. Connors and Brezhnev hit it off so well that Connors traveled to the Soviet Union in December, 1973. In 1982, Connors indicated interest in traveling to the Soviet Union for Brezhnev's funeral, but the U.S. government would not allow him to be part of the official delegation.

Connors died in Los Angeles at the age of 71 from lung cancer following a bout of pneumonia.

The book Carl Erskine's Tales from the Dodgers Dugout: Extra Innings (2004) includes short stories from former Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine. Connors is prominent in many of these stories.

Filmography

See also

References

  1. ^ "November Classic Moments". 
  2. ^ http://members.tripod.com/~northfork/therifle.html

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
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Artist. Copyright © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ® , a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Actor. Copyright © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Chuck Connors".  Read more

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