- Carroll O’Connor, All In The Family, TV, 1971-79. Bosley, Scott Brady, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, Jack Warden – they all rejected Archie Bunker! When the ground-breaking producer Norman Lear called up O’Connor, the actor-producer-director and Actors Studio life member was living in Italy. He’d read all about the abrasive BBC show and told his wife it couldn’t work in the US. He insisted, therefore, on a return plane ticket! He lasted the 1968 pilot, Justice For All (Bunker was then Archie Justice) and the second, Those Were the Days, 1969. Then, ABC passed and CBS pounced. O’Connor played Bunker 304 more times (counting spin-offs). It was an extremely lite version of Warren Mitchell’s iconic BBC character, Alf Garnett., but O’Connor still won four Emmy awards from eight nominations. Bosley was a far more comfy father-figure – for Ron Howard – 255 episodes of Happy Days, 1974-1984.
Birth year: 1927Death year: 2010Other name: Casting Calls: 1