Prolific Character Actor
After acting in theatrical productions in Dublin (Ireland) and New York during the 1950s, O'Connor's breakthrough came when he was cast by director Burgess Meredith (assisted by John Astin) in a featured role in the Broadway adaptation of James Joyce's novel Ulysses. O'Connor and Meredith remained close, lifelong friends.
O'Connor made his television acting debut as a character actor on two episodes of Sunday Showcase. These two parts led to other roles on such television series as The Eleventh Hour, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Americans, Death Valley Days, The Great Adventure, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Dr. Kildare, I Spy, That Girl, Premiere, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea among many others. O'Connor starred as an Eastern European villain in the first season of "Mission Impossible" Season 1, Episode 18 "The Trial," brilliantly played and recognizable by his intense blue eyes. Late in his career, he appeared on several episodes of Mad About You as the father of Helen Hunt's character.
Read more about this topic: Carroll O'Connor
Famous quotes containing the words prolific, character and/or actor:
“If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church, some Schelling or Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every hour. I am as bankrupt to whom brilliant opportunities offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to another to keep.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“A personality is an indefinite quantum of traits which is subject to constant flux, change, and growth from the birth of the individual in the world to his death. A character, on the other hand, is a fixed and definite quantum of traits which, though it may be interpreted with slight differences from age to age and actor to actor, is nevertheless in its essentials forever fixed.”
—Hubert C. Heffner (1901–1985)