Personal Life and Death
Connors was married three times during his life. He met his first wife, Elizabeth Riddell Connors, at one of his baseball games, and married her on October 1, 1948. They divorced in 1961 and had four sons, Michael (born 1950), Jeffrey (born 1952), Steven (born 1953) and Kevin (1956–2005).
Connors was a supporter of the Republican Party and attended several fundraisers for campaigns of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.
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. Connors presented Brezhnev with a pair of Colt Single Action Army "Six-Shooters" (revolvers) which Brezhnev liked greatly. Upon boarding his airplane bound for Moscow, Brezhnev noticed Connors in the crowd and went back to him to shake hands, and jokingly jumped up into Connors' towering hug. The Rifleman was one of the few American shows allowed on Russian television at that time; that was because it was Brezhnev's favorite. Connors and Brezhnev got along so well that Connors traveled to the Soviet Union in December 1973. In 1982, Connors expressed an 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. Coincidentally, Connors and Brezhnev died on the same day, ten years apart.
A heavy smoker, Connors died on November 10, 1992 in Los Angeles at the age of 71, of pneumonia stemming from lung cancer. At the time of his death, he had a companion named Rose Mary Grumley. He was interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles.
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