Monday, June 25, 2001
Last call for Arch - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Carroll O’Connor was a hell of an actor. The star of television’s venerable landmark, All In The Family, O’Connor took a complex, yet simple character named Archie Bunker and turned him into an American icon. It was a character that was simple in that America knew him. Americans had bigoted people like Archie Bunker among them. But to be an icon at a rudimentary simple level was the great skill employed by O’Connor. In the hands of a lesser actor, a lesser man, Archie Bunker would have rendered no meaning in our collective consciousness.
Carroll O’Connor died Thursday at the age of seventy-six. He was the exceptional character actor on the silver screen with appearances pulled down in such pictures as Cleopatra, Lonely But The Brave and Hawaii. It was on the small screen however -- a role written with Mickey Rooney in mind -- that he made his mark and thirteen years of groundbreaking and remarkable television were had.
The television viewer has a certain aversion towards ‘unfriendly’ or ‘abrasive’ characters. (See Weakest Link’s Anne Robinson.) Archie Bunker was not your more liberal minded of blokes, but because of what his innocent bigotry did for America and the television landscape, Archie Bunker is easily one of the more loved figures of television history.
Growing up, and to this day, I have been a great fan of the ‘great’ television shows. I Love Lucy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Hill Street Blues etc. All In The Family has always been a favourite of mind. At times it was riotously funny and more often than not it had a message. Whether it was Vietnam, Nixon, inflation, rape or race relations, All In The Family made a point and I believe succeeded by making the viewer look at the absurd to see truth.
The ‘70s were a tumultuous time in America, but during that time they found refuge in All In The Family and Archie Bunker. Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker was integral to America laughing at itself and hopefully (as I believe it has) learning from itself as well.
There has been much said of O’Connor and how he changed television with his donning of the role of Archie Bunker. Lest we forget he parlayed a message of tolerance in his later television effort, In The Heat Of The Night. But it is through the irascible Archie, that we remember with great fondness the life of Carroll O’Connor. Obituaries write that he was a loving and devoted husband and father. They’ve also said he changed the world of television. Some have even gone to say he left the world a better place.
He lost a son a few years ago to a drug related suicide. He took his tragedy to plea that his son’s fate not be that of our own sons and daughters. As Archie Bunker, he embodied a frailty of society and with Norman Lear’s genius tried to alter society’s tolerance level
We all wish society to be more kind, more loving and more tolerant. Archie Bunker gave us that hope in the dark ‘70s. If we’ll have it so, he will continue to entertain and enlighten us for a long, long time to come. He was just an actor, but because he was good at it -- good as Michelangelo was at painting or Gershwin at music -- we feel better with ourselves that we were moved by mere art.
There are many fondly remembered All In The Family jokes that could have been had in this space today. There are also many more recounts of fine achievements from his life and career that could have be lain in this space as well. But all I can come up with is: Carroll O’Connor was a hell of a guy. We shan’t see anyone as brilliant and as affecting as he for some time to come.
- 30 -
Questions and comments may be sent to: editor@thecommentary.ca
An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .