page_title: Mike Connors
section_title: Early roles
hierarchical_section_title: Mike Connors / Career / Early roles
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Leigh Snowden (left) and Claire Kelly with Mike Connors, the star of the short-lived television program Tightrope. The program was very popular but a disagreement between the network and the show's sponsor led to its demise. CBS wanted to schedule the program in a later time slot; the sponsor didn't agree. When the network said it intended to move the show to the later hour without the sponsor's consent, the sponsor backed out of the program.
context_page_description: Krekor Ohanian, known professionally as Mike Connors, was an American actor best known for playing private detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series Mannix from 1967–1975, a role which earned him a Golden Globe Award in 1970, the first of six straight nominations, as well as four consecutive Emmy nominations from 1970–1973. He starred in the short-lived series Tightrope! and Today's FBI. Connors' acting career spanned six decades. In addition to his work on television, he appeared in numerous films, including Sudden Fear, Situation Hopeless... But Not Serious, Stagecoach, Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die, and Too Scared to Scream, which he also produced.
context_section_description: Connors's film career started in the early 1950s, when he made his acting debut in a supporting role opposite Joan Crawford and Jack Palance in the thriller Sudden Fear (1952). He had initially been rejected for an audition by producer Joseph Kaufman due to his lack of experience, but after sneaking into Republic Pictures and meeting director David Miller, Connors was given a chance to read the script and was offered the part.
  Connors was cast in the critically acclaimed John Wayne film, Island in the Sky in which he played a crewman on one of the search-and-rescue planes. In 1956, he played an Amalekite herder in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments.
  Connors appeared in numerous television series, including the co-starring role in the 1955 episode "Tomas and the Widow" of the anthology series Frontier. He guest-starred on the early sitcoms, Hey, Jeannie! and The People's Choice. He guest-starred in two Rod Cameron syndicated crime dramas, City Detective and the Western-themed State Trooper, and played the villain in the first episode filmed (but second one aired) of ABC's smash hit Maverick, opposite James Garner in 1957.
  Connors had roles in several of the earliest films Roger Corman directed: Five Guns West (1955), The Day the World Ended (1955), Swamp Women (1956), "Rock, Roll and Shake " (1956), and The Oklahoma Woman (1956). Connors starred in and was the executive producer of Flesh and the Spur (1956). He raised $117,000 for the film.
  In 1958, Connors appeared in the title role of the episode "Simon Pitt", the series finale of the NBC Western Jefferson Drum, starring Jeff Richards as a frontier newspaper editor. He appeared in another NBC Western series, The Californians. That same year, Connors was cast as Miles Borden, a corrupt US Army lieutenant bitter over his $54 monthly pay, on NBC's Wagon Train in the episode "The Dora Gray Story" with Linda Darnell in the title role. About this time, he also appeared on an episode of NBC's Western series Cimarron City.
  Other syndicated series in which he appeared were The Silent Service, based on true stories of the submarine section of the United States Navy; Sheriff of Cochise, Whirlybirds, an aviation adventure series; and Rescue 8, based on stories of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. An episode of Studio 57 starring Connors and titled "Getaway Car" was proposed as a pilot for a series about the CHP to be called Motorcycle Cop.
  Connors starred as an undercover police officer who infiltrated organized crime in Tightrope! (1959–1960). Despite the show's popularity, it was cancelled after only one season. Connors stated in an interview that the show's primary sponsor, J.B. Williams, refused CBS president James Aubrey's request to move it to a later time slot on a different day. The sponsor dropped Tightrope! and underwrote another program on another network. Connors also did not agree with the suggested change to add a sidekick, to be played by Don Sullivan. He thought the program would lose the suspense element, "Because the whole premise was this guy, all by himself, 'on a tightrope.' ... When he gets a sidekick, it loses the threat and the danger, and the whole premise is in the toilet."
  Later, he was cast in the episode "The Aerialist" of the anthology series, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond. In 1963, he guest-starred as Jack Marson in the episode "Shadow of the Cougar" on the NBC modern Western series, Redigo, starring Richard Egan. In 1964, Connors appeared in a pinch-hit role for Raymond Burr as attorney Joe Kelly in the Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Bullied Bowler." Connors was invited to take on a lead role in the series on an ongoing basis, but the producers had actually wanted to pressure Burr into resigning his contract with the series.
  In 1964, Connors had a role in the Jack Lemmon comedy Good Neighbor Sam and was the leading man to Susan Hayward and Bette Davis in Where Love Has Gone. He co-starred with Robert Redford in one of his earliest film roles, the World War II black comedy Situation Hopeless... But Not Serious (1965), in which Conn
caption: Connors with Leigh Snowden (left) and Claire Kelly in a publicity photo for Tightrope!, 1960
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