Armenian American actor Mike Connors (born Krekor Ohanian) passed away on January 26 after being diagnosed with leukemia a week earlier. As Asbarez.com reports, the actor was 91 years old.
The source reminds that Connors was known for his lead role as a detective on Mannix, a series that ran for nearly a decade in the mid-1960s. The series was highly acclaimed and has been said to be the most popular crime show on television during the time.
New York Times’ obituary on Connors read “Mr. Connors used his fame from ‘Mannix’ to publicize a then-underreported chapter in Armenian history by narrating ‘The Forgotten Genocide,’ J. Michael Hagopian’s 1975 documentary about the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.”
The obituary stated that he later narrated Hagopian’s 1995 documentary “Ararat Beckons.”
Connors was born in Fresno, California to Armenian parents Krekor and Alice Ohanian in 1925, and survived by his wife of 67 years Mary Lou Wells, his daughter Dena and granddaughter.
