CULVER CITY, Calif. -- Carroll O'Connor, whose portrayal of irascible bigot Archie Bunker on All in the Family helped make the groundbreaking TV comedy part of the American dialogue on race and politics, died of a heart attack Thursday (June 21, 2001). He was 76.

Mr. O'Connor collapsed at his home and was taken to Brotman Medical Center, publicist Frank Tobin said. He said Mr. O'Connor died with his wife of nearly 50 years, Nancy, by his side.

The actor had diabetes and had undergone coronary artery bypass surgery in 1989.

Personal tragedy darkened Mr. O'Connor's later years. His only child, Hugh, a co-star with his father on the TV series In The Heat of The Night, shot himself in a drug-related suicide in 1995.

A native of New York, Mr. O'Connor had been working for two decades on stage and in TV and movie supporting parts when he was tapped by producer Norman Lear to play a blue-collar worker from New York's borough of Queens with the gift of gab and a big chip on his shoulder.

On Jan. 12, 1971, Archie began spouting off against minorities, liberals and his long-haired son-in-law (whom he called "Meathead") and kept at it for 13 years. Mr. O'Connor didn't flinch at playing an unlikeable character and deftly brought Archie's intolerance to feisty comic life.

The actor also managed to give Archie a vulnerability that allowed him to be seen as a beleaguered soul, bound by his unthinking prejudices and buffeted by the changes sweeping Vietnam War-era America.

Further softening the character was his love for wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), lovingly known as "Dingbat," and their daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers), and his grudging affection for Meathead Mike (Rob Reiner).

All in the Family, adapted from the British series Till Death Do Us Part, shattered the sitcom mold that had produced decades of superficial and bland series featuring, invariably, a wise and kindly paternal figure.

Lear considered other actors for the pivotal role of Archie, but said he found the right combination of "bombast and sweetness" in Mr. O'Connor, whom he had seen in the film What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?

The sitcom got off to a rocky start. Many found it unsettling and offensive, and tuned it out. Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint called the show's bigotry "dangerous because it's disarming."

Eventually, however, viewers came to embrace Archie and the series as a comedy and a source of debate. It ranked No. 1 for five years, was top-rated for much of its run and gave birth to two successful spin-offs, Maude and The Jeffersons. O'Connor moved from All in the Family (1971-79) to Archie Bunker's Place (1979-83), which was based in a bar owned by Archie rather than in the Bunker household.

O'Connor and his two brothers were raised by their father, an attorney, and schoolteacher mother in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, a more prosperous section of Queens than Archie would know. "I never heard Archie's kind of talk in my own family," he once said. "My father was a lawyer and was in partnership with two Jews, who with their families were close to us. There were black families in our circle of friends. My father disliked talk like Archie's -- he called it lowbrow."

Mr. O'Connor served as a merchant seaman in World War II, enrolling at the University of Montana on his return. Although his siblings became physicians, O'Connor studied literature and discovered acting.

He met his future wife, Nancy Fields, while appearing in a play.

Captivated by Ireland during a visit in 1950, Mr. O'Connor finished his undergraduate studies at the National University of Ireland. Fields joined him and they were married in Dublin in 1951.

Mr. O'Connor appeared on stage throughout Ireland and in London, Paris and Edinburgh. Making it in New York proved to be a struggle. He worked as a substitute teacher, earned his master's degree at Montana and, in the late 1950s, finally began getting roles in theater and film.

Then All in the Family made him a star and, eventually, a four-time Emmy winner.

He followed Archie's Place with a return to New York theater, then came back to TV series in 1988 with In the Heat of the Night. The O'Connors adopted their son as an infant in 1962 in Italy, where O'Connor was filming Cleopatra. Hugh O'Connor battled a longtime alcohol and drug addiction problem. On March 28, 1995, in several phone conversations, Hugh told his father "this is a very black day," said he had a gun and was going to "cap" himself. Mr. O'Connor recalled telling him "you're just saying crazy things" and advising him to seek a doctor's care.

"So long, I love you," his son replied. Mr. O'Connor called police, who arrived just as Hughshot himself.

Mr. O'Connor turned his grief over the death of 32-year-old Hugh into an anti-drug crusade and a quest for legal vengeance against his son's drug supplier.

"Nothing will help," Mr. O'Connor said after the man was sentenced to a year in jail. "Our lives have changed. My wife's and mine, and his widow."

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