Christopher Connelly was an American actor best known for his role as Norman Harrington in the successful prime time

Prime time

Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...

 ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Peyton Place

Peyton Place (TV series)

Peyton Place is an American prime-time soap opera which aired on ABC in half-hour episodes from September 15, 1964 to June 2, 1969.Based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious, the series was preceded by a 1957 film adaptation. A total of 514 episodes were broadcast, in...

. He stayed with the series during its entire five-year run (1964–1969).

Career

In addition to his aforementioned series-long run on ABC's Peyton Place, Connelly guest-starred in 1973 on Lorne Greene

Lorne Greene

Lorne Greene , was the stage name of Lyon Himan Green, OC, a Canadian actor.His television roles include Ben Cartwright on the western Bonanza, and Commander Adama in the science fiction movie and subsequent TV Series Battlestar Galactica...

's short-lived ABC crime drama Griff

Griff (TV series)

Griff is a 13-episode ABC crime drama starring Lorne Greene and Ben Murphy, which aired from September 29, 1973, to January 4, 1974. Nine months after the expiration of his nearly 14-year role as Ponderosa Ranch patriarch Ben Cartwright on NBC's Bonanza western series, the Canadian native Greene...

, and in 1974, he starred in the television series Paper Moon

Paper Moon (TV series)

Paper Moon is a short-lived situation comedy which aired on ABC during the fall of 1974, starring Christopher Connelly and Jodie Foster in the roles of Moses Pray and his presumed daughter, Addie...

, with a young Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster

Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....

 playing his daughter. The series was based on the film of the same name

Paper Moon (film)

Paper Moon is a 1973 American comedy film directed by Peter Bogdanovich and released by Paramount Pictures. The screenplay was adapted from the novel Addie Pray by Joe David Brown, and the film was shot in black-and-white. The film is set during the Great Depression in the U.S. states of Kansas and...

 but was cancelled after only a few months. The film version had starred Connelly's former Peyton Place costar Ryan O'Neal

Ryan O'Neal

Charles Patrick Ryan O'Neal , better known as Ryan O'Neal, is an American actor best known for his appearances in the ABC nighttime soap opera Peyton Place and for his roles in such films as Paper Moon , Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon , A Bridge Too Far , and Love Story , for which he received...

 - who had played Connelly's brother in the soap opera - and O'Neal's daughter Tatum O'Neal

Tatum O'Neal

Tatum Beatrice O'Neal is an American actress best known for her film work as a child actress in the 1970s. She is the youngest to win a competitive Academy Award, at the age of 10, which she won for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon opposite her father Ryan O'Neal...

.

In 1964, he appeared in an episode of Gunsmoke with George Kennedy. In 1977, Connelly portrayed Kit Carson

Kit Carson

Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a Mountain man and trapper in the West. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married...

 in the episode "Kit Carson and the Mountain Man" of NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. Gregg Palmer

Gregg Palmer

Gregg Palmer, originally Palmer Lee is an American actor, known primarily for his prolific work in television westerns...

 portrayed Jim Bridger

Jim Bridger

James Felix "Jim" Bridger was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820-1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites...

 in the two-part segment, and Robert Reed

Robert Reed

Robert Reed was a prolific American character actor of stage, film and television. In his first big break, he played Kenneth Preston on the popular 1960s TV legal drama, The Defenders, alongside E. G. Marshall. But he was best remembered for portraying the father, Mike Brady, on the popular...

 played John Charles Fremont. Gary Lockwood

Gary Lockwood

Gary Lockwood is an American actor probably best known for his iconic 1968 role as the astronaut Dr. Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey.-Early life:...

 also appeared in the program.

Later career and death

In the 1980s Connelly made numerous appearances in Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 B-movies such as Ruggero Deodato

Ruggero Deodato

Ruggero Deodato is an Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.- Biography :...

's The Atlantis Interceptors

The Atlantis Interceptors

The Atlantis Interceptors is a 1983 Italian science fiction film starring Christopher Connelly and directed by Ruggero Deodato....

and Bruno Mattei

Bruno Mattei

Bruno Mattei was an Italian film director, screenwriter and editor who gained a cult following for a wide variety of exploitation films that covered many genres, ranging from women in prison to zombie films...

's Strike Commando

Strike Commando

Strike Commando is a 1987 action film, starring Reb Brown, Christopher Connelly and Alex Vitale. The film, directed by Bruno Mattei, was shot on the Philippines due to low budget. The sequel, Strike Commando 2, was released in 1988. The movie is often called a rip off of Rambo: First Blood Part II,...

. He also made guest appearances on dozens of television series, such as The Brian Keith Show

The Brian Keith Show

The Brian Keith Show is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from September 1972 to March 1974. The series stars Brian Keith and Shelley Fabares.-Synopsis:...

and the miniseries, The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles (TV miniseries)

The Martian Chronicles is a television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell...

before his death in 1988 from lung cancer

Lung cancer

Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

.

External links