The Screen Career That Was More Than a Picnic

What do Fantastic Voyage, Ride Beyond Vengeance, The Silencers and Birds Do It have in common, besides being found on theatre marquees in 1966?

The casts of all of them included Arthur O’Connell.

This doesn’t include drive-ins that were running older films, such as The 7 Faces of Doctor Lao, The Great Race and Your Cheatin’ Heart. McConnell was in all those, too. Then there was television, eg. an episode of The Wild, Wild West.

O’Connell was one of the busiest character actors around at one time, on stage and screen. Dorothy Kilgallen wrote in a column in 1952: “Arthur O’Connell is one actor who can’t complain about being typed by the casting directors. In the current ‘Golden Boy’ he plays a punch-drunk prizefighter—but earlier this season he was seen as a letter carrier, a salesman, an aviator and a priest.”

In 1929, he was a member of the Gordon Square Players in Cleveland. In late January, he was cast as an indolent boy-friend in “The Family Upstairs” and appeared in several plays until the end of the season. One of the other players, age 19, turned up later on radio and on Mr. Magoo cartoons—Jerry Hausner.

Hal Eaton’s column in the Newark Star-Ledger of July 5, 1946 gave this short bio:

Arthur O'Connell, actor-director, has been signed by William Cahn to direct Frank Gould's "Snow-Job," a comedy about ex-GI's returned to college. O'Connell last directed "Brighten the Corner."
Cahn, an ex-GI who is looking for an apartment, liked the way O'Connell staged the recent "Operation Housing," the Veterans' Housing Rally at the 69th Armory, and decided to sign him for "Snow-Job." Apparently the Duncan-Paris Post of the American Legion liked O'Connell's staging, too, since they elected him vice commander to Sgt. Marion [See Here, Private] Hargrove.
As an actor, O'Connell worked for MGM with Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore in the "Dr. Kildare" pictures, appeared in Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" and did a series of RKO shorts with Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol. He played in the London production of "Golden Boy," with Louis Calhern and Jack La Rue.
O'Connell's first job as director was for the Federal Theater's "Little Women." During the war he was assistant director of movies for the army at Astoria. L. I., and directed John Golden's production of "The Army Play by Play."

You have to jump forward 21 years for O’Connell to get any significant publicity, and it had nothing to do with films. He was hired to co-star in a gimmick comedy with Monte Markham. This feature story was published July 19, 1967.

Why Would a Top-Notch Actor Do a Situation Comedy?
By DONALD FREEMAN
Copley News Service
HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—His actor's moustache bristled only slightly when Arthur O'Connell, after 38 years in the profession, after winning one Oscar and being nominated for another, was asked why a distinguished performer of his stripe would go into a situation comedy series.
This particular series, moreover, is a complicated bit of business which may or may not capture the viewers' fancy. A Screen Gems-ABC entry, "The Second Hundred Years" involves O'Connell as the 67-year-old son of a man in his 20s who — are you following this? — was buried alive in a Klondike snowslide, frozen all the years and then discovered and defrosted.
Now then — "I have a mortgage to pay," quoted O'Connell. "A situation comedy is as good as anything else to pay the mortgage for an actor. Besides, an actor has to work. If not, you're out there in left field with the sun in your eyes."
O'Connell, as befits a star of the Broadway stage, has been in any number of television series, and this one he accepted because of its inherent comic possibilities. In fact, he was ready to return to Broadway before producer Harry Ackerman offered him this particular show.
* * *
THE thought of facing a camera — or an audience —still fills O'Connell with a strange, nameless fear, an oddity for a man who once played the old five-a-day routine in vaudeville.
"Years ago," O'Connell said, "I was doing a comedy sketch with my partner and just before we'd go out on stage I'd be standing there in the wings, trembling, full of trepidation.
"What I would do, I'd devoutly promise God if he got me through the performance I would go back to pumping gas and make an honest living.
"And after each show, I'd say to myself, with great relief, 'God knew I was lying.' Surely he must have, else why would I still be in the acting business?"
It is one of Arthur O'Connell's major assets as an actor that he can portray a drunk with such devastating believability. Most actors overplay when in a drunk scene and you don't believe for a minute that they have really hashed it up. I wondered how O'Connell handled this type of acting assignment.
He shrugged. "Easiest thing in the world to play a drunk," O'Connell said. "To begin, I've had experience in the real thing. But mainly I've observed people after they've had a belt. They're loose — oh, so loose, bumping into the furniture, missing the cigaret with the match. Very loose. Even though I'm under tension always as an actor, I stay loose externally.
"Fear is all in the wings, anyway. Acting! Listen, there's very little acting done today at all. Mostly it's reacting. And I know a lot of actors who never stop acting —until they get before a camera.
"Looseness is a deceptive commodity in a performer," he went on. "Look at Johnny Carson — apparently as calm as a leaf in a breeze. Ah, but he's up inside. He has that inner energy going for him. But I don't know much about theories. When young actors come to me for advice, I tell them the best thing I know, 'Say your words and mind your own business and you'll do all right.' "
* * *
WE TALKED about "Picnic," the movie that won him an Oscar and, O'Connell insists, changed his life [photo above with Roz Russell]. "After 'Picnic' won me an Oscar, suddenly I was known," O'Connell said. "Suddenly I could ask producers for more money. Which reminds me of a producer story.
"After he won an Oscar for 'Mr. Roberts,' Jack Lemmon gratefully paid a call on the producer, Harry Cohn, who was paying him something less than the world's biggest salary, and he says, 'Thanks, Harry, for everything.' Cohn said back at him, 'Listen, kid, I made 16 million bucks on the picture. So you don't have to thank me for anything,' "
* * *
O'CONNELL'S movie career goes back to "Citizen Kane" and Orson Welles. "I'd come out to Hollywood and I wasn't doing much, making a few shorts with Leon Erroll, and I hear Orson is casting for 'Citizen Kane.' Orson would sit there, in his office, and actors would troop in and he'd say, in that big rumbling voice of his, 'My name is Orson Welles. Tell me about yourself.' And the actors would rattle off whatever movie credits they had.
"Well, I didn't have any movie credits," O'Connell said. "So I walked in to see Orson and I'm scared witless and he informs me that he is Orson Welles and would I tell him about myself. I cleared my throat and I said, 'Mr. Welles, I'm Arthur O'Connell. I've been out here for four months. I'm a stage actor.' At the sound of the word, 'stage,' Orson perked up. That means you're an actor,' he said to me, 'and you are hereby hired for my picture.' "

Being a stage actor may have given him respect with Welles, but not at Screen Gems. He was used. Robert de Roos, in the December 30, 1967 issue of TV Guide, had this behind-the-scenes dirt:

Arthur O’Connell, an accomplished and veteran actor, was billed as the star in the pilot film: “Starring Arthur O’Connell and Monte Markham.” Now the billing has been reversed and O’Connell’s parts have been cut and Monte’s built up.
A studio executive said, “Arthur O’Connell was billed as the star on the pilot because we thought it would help sell the series. No one had ever heard of Monte and O’Connell was well-known.”
“I feel guilty about it,” Monte says, “but it’s out of my control. Arthur O’Connell’s been nominated for Academy Awards and now he’s featured under me, a guy no one ever heard of. It’s . . .” His voice trails off and he drops an embarrassing subject.
As for Arthur O’Connell, he seems resigned to the situation. “I turned down series after series because I didn’t want a supporting role,” he says. “I signed here because I was to be the star. Now the word is around that my part is being purposely written down.
“I think Monte is upset about it. He asked me to have lunch one day, but I refused. I just didn’t want to talk about it.”

The Second Hundred Years didn’t get to a second season. The cancellation did not stop O’Connell from keeping busy. He had already shot The Reluctant Astronaut with Don Knotts earlier in the year and there were other films ahead (including 1968’s forgotten If He Hollers, Let Him Go with Barbara McNair). He never got another series, but appeared regularly as a kindly store owner in Crest toothpaste commercials.

O’Connell vanished from the screen in 1975. He was claimed by Alzheimer’s on May 18, 1981. He was 73.