I was remembering the first time I ever noticed great acting, The first time I thought to myself that what I was seeing was so good because the acting was so good. The first time I tuned in just to watch someone act. The first actor I studied.
It was Carroll O’ Connor in All in the Family.
The most obvious accomplishment was how he managed to make a man who says such deplorable and offensive things likeable. I think he achieved this by constantly showing how much he loved his wife and daughter.
But there is more going on than that. The technique. His sense of timing, His ability to hold for the laugh. It seems to me his incredible timing came from two things - confidence and relaxation. He ranted and raved but never forced and he let the writing do most of the work for him.
Even his sense of focus. Imagine Archie and Edith in their respective chairs. You always believed he was talking to her but he rarely looked at her. He was acting with her but always playing to the camera. That was when I realized you do not always have to look at someone on stage when you were talking to them.. It seems obvious now but I was about eleven years old. To be able to relate to the other actors and simultaneously be sharing with the audience - that’s everything and that’s was Carrol O’ Connor. A life long member of the Actor’s Studio.
And then I started to see him in other things and he was completely different. The swagger, the faces, the accent, That wasn’t him. Everything was a choice.
He was so funny and touching and quick and made television history in probably one of the most difficult roles television has ever seen. So much of television depends on likeability and in the hands of a lesser actor the show would not have lasted a week.
So here’s cheers for O’Connor!