Topic: Mike Connors

Mike Connors (born August 15, 1925) is an American actor best known for playing detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series, Mannix. Before that, he had played a crime-fighting investigator, wielding a .38 handgun hidden in his back, in another CBS series, Tightrope.

Connors was born Krekor Ohanian in Fresno, California, of Armenian descent. He was an avid basketball player in high school who was nicknamed "Touch" by his teammates. During World War II he served in the United States Army Air Forces. After the war he attended the University of California at Los Angeles on a basketball scholarship, where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. William A. Wellman got him into acting after noticing his expressive face while Connors was playing basketball. He appeared on the Los Angeles CBS station as "Touch" Connors in an episode of Jukebox Jury before the program went national via ABC in 1953. Connors is credited in his early films, such as Island in the Sky (1953), Swamp Women, a.k.a. Swamp Diamonds, Five Guns West (1955), and Flesh and the Spur (1957) as "Touch Connors".

He played basketball for Coach John Wooden at UCLA.