Mike Connors

LOS ANGELES — Mike Connors, who starred as a hard-hitting private eye on the long-running television series “Mannix,” has died. He was 91.

The actor died surrounded by family Thursday afternoon at a Los Angeles hospital from complications of leukemia that had been diagnosed a week earlier, said his son-in-law, Mike Condon.

“Mannix” ran for eight years on CBS beginning in 1967. Viewers were intrigued by the tall, smartly dressed, well-spoken detective who could mix it up with the burliest of thugs. Episodes normally climaxed with a brawl that left the culprits bruised and beaten.

“Up until Mannix, most private investigators were hard-nosed, cynical guys who lived in a seedy area and had no emotions,” Connors theorized in 1997. “Mannix got emotionally involved. He was not above being taken advantage of.”

In the first season, Joe Mannix was a self-employed Los Angeles private investigator hired by a firm that used high-tech equipment to uncover crime. The ratings were lukewarm. Connors feared the series would be canceled, but it was produced by Lucille Ball’s Desilu studio, and CBS was reluctant to antagonize its biggest star. In the second season, Mannix opened his own office and combatted low-lifes by himself. The ratings zoomed.

Connors also starred in the TV series “Tightrope!” and “Today’s FBI.” Each lasted one season. He made his film debut in 1952’s “Sudden Fear,” which starred Joan Crawford. Other films included “Island in the Sky” and “The Ten Commandments.”