Mike Connors, who played a hard-hitting private eye on the long-running TV series Mannix, has died. He was 91.

His son-in-law, Mike Condon, says the actor died Thursday afternoon at a Los Angeles hospital from recently-diagnosed leukemia.

Mannix debuted on CBS in 1967 and ran for eight years.

Viewers were intrigued by the smartly dressed, well-spoken Los Angeles detective who could still mix it up with thugs. Episodes normally climaxed with a brawl.

Connors once said that until Mannix, TV private investigators were hard-nosed and cynical, while Mannix "got emotionally involved" in his cases.

Connors was nominated for an Emmy four times for his work on Mannix and won a Golden Globe award in 1970 as best actor in a dramatic series. Mannix was twice nominated for an Emmy as best dramatic series.

His co-star Gail Fisher, one of the few black women with a regular role on a U.S. television series at the time, became the first African American actress to win an Emmy.

Connors also starred in the short-lived TV shows Tightrope and Today's FBI. His movie roles included Sudden Fear with Joan Crawford, Island in the Sky, The Ten Commandments, and a remake of Stagecoach.

Later in his career, he acted in the acclaimed miniseries War and Remembrance and made multiple guest appearances on The Love Boat, Murder She Wrote. He was also a pitchman for several years for Clorets.

His last TV appearance, according to IMDB.com, was a guest turn in 2007 on Two and a Half Men.

Connors, who was of Armenian descent, was born as Krekor Ohanian on Aug. 15, 1925, in Fresno, California. Tall and athletic, he attended UCLA on a basketball scholarship and was noticed by veteran Hollywood director William Wellman, who steered him into acting.

Connors filed suit against CBS and Paramount in 2011, asserting that they failed to pay him millions of dollars in royalties. The case was later settled. Connors married his wife, Mary Lou, in 1949. They had two children.