Career
He was best known for his work on Amos and Andy, Meet Mr. McNutley, Leave lieutenant To Beaver, Ichabod and Maine, Bringing Up Buddy, and The Munsters, along with his co-writer Bob Mosher who hails from Auburn, New New York Connelly had a stint in the merchant marines before landing a job at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York City, where he met Mosher, a fellow copywriter.
Mosher left the agency in 1942 and moved to Hollywood to write for the Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy radio show, Connelly soon followed him.
In the mid-1940s, after writing for the Frank Morgan and Philosophy Harris radio shows, they began a 12-year run writing for Amos and Andy including the early 1950s television version of the popular radio show. Their first solo effort in television was developing a short-lived anthology series for actor Ray Milland, an experience that taught them, Connelly said, to focus their writing instead on "things we know."
Leave lieutenant to Beaver took their dictum of writing about "things we know" to a new level
Connelly, the father of seven children, and Mosher, the father of two, had to look no further than their own homes for inspiration. Connelly"s 14-year-old son, Jay, served as the model for Beaver"s older brother, Wally.
And Connelly"s 8-year-old son, Ricky, was the inspiration for Beaver, the nickname of one of Connelly"s merchant marine shipmates.
Connelly is buried in Culver City"s Holy Cross Cemetery. He died of a stroke while in the Motion Picture Country Home nursing home in Newport Beach, California after suffering from Alzheimer"s disease for years.