![]() In 1968, he was presented with a brotherhood award from Gov. Griffith occasionally dabbled in North Carolina politics. They spent his retirement near Manteo on Roanoke Island. In 1973, he married Solica Cassuto they divorced in 1981. They adopted two children, Andy and Dixie. He married UNC classmate Barbara Edwards in 1949 and their union lasted 23 years. Griffith’s last movie appearance came in the senior romantic comedy “Play the Game,” released in August 2009. “He was a lot different from Andy Taylor.” “Ben Matlock was very vain, very bright, very cheap,” Griffith said in a 2003 interview. When Griffith won the People’s Choice Award for “Matlock” in 1987, he said the role of the folksy Atlanta attorney was his favorite. Through clever questioning and courtroom theatrics, Benjamin Matlock yanked innocent clients from the precipice of prison for six years on NBC, then moved to ABC for three more. He recovered and in 1986 produced the legal series, “Matlock.” Griffith became a producer in 1972 and acted occasionally until 1983, when he was stricken with Guillain-Barre syndrome. The series spun off “Gomer Pyle USMC” and “Mayberry RFD.”Įven 50 years later, “The Andy Griffith Show” performs well in reruns despite its many black-and-white episodes, its dated Ford Galaxie patrol car and its operator-assisted phone system, all relics of an ancient technological age. In its final year, 1968, it finished as the No. It was the fourth highest-rated program of 1960 and throughout its eight-year run was never out of the top 10. 3, 1960, attracting weak reviews and strong ratings. “The Andy Griffith Show” debuted on CBS on Oct. Knotts called to ask, “You got a deputy?” Two years later, Knotts heard Griffith was putting together a comedy based on a small-town sheriff. “Sergeants” also starred an up-and-coming comedian named Don Knotts. I think where you wanna live is your business.” ![]() Griffith, as the drawling Stockdale: “Well, sir. “I think that I would rather live in the rottenest pigsty in Tennessee or Alabama than the fanciest mansion in all of Georgia,” says a needling major played by James Millhollin. “No Time for Sergeants” was turned into a movie the following year and, with comic relish, Griffith reprised his role of Air Force recruit Will Stockdale, a naive rustic plucked from the Georgia backwoods. The 1957 film was a box office disappointment but critics lauded Griffith’s portrayal of an Arkansas hobo propelled to hollow fame. Griffith followed that with a dramatic role as a vagrant-turned-signing idol in “A Face in the Crowd” with Patricia Neal. It got him on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” And it established Griffith as a Southern comedic voice, leading to a role as the hillbilly recruit in the TV production of “No Time for Sergeants” and then the same role on Broadway, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. “What It Was Was Football” sold a million copies. It got big laughs and Griffith spun to fame on a phonograph needle. He dreamed up a comic monologue about a country bumpkin mystified by a game “where you try to run across a cow pasture without getting hit or stepping in something.” Motoring one evening in 1953 from Chapel Hill to an appearance in Raleigh, Griffith was struck by an inspiration that would ignite his career. Griffith played Sir Walter Raleigh from 1949 to 1953 and appeared on the dinner club circuit as a comedian and singer. Lanky and handsome, his head thick with wavy black hair, he found summer work at the outdoor drama “The Lost Colony” in Manteo. He taught school for three years in Goldsboro, N.C. He went on to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and majored in music, taking five years to get his degree in 1949. He took a liking to music and learned to play the trombone at 16.ĭespite a so-so academic record, he was industrious, earning enough money sweeping the high school after classes to buy a bass horn and guitar. ![]() Griffith was born in Mount Airy, N.C., on June 1, 1926, son of Carl and Geneva Griffith. He was Andrew Samuel Griffith, but we knew him best as “Andy.” He died Tuesday at age 86 in Manteo, N.C. He was a vocalist, an actor, a stand-up comic, a producer and once even a schoolteacher, but we knew him best for creating the mythic Mayberry, a Camelot in bib overalls where home-spun wisdom reigned, in “The Andy Griffith Show.”
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