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Andy Griffith Dies at 86
Actor Andy Griffith, who won the hearts of 1960s TV viewers with his role as gentle Sheriff Andy Taylor in “The Andy Griffith Show,” then returned as a 1980s country lawyer in “Matlock,” died Tuesday at 86. The news was confirmed to North Carolina television station WITN by Bill Friday, former president of the University of North Carolina and a Griffith friend.
Griffith died about 7 a.m. at his coastal home, Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie said in a statement.
“Mr. Griffith passed away this morning at his home peacefully and has been laid to rest on his beloved Roanoke Island,” Doughtie told The Associated Press, reading from a family statement.
The family will release further information, the sheriff said.
He had suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2000.
Griffith’s career spanned more than a half-century on stage, film and television, but he would always be best known as Sheriff Andy Taylor in the television show set in a North Carolina town not too different from Griffith’s own hometown of Mount Airy, N.C.
Griffith set the show in the fictional town of Mayberry, N.C., where Sheriff Taylor was the dutiful nephew who ate pickles that tasted like kerosene because they were made by his loving Aunt Bee, played by the late Frances Bavier. He was a widowed father who offered gentle guidance to son Opie, played by Ron Howard, who grew up to become the Oscar-winning director of “A Beautiful Mind.”
Don Knotts was the goofy Deputy Barney Fife, while Jim Nabors joined the show as Gomer Pyle, the unworldly, lovable gas pumper.
On “Matlock,” which aired from 1986 through 1995, Griffith played a cagey Harvard-educated defense attorney who was Southern-bred and -mannered with a practice in Atlanta.
In his rumpled seersucker suit in a steamy courtroom (air conditioning would have spoiled the mood), Matlock could toy with a witness and tease out a confession like a folksy Perry Mason.
The character – law-abiding, fatherly and lovable – was much like Sheriff Andy Taylor with silver hair and a shingle.
In a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, Griffith said “The Andy Griffith Show,” which initially aired from 1960 to 1968, was seen somewhere in the world every day. A reunion movie, “Return to Mayberry,” was the top-rated TV movie of the 1985-86 season.
“The Andy Griffith Show” was a loving portrait of the town where few grew up but many wished they did – a place where all foibles are forgiven and friendships are forever. Villains came through town and moved on, usually changed by their stay in Mayberry. That was all a credit to Griffith, said Craig Fincannon, who met Griffith in 1974.
“I see so many TV shows about the South where the creative powers behind it have no life experience in the South,” Fincannon said. “What made `The Andy Griffith Show’ work was Andy Griffith himself – the fact that he was of this dirt and had such deep respect for the people and places of his childhood. A character might be broadly eccentric, but the character had an ethical and moral base that allowed us to laugh with them and not at them. And Andy Griffith’s the reason for that.”
Andy Griffith Dies at 86 | TheBlaze.com
Actor Andy Griffith, who won the hearts of 1960s TV viewers with his role as gentle Sheriff Andy Taylor in “The Andy Griffith Show,” then returned as a 1980s country lawyer in “Matlock,” died Tuesday at 86. The news was confirmed to North Carolina television station WITN by Bill Friday, former president of the University of North Carolina and a Griffith friend.
Griffith died about 7 a.m. at his coastal home, Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie said in a statement.
“Mr. Griffith passed away this morning at his home peacefully and has been laid to rest on his beloved Roanoke Island,” Doughtie told The Associated Press, reading from a family statement.
The family will release further information, the sheriff said.
He had suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2000.
Griffith’s career spanned more than a half-century on stage, film and television, but he would always be best known as Sheriff Andy Taylor in the television show set in a North Carolina town not too different from Griffith’s own hometown of Mount Airy, N.C.
Griffith set the show in the fictional town of Mayberry, N.C., where Sheriff Taylor was the dutiful nephew who ate pickles that tasted like kerosene because they were made by his loving Aunt Bee, played by the late Frances Bavier. He was a widowed father who offered gentle guidance to son Opie, played by Ron Howard, who grew up to become the Oscar-winning director of “A Beautiful Mind.”
Don Knotts was the goofy Deputy Barney Fife, while Jim Nabors joined the show as Gomer Pyle, the unworldly, lovable gas pumper.
On “Matlock,” which aired from 1986 through 1995, Griffith played a cagey Harvard-educated defense attorney who was Southern-bred and -mannered with a practice in Atlanta.
In his rumpled seersucker suit in a steamy courtroom (air conditioning would have spoiled the mood), Matlock could toy with a witness and tease out a confession like a folksy Perry Mason.
The character – law-abiding, fatherly and lovable – was much like Sheriff Andy Taylor with silver hair and a shingle.
In a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, Griffith said “The Andy Griffith Show,” which initially aired from 1960 to 1968, was seen somewhere in the world every day. A reunion movie, “Return to Mayberry,” was the top-rated TV movie of the 1985-86 season.
“The Andy Griffith Show” was a loving portrait of the town where few grew up but many wished they did – a place where all foibles are forgiven and friendships are forever. Villains came through town and moved on, usually changed by their stay in Mayberry. That was all a credit to Griffith, said Craig Fincannon, who met Griffith in 1974.
“I see so many TV shows about the South where the creative powers behind it have no life experience in the South,” Fincannon said. “What made `The Andy Griffith Show’ work was Andy Griffith himself – the fact that he was of this dirt and had such deep respect for the people and places of his childhood. A character might be broadly eccentric, but the character had an ethical and moral base that allowed us to laugh with them and not at them. And Andy Griffith’s the reason for that.”
Andy Griffith Dies at 86 | TheBlaze.com
