There are very few people in show business that can say that they played two iconic roles that have become a staple of American television. This man can say that in spades. He was not only a great in front of the camera, he made a solid name for himself behind it. He can also say that he is in rare air in receiving a top honor from the U.S. government. On top of that he managed he had a great success as a singer. He did it all and did so exceptionally well. That is what made July 3 that much more of a sad day.
On Tuesday, July 3 of the aforementioned date is when Andy Samuel Griffith, star of the iconic television show “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Matlock” passed away from a heart attack at about 7 a.m. at his home on Roanoke Island in in Dare County, NC, which is in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
The 86-year-old Griffith had his wife of 29 years Cindi Knight by his side. He is also survived by his daughter adoptive daughter Dixie Nan.
“Andy was a person of incredibly strong Christian faith and was prepared for the day he would be called home to his Lord,” Knight said in a statement two Tuesdays ago.
Griffith had been married twice before. First two Barbara Bray Edwards from 1949-1972. They adopted a son who they named Andrew Samuel Griffith Jr., who was born in 1957 and was known as Sam Griffith and they also adopted aforementioned Dixie. Samuel, who became a real-estate developer died in 1996 after years of alcoholism.
Griffith’s second marriage was to Greek actress Solica Cassuto. They were married from 1973-81.
Within five hours of his passing, Griffith was put to rest in the Griffith Family Cemetery on Roanoke Island.
Born on June 1, 1926, the same birth date as icon Marilyn Monroe, in Mount Airy, NC to Carl Lee Griffith and his wife Geneva Nunn, Griffith spent the first years of his life living with relatives until his parents could afford to purchase a home. He slept those early months of life in dresser drawers. When he was three, Carl started working as a carpenter and earned enough to purchase a home in Mount Airy’s “blue-collar” southside.
When he began school he quickly realized that he was different from the other students. He was a shy student at first, but when he found a way to make his fellow peers laugh, he started to open up and come into his own.
At Mount Airy High School, Griffith cultivated an interest in the arts and was a frequent participant in the school’s drama program.
He had a growing love for music, particularly swing music.
Griffith was raised Baptist and the person he looked up to was Ed Mickey, Grace Moravian Church’s minister, who was the leader of the brass band and who taught Griffith to sing and play the trombone.
Griffith’s first brush with opportunity came when he was offered a role in The Lost Colony by Paul Green. The play is still performed today on Roanoke Island. Griffith performed as a cast member playing a variety of roles for several years before landing the role of Sir Walter Raleigh, the namesake of the capital of North Carolina.
After graduating from Mount Airy High in 1944, Griffith attended the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, NC.
At UNC, Griffith was president of the UNC chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, which is claimed to be the oldest fraternity for men in music in the United States.
He also played roles in several student operettas, which include The Chimes of Normandy (1946) and W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s The Gondoliers (1945), The Mikado (1948) and H.M.S. Pinafore (1949).
After graduating from UNC with a bachelors of music degree in 1949, Griffith taught Music and Drama for a few years at Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, NC. One of the students that he taught was radio newscaster for National Public Radio (NPR) and official judge and scorekeeper of the weekly news quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Carl Kasell.
Griffith in the early part of his acting career was as a monologist where he delivered long stories like What it Was, Was Football. It was told from a rural backwoodsman’s point of view trying to come to the conclusion of what was happening in a football game. It was released as a single in 1953 on the Colonial Label. It turned out to be a big hit for Griffith as it reached the No. 9 spot on the charts in 1954.
He then starred in Ira Levin’s one-hour teleplay version of No Time for Sergeants (March 1955) on The United States Steel Hour. It was a story about a country boy in the United States Air Force.
Griffith’s role was expanded when Levin made the teleplay into a full-length show for Broadway in New York, NY in October of 1955.
Griffith’s role earned him a “Distinguished Supporting or Featured Dramatic Actor” nomination at the 1956 Tony Awards, in which he lost out to Ed Begley. He did win the 1956 Theatre World Award, which is a prize given for debut roles on Broadway.
Two years later Griffith reprised his role for the film version of No Time for Sergeants, which also featured a future cast mate Don Knotts, who played the role of a corporal in charge of manual-dexterity tests.
Griffith’s first big break came when he is stared in the 1957 Warner Bros. Picture A Face in the Crowd, where he portrayed a “country boy” that was manipulative and power-hungry hobo who became a television host that used his show as a gateway to political power.
One of the lines Griffith’s character said in the movie was, “I’m not just an entertainer, I’m an influence. A wheeler and dealer of opinion. A force!”
In 1960, Griffith made his second appearance on television portraying a county sheriff, who also was a justice for the peace and the editor of the local newspaper in an episode of Make Room for Daddy, starring Danny Thomas.
In the episode Thomas’ character is stopped for speeding in a little town.
This episode turned into the backdoor pilot for the show that ran 1960-68 and made Griffith into a household name.
The Andy Griffith Show debut on the CBS television network on Oct. 3, 1960.
The show took place in the fictional town of Mayberry, NC, a place that almost resembled the town in which Griffith grew up in.
He used his wisdom, whit and sense of humor to raise his son Opie Taylor, played by actor and director Ron Howard and to lead the fictional quintessential town.
The show also starred Knotts, who played the role of Deputy Barney Fife, Taylor’s best friend, partner and cousin.
The iconic series that opened with a catchy whistled theme where Griffith character heading to the fishing hole with his Howard’s character by his side did very well and rocketed Griffith to the top of the show business world during TV’s so-called golden age.
Griffith’s aw-shucks charm wise words is the reason why many television critics call The Andy Griffith Show one of the top four or five sitcoms of all-time.
President Barack Obama who grew up watching Griffith on television in a statement in the July 4th edition of the New York Daily News called him, “a performer of extraordinary talent.
President Obama also stated, “Andy was beloved by generations of fans and revered by entertainers who followed in his footsteps. He brought us characters from Sheriff Andy Griffith to Ben Matlock, and in the process, warmed the hearts of Americans everywhere.”
Howard, who we first came to know as Opie and then as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days and now as a great movie and television director tweeted on the day Griffith passed, “His pursuit of excellence and the joy he took in creating served generations & shaped my life. I’m forever grateful.”
In saying what he was trying to do with this great show, Griffith once said (courtesy of Archives of American Television), “We didn’t know that when we started it that it was gonna last that long or influence so many people. We were just trying to do a good show.”
One big way that Griffith, who worked on the development of each script of each show, said that this show had a lasting impression on the American public is that he would walk through airports for many years and hear that whistle theme song, which was composed by Earle Hagen and Herbert W. Spencer.
Griffith said that he loved playing this character because he was straight and that we as an audience got a chance to now only see the show but be in it at the same time.
Griffith also said that while he wasn’t always as wise or as nice as his character that “Andy Taylor was the best part of my mind. The best part of me.”
Griffith left at the height of the show in 1968 and started his own production company Andy Griffith Enterprises in 1972.
After rehabilitating from leg paralysis from Guillain-Barre syndrome in 1986, Griffith returned to the small screen as the main character in the legal drama Matlock.
For nine seasons on NBC and ABC, Griffith portrayed Ben Matlock, a savvy Southern breed Harvard educated, sear suckered suited, guitar playing, crime fighting county lawyer in Atlanta, GA who always won his cases.
The show also starred Nancy Stafford, who played Michelle Thomas (1987-92) and Clarence Gilyard, Jr., who played Conrad McMasters (1989-93). Both Thomas and Gilyard, Jr. said that they are big fans of Griffith. The show also starred Linda Purl Kene Holliday, Julie Sommars, Kari Lizer, Brynn Thayer, Daniel Roebuck and Carol Huston.
While the show was nominated for four Emmy Awards, Griffith was never nominated. He was also never nominated for an Emmy on The Andy Griffith Show.
He did however win a People’s Choice Award for Matlock in 1987.
Knotts, who has won five Emmys once said the nominators didn’t think Griffith was acting. He made it look easy.
In Season 6 of Matlock, Griffith while playing the lead character also served as unofficial director, executive producer and writer for the show.
After Matlock, Griffith went back to the thing that he loved the most and was really good at before his acting career took off, music.
In recent years, he recorded successful albums of classic Christian hymns for Sparrow Records.
His most successful album was the 1996 release I Love to Tell The Story: 25 Timeless Hymns, which went certified platinum by the RIAA.
Among other albums he created include Sings Favorite Old-Time Songs (1997), Wit & Wisdom of Andy Griffith (1998), The Christmas Guest (2003), Bound for the Promise Land: The Best of Andy Griffith Hymns (2005) and Pickin’ and Grinnin:’ The Best of Andy Griffith (2005).
Four years ago, country singing superstar Brad Paisley had Griffith appear with him in his music video “Waitin’ on a Woman.”
In the years that followed, Griffith has been celebrated for his work and how it has impacted the lives of many.
In Griffith’s hometown of Mount Airy they annually celebrate The Andy Griffith Show by celebrating “Mayberry Days,” which was the name of the fictional town on the show and a statue of the characters Andy and Opie was constructed in Pullen Park in Raleigh, NC in 2003 and there is also the Andy Griffith Playhouse in Mount Airy.
In 1999, Griffith was inducted into the Country Gospel Music Hall of Fame with fellow artists Lulu Roman, Barbara Mandrell, David L. Cook, Gary S. Paxton, Jimmy Snow, Loretta Lynn and Jody Miller.
In 2002, an 11-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 52 that passes through Mount Airy was dedicated as the Andy Griffith Parkway.
On Nov. 9, 2005, Griffith received the highest American honor as he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.
In 2007, Griffith was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Griffith prior to his death got involved in a big way in politics.
In Oct. 2008, he appeared with Howard in a reprisal of their Mayberry roles on The Andy Griffith Show in an online video Ron Howard’s Call to Action that was posted to the comedy video website Funny or Die. It was a video that was a message of endorsing and encouraging people to vote for then Senator Obama (D-IL) and Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE).
In 2010, he also starred in advertisements about Medicare.
There are very few entertainers that can say that they did it all in their careers. Andy Griffith was a jack of all trades. He stretched his career from nightclubs to radio, to television, to movies and to music. Along the way he brought along co-stars like Howard and Knotts, who passed away on Feb. 24, 2006, made great names for themselves after The Andy Griffith Show.
In fact Griffith traveled to Los Angeles, CA to visit Knotts at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center before he passed away from lung cancer.
There are very few that can come from humble beginnings and make an impact on the world that can last a lifetime. Andy Griffith came from humble beginnings and made and impact on all of us through his acting, music and heart felt spirit.
Information and quotations are courtesy of 7/3/12 5 p.m. edition of WCBS 2 News with Maurice DuBois and Kristine Johnson, report from Dana Tyler; 7/3/12 6:30 p.m. edition of ABC “World News’ with Diane Sawyer (substitute: David Muir); 7/3/12 6:30 p.m. edition of “CBS Evening News” with Scott Pelley, report from Bill Whittaker; 7/3/12 11 p.m. edition of WABC “Eyewitness News” with Bill Ritter and Sade Baderinwa; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Griffith; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matlock_(TV_Series)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Knotts; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden;
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